智慧型投票投資人 (班傑明.葛拉漢)

智慧型投票投資人 (班傑明.葛拉漢)

投資這門藝術有個特性，不是普遍為人所知。投資生手只要投入一點點的努力和展現一點點的能力，也能得到不錯，甚至十分突出的成果；但是得來容易的成果想要更上一層樓，則需要非常努力，也不能只運用一丁點的智慧。

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1994 年巴菲特致股東信)

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1994 年巴菲特致股東信)

We achieved our gains through the efforts of a superb corps of operating managers who get extraordinary results from some ordinary-appearing businesses. Casey Stengel described managing a baseball team as “getting paid for home runs other fellows hit.” That’s may formula at Berkshire, also.

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1988 年巴菲特致股東信)

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1988 年巴菲特致股東信)

In fact, when we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements our favorite holding period is forever: We are just the opposite of those who hurry to sell and book profits when companies perform well but who tenaciously hang on to businesses that disappoint. Peter Lynch aptly likens such behavior to cutting the flowers and watering the weeds.

We continue to concentrate our investments in a very few companies that we try to understand well. There are only a handful to businesses about which we have strong long-term convictions. Therefore, when we find such a business, we want to participate in a meaningful way.

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1987 年巴菲特致股東信)

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1987 年巴菲特致股東信)

The Fortune study I mentioned earlier supports our view. Only 25 of the 1,000 companies met two tests of economic excellence-an average return on equity of over 20% in the ten years, 1977 through 1986, and no year worse than 15%. These business superstars were also stock market superstars: During the decade, 24 of the 25 outperformed the S&P 500.

The Fortune champs may surprise you in two respects. First, most use very little leverage compared to their interest-paying capacity. Really good businesses usually don’t need to borrow. Second, except for one company that is “high-tech” and several others that manufacture ethical drugs, the companies are in businesses that, on balance, seem rather mundane. Most sell non-sexy products or services in much the same manner as they did ten years ago (though in larger quantities now, or at higher prices, or both). The record of these 25 companies confirms that marking the most of an already strong business franchise, or concentrating on a single winning business theme, is what usually produces exceptional economics.

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1983 年巴菲特致股東信)

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1983 年巴菲特致股東信)

You should be fully aware of one attitude Charlie and I share that hurts our financial performance: regardless of price, we have no interest at all in selling any good businesses that Berkshire owns, and are very reluctant to sell sub-pa businesses as long as we expect then to generate at least some cash and as long as we feel good about their managers and labor relations. We hope not to repeat the capital-allocation mistakes that led us into such sub-par businesses. And we react with great caution to suggestions that our poor businesses can be restored to satisfactory profitability by major capital expenditures. (The projections will be sizzling- the advocates will be sincere – but, in the end, major additional investment in a terrible industry usually is about as rewarding as struggling in quicksand.) Nevertheless, gin rummy managerial behavior (discard your least promising business at each turn) is not our style. We would rather have our overall results penalized a bit than engage in it.

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1982 年巴菲特致股東信)

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1982 年巴菲特致股東信)

For the investor, a too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favorable business developments.

Should the stock market advance to considerably higher levels, our ability to utilize capital effectively in partial-ownership positions will be reduced or eliminated.

This will happen periodically: just ten years ago, at the height of the two-tier market mania (with high-return-on-equity businesses bid to sky by institutional investors), Berkshire’s insurance subsidiaries owned only $18 million in market value of equities, excluding their interest in Blue Chip Stamps. At that time, such equity holdings amounted to about 15% of our insurance company investments versus the present 80%. There were as many good businesses around in 1972 as in 1982, but the prices the stock market placed upon those businesses in 1972 looked absurd. While high stock prices in the future would make our performance look good temporarily, they would hurt our long-term business prospects rather than help them. We currently are seeing early traces of this problem.

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1985 年巴菲特致股東信)

Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders (1985 年巴菲特致股東信)

You might think that institutions, with their large staffs of highly-paid and experienced investment professionals, would be a force for stability and reason in financial markets. They are not: stocks heavily owned and constantly monitored by institutions have often been among the most inappropriately valued.

Warren Buffett's Letter to Shareholders (1981 年巴菲特致股東信)

Warren Buffett's Letter to Shareholders (1981 年巴菲特致股東信)

Currently, we find values most easily obtained through the open-market purchase of fractional positions in companies with excellent business franchises and competent, honest managements. We never expect to run these companies, but we do expect to profit from them.

We expect that undistributed earnings from such companies will produce full value (subject to tax when realized) for Berkshire and its shareholders. If they don’t, we have made mistakes as to either:

(1)   the management we have elected to join;

(2)   the future economics of the business;

(3)   the price we have paid.

We have made plenty of such mistakes-both in the purchase of non-controlling and controlling interests in businesses. Category (2) miscalculations are the most common. Of course, it is necessary to dig deep into our history to find illustrations of such mistakes-sometimes as deep as two or three months back. For example, last year your Chairman volunteered his expert opinion on the rosy future of the aluminum business. Several minor adjustments to that opinion-now aggregating approximately 180 degrees-have since been required.

For personal as well as more objective reasons, however, we generally have been able to correct such mistakes far more quickly in the case of non-controlled businesses (marketable securities) than in the case of controlled subsidiaries.

Warren Buffett's Letter to Shareholders, (1980 年巴菲特致股東信)

Warren Buffett's Letter to Shareholders, (1980 年巴菲特致股東信)

If a fine business is selling in the market place for far less than intrinsic value, what more certain or more profitable utilization of capital can there be than significant enlargement of the interests of all owners at that bargain price? The competitive nature of corporate acquisition activity almost guarantees the payment of a full-frequently more than full price when a company buys the entire ownership of another enterprise. But the auction nature of security market often allows finely-run companies the opportunity to purchase portions of their own business at a price under 50% of that needed to acquire the same earning power through the negotiated acquisition of another enterprise.

You can’t be all things to all men, Warren Buffett's Letter to Shareholders, (1979 年巴菲特致股東信)

You can’t be all things to all men, Warrant Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders, (1979 年巴菲特致股東信)

In large part, companies obtain the shareholder constituency that they seek and deserve. If they focus their thinking and communications on short-term results or short-term stock market consequences they will, in large part, attract shareholders who focus on the same factors. And if they are cynical in their treatment of investors, eventually that cynicism is highly likely to be returned by the investment community.

Phil Fisher, a respected investor and author, once likened the policies of the corporation in attracting shareholders to those of a restaurant attracting potential customers. A restaurant could seek a given clientele-patrons of fast foods, elegant dining, oriental food, etc.-and eventually obtain an appropriate group of devotees. If the job were expertly done, that clientele, pleased with the service, menu, and price level offered, would return consistently. But the restaurant could not change its character constantly and end up with a happy and stable clientele. If the business vacillated between French cuisine and takeout chicken, the result would be a revolving door of confused and dissatisfied customers.

So it is with corporations and the shareholder constituency they seek. You can’t be all things to all men, simultaneously seeking different owners whose primary interests run from high current yield to long-term capital growth to stock market pyrotechnics, etc.

Warren Buffett's Letter to Shareholders, (1978 年巴菲特致股東信)

Warren Buffett's Letter to Shareholders, (1978 年巴菲特致股東信)

We are not concerned with whether the market quickly revalues upward securities that we believe are selling at bargain prices. In fact, we prefer just the opposite since, in most years, we expect to have funds available to be a net buyer of securities. And consistent attractive purchasing is likely to prove to be of more eventual benefit to us than any selling opportunities provided by a short-term run up in stock prices to levels at which we are unwilling to continue buying.

Warren Buffett's Letter to Shareholders (1977年巴菲特致股東信)

Most of our large stock positions are going to be held for many years and the scorecard on our investment decisions will be provided by business results over that period, and not by prices on any given day.

Just as it would be foolish to focus unduly on short-term prospects when acquiring an entire company, we think it equally unsound to become mesmerized by prospective near term earnings or recent trends in earnings when purchasing small pieces of a company; i.e., marketable common stock.

Warren Buffett's View, 避開只有價格, 沒有價值的公司

But, like Cinderella at the ball, you must heed one warning or everything will turn into pumpkins and mice: Mr. Market is there to serve you, not to guide you. It is his pocketbook, not his wisdom, that you will find useful. If he shows up some day in a particularly foolish mood, you are free to either ignore him or to take advantage of him, but it will be disastrous if you fall under his influence. Indeed, if you aren’t certain that you understand and can value your business far better than Mr. Market, you don’t belong in the game. As they say in poker, “If you’ve been in the game 30 minutes and you don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.”

Outstanding business with outstanding managements (Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders, 1989 年巴菲特致股東信)

In Fact, when we won portions of outstanding business with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.  We are just the opposite of those who hurry to sell and book profits when companies perform well but who tenaciously hang on the businesses that disappoint. Peter lynch aptly likens such behavior to cutting the flowers and watering the weeds.

We continue to concentrate our investment in a very few companies that we try to understand well. There are only a handful of businesses about which we have strong long-term convictions. Therefore, when we find such a business, we want to participate in a meaningful way.

The Rip Van Winkle Style of Investing (1989 年巴菲特致股東信)

 Because of the way the tax law works, the Rip Van Winkle style of investing that we favor-if successful-had an important mathematical edge over a more frenzied approach. Let’s look at an extreme comparison.

Imagine that Berkshires had only $1, which we put in a security that double by yearend and was then sold. Imagine further that we used the after-tax proceeds t repeat this process in each of the next 19 years, scoring a double each time. At the end of 20 years, the 34% capital gains tax that we would have paid on the profits from each sale would have delivered about $13,000 to the government and we would be left with about $25,250. Not bad. If , however, we made a single fantastic investment that itself doubled 20 times during the 20 years, our dollar would grow to $1,048,576. Were we then to cash out, we would pay a 34% tax of roughly $356,500 and be left with about $692,000.

We have not, we should stress, adopted our strategy favoring long-term investment commitments because of these mathematics.