If you're looking for successful investors to imitate, Warren Buffett should be near the top of your list. The 92-year-old has for many decades run the successful conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B), he's been investing since he was 11, and he's currently worth about $99 billion.

The thing is, you don't want to copy Buffett's investing moves outright, for a few reasons. To start, he has much more funding than you. Your investing budget may not allow for a portfolio that contains 40 or more individual stocks.

Also, when Buffett invests in a company, he has expectations for its performance -- expectations that aren't publicized in detail. How it fares against those expectations informs his future decisions to buy more stock, sell, or hold his position steady. So even if you buy the stocks Buffett bought, you may not know how to manage those positions afterward. Moreover, his trades in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio are only made public when the company files its Form 13F -- which happens about 45 days after the end of the quarter in which he made those trades. That's a long time lag in the investing world. So if you tried to mimic his moves directly, you'd be flying blind in real time.

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Source Fool.com