Warren Buffett says that one of the luckiest days of his life was when he was 19-years-old and happened to have picked up Benjamin Graham’s book, The Intelligent Investor.
That book changed his investment philosophy and his whole life.
He says that had it not been for the book, he would’ve been a different person at a different place.
Its early in this potential correction, but let me remind you of Buffett’s interesting (1997) comments:
“If you plan to eat hamburgers throughout your life and are not a cattle producer, should you wish for higher or lower prices for beef?
Likewise, if you are going to buy a car from time to time but are not an auto manufacturer, should you prefer higher or lower car prices?
These questions, of course, answer themselves. But now for the final exam: If you expect to be a net saver during the next five years, should you hope for a higher or lower stock market during that period?
Many investors get this one wrong. Even though they are going to be net buyers of stocks for many years to come, they are elated when stock prices rise and depressed when they fall. In effect, they rejoice because prices have risen for the “hamburgers” they will soon be buying. This reaction makes no sense. Only those who will be sellers of equities in the near future should be happy at seeing stocks rise. Prospective purchasers should much prefer sinking prices.”
–Warren Buffett, chairman’s letter, Berkshire Hathaway annual report, 1997
Its worth thinking about, regardless of whether the recent investor nervousness turns into something more significant . . .
The legends are abandoning the markets.
Stanley Druckenmiller founded his hedge fund Duquesne Capital in 1981. From 1986 onward he maintained average annual returns of 30%. He also managed George Soros’ Quantum Fund from 1988-2000. During that latter period he famously facilitated Soros’ “breaking of the Bank of England” trade: the legendary trade which netted over $1 billion in a single day.
Druckenmiller closed Duquesne Capital in 2010, stating that he was no longer able to meet his investment “standard[s]” in the post-2008 climate (he made money in 2008 before the Fed began to alter the risk landscape).
Druckenmiller’s key strength has always been macro-economic forecasting. That he would feel the capital markets were not offering him the opportunities he needed says a lot.
Seth Klarman is another investment legend who is returning capital to clients. Widely considered to be the Warren Buffett of his generation, Klarman recently cited a lack of “investment opportunities” as the cause for his decision to downsize his legendary Baupost Group hedge funds.
Other legends or market outperformers who have returned capital to investors or closed their funds to outside investors are Carl Icahn and Michael Karsch. Indeed, even value legend Warren Buffett is sitting on the single largest amount of cash in the history of his 50+ year career as an investor, stating that stocks are “fully valued” at current levels (Buffett largely does not believe in shorting the market, so his decision to be in cash is a strong indicator of opportunities). (more…)
Wall Street people learn nothing and forget everything.” Ben Graham
“ Buy on the cannons, sell on the trumpets.” Old French Proverb
“A stock broker is one who invests other people’s money until its all gone.” Woody Allen
“It is fortunate for Wall Street as an institution that a small minority of people can trade successfully and that many others think they can.” Ben Graham
“Wall Street indices predicted nine out of the last five recessions!” Paul Samuelson
“ There are two kinds of investors, be they large or small: those who don’t know where the market is headed, and those who don’t know that they don’t know. Then again, there is a third type of investor –the investment professional, who indeed knows that he or she doesn’t know, but whose livelihood depends upon appearing to know.” William Bernstein
“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.” Gordon Gekko (more…)
If given a choice between investing with Buffett and billionaire investor George Soros, Taleb also said he would probably pick the latter.
“I am not saying Buffett isn’t as good as Soros,” he said. “I am saying that the probability Soros’s returns come from randomness is much smaller because he did almost everything: he bought currencies, he sold currencies, he did arbitrages. He made a lot more decisions. Buffett followed a strategy to buy companies that had a certain earnings profile, and it worked for him. There is a lot more luck involved in this strategy.”
[From: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-09-25/obama-s-stimulus-plan-made-crisis-worse-taleb-says.html]
I have high respect for your intelligence and thinking, and I believe that “Fooled by Randomness” and “The Black Swan” are must-read books for everyone. However, I believe your observation on Warren Buffett is wrong.
You justified your pick on Soros because you have observed his thousands if not millions of trades; therefore, giving you comfort that he is making decisions and his success, to quote what you said, is “2 million times more statistically evidence that his results are not by chance than Buffett does”.
You are implying that Soros is making thousands more decisions that Buffett. It seems to me that your understanding of Buffett is superficial, leading to your flawed conclusion.
During a meeting with MBA students from the University of Georgia in early 2007, Buffett told the group of students that “There were four Moody’s manuals at the time. I went through them all, page by page, over 10,000 pages twice. On page 1433, I found Western Insurance Securities. Its earnings per share were as follows: 1949 – $21.66, 1950 – $29.09. In 1951, the low-high share price was $3 – $13. Ten pages later, on page 1443, I found National American Fire Insurance….”
Again, in 2004, Buffett searched through the entire Korean stock market by reading Citigroup Investment Guide to Korean Stocks (that is over 1,700 companies). In 4 hours he found 20 companies that he liked and put $100 million to work.
These two examples illustrated that Buffett did make thousands of decisions of not to invest. Those who study Buffett intensely know that he works extreme hard and study all companies available from A to Z, leaving no stone unturned. Deciding not to buy is just as important as deciding to buy. However, inactivity is commonly misunderstood for not making any decision.
To quote Albert Einstein, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.”
| 1. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” ~ Mark Twain 2. “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” ~ John Maynard Keynes. 3. “I never buy at the bottom and I always sell too soon.” ~ Baron Rothschild 4. “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” ~ John Maynard Keynes 5. “Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.” ~ Warren Buffett 6. “It is not our duty as speculators to be on the bull side or the bear side but upon the winning side.” ~ Jessie Livermore in Edwin Lefevre’s Reminiscences of a Stock Operator 7. “The principles of successful speculation are based on the supposition that people will continue in the future to make the mistakes that they made in the past.” ~ Thomas F. Woodlock 8. “It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It was always my sitting tight. Got that?” ~ Mr. Partridge in Edwin Lefevre’s Reminiscences of a Stock Operator 9. “They say you never grow poor taking profits. No, you don’t. But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market.” ~ Jessie Livermore in Edwin Lefevre’s Reminiscences of a Stock Operator 10. “Remember that prices are never too high for you to begin buying or too low to begin selling. But after the initial transaction, don’t make a second unless the first shows you a profit.” ~ Jessie Livermore in Edwin Lefevre’s Reminiscences of a Stock Operator 11. “A loss never bothers me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong – not taking the loss – that is what does the damage to the pocketbook and the soul.” ~ Jessie Livermore in Edwin Lefevre’s Reminiscences of a Stock Operator 12. “If a man didn’t make mistakes, he’d own the world in a month. But if he didn’t profit by his mistakes, he wouldn’t own a blessed thing.” ~ Jessie Livermore in Edwin Lefevre’s Reminiscences of a Stock Operator 13. “The man who is right always has two forces working in his favor – basic conditions and the men who are wrong. In a bull market bear factors are ignored.” ~ Jessie Livermore in Edwin Lefevre’s Reminiscences of a Stock Operator 14. [What advice would you give the novice trader?] – “First, I would say that risk management is the most important thing to be well understood. Undertrade, undertrade, undertrade is my second piece of advice. Whatever you think your position ought to be, cut it at least in half.” ~ Bruce Kovner in Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards 15. “There is probably no class of trades with a higher failure rate than impulsive trades.” Jack Schwager in Market Wizards 16. [What is the most important advice you could give the novice trader?] – “Trade small because that’s when you are as bad as you are ever going to be. Learn from your mistakes.” ~ Richard Dennis in Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards 17. “The elements of good trading are: (1) cutting losses, (2) cutting losses, and (3) cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance.” ~ Ed Seykota in Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards 18. “Charting is a little like surfing. You don’t have to know a lot about the phsyics of tides, resonance, and fluid dynamics in order to catch a good wave. You just have to be able to sense when its’s happening and then have the drive to act at the right time.” ~ Ed Seykota in Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards 19. “I have two basic rules about winning in trading as well as in life: (1) If you don’t bet, you can’t win. (2) If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet.” ~ Larry Hite in Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards 20. “Perhaps the most important rule is to hold on to your winners and cut your losers. Both are equally important. If you don’t stay with your winners, you are not going to be able to pay for the losers.” ~ Michael Marcus in Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards 21. “Lose your opinion – not your money” ~ Unknown |
#1 Warren Buffett: Focus
This is the word Warren Buffett uses to describe himself when asked about the key to his success. He focused moe on making money than most people. A lot more than Ben Graham or Charlie Munger. Focus is also a good word to describe Buffett’s investment style. He only makes big investments on big ideas. And at some times he concentrated his investment on an industry like media & advertising in the 70s or consumer products in the 80s.
#2 Charlie Munger: Smart
I thought he’s the smartest person I knew after reading Poor Charlie’s Almanack. I like his ideas about a multi-disciplinary approach. And I like the way he waits and bets big when opportunities appear. I agree with him that diversification is to protect against ignorance. People may think he’s arrogant. I think he has earned the right to be arrogant.
#3 Ben Graham: Lazy
Actually Ben Graham did a lot of things. He wrote a Broadway play. He read French novels. He recited Spanish poets. Investing was just one of his interests. By lazy, I mean he didn’t focus on investing as much as Warren Buffett. He wanted to find a safe system for investing. But that doesn’t mean he’s not good. He’s great. He knows where to apply his system.
#4 Phil Fisher: Conviction
For all his life, Phil Fisher followed what he believed. He wanted to find companies with the capabilities to constantly find new products/services for growth. And when he believed he found the right company, he never sold.
#5 Tom Russo: Long-Term
I like his investment style. He learned to buy and hold the stocks that he understood best after listening to Warren Buffett’s talk to his Stanford business school class in 1980. He mainly focuses on food and beverage companies. And he holds for very long time. He bought one of his favorites, Nestle, in 1987. And he still owns it today. (more…)
Once upon a time, there was a young hare, a hotshot rabbit investor who would always brag to anyone that would listen and that he was the smartest, fastest, best performing investor in the world. He would constantly tease the old tortoise about his slow, solid investment style.
Then, one day, the annoyed tortoise answered back: “There is no denying that you are very aggressive in your investment strategy. You take very high risks and get high returns. But even you can be beaten.”
The young hare squealed with laughter. “Beaten? By whom? Surely not by you. I bet there’s nobody in the world that can win against me, because I’m so good. If you think that you can beat me, why don’t you try?”
Provoked by such bragging, the tortoise accepted the challenge. Each of them put an equal amount of money into a new account and the race was on. The hare yawned sleepily as the meek tortoise trudged slowly off.
As might be expected, the tortoise invested in high quality blue chips, companies with household names.
The hare, as anticipated, invested his money in dotcom stocks and options.
You know the story. The aggressive hare jumped out to a big early lead. In a rising market, the highest risk stocks perform the best. This is called momentum investing. Money flows into the investments that are performing the best.
The hare, having jumped out to such a large early lead, stopped paying attention to the market environment. Basically, he fell asleep. He thought to himself, “I’ll have 40 winks and still remain way ahead of that stupid old turtle.” (more…)
Investors always remember their worst trade or biggest mistake. Warren Buffett is no different. However, Buffett’s biggest mistake might surprise you. In an interview with CNBC, the Oracle of Omaha admitted that the worst trade of his career was buying Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A). Imagine that. But if you dig deeper into his account of the story, you’ll see that while his worst trade might have been buying Berkshire Hathaway, his biggest mistake was letting emotion get the better of him.
Embedded below is the video where Buffett talks about his worst trade in Berkshire Hathaway
Consider this excerpt:
Benjamin Graham, who believed in buying wonderful companies at a fair price rather than a fair company at a wonderful price, defines an investor as “an individual whose investment provides two quantitative qualities – safety of principal and an adequate rate of return.” There are many intricacies within business ownership investments, but does everyone in the stock market consider these particulars when investing in business ownership? Of course not, because not everybody in the stock market is an investor. Individuals who desire to become investors must enter the arena with goals that have a long-term investment horizon. Warren Buffett, a global financial market guru and head of Berkshire-Hathaway, puts it best when he says: “It’s bad to go to bed at night thinking about the price of a stock. We think about the value of a company and the company results; the stock market is there to serve you, not instruct you.”Hence, an investor does not buy a price and will not be affected by the ups and downs of the market. A sound investor buys well-managed businesses, with strong earnings growth and significant barriers to entry that will provide long-term security. A ‘purchaser of price’ is a speculator; a ‘purchaser of solid businesses’ with sound fundamentals is an investor.
Mark Croskery
