新浪博客

Buffett/Jayhawk  Q&A

2012-01-10 21:27阅读：1,465

http://blog.sina.cn/dpool/blog/u/1338051673

(在管我财博客上看到此文，偶尔得空，就把前面的一小部分翻译了下。我的英文水平很烂，真不好意思贴出来，呵呵，指正的可以，拍砖的不要哈）
Buffett/Jayhawk Q&A
By mhirschey
July 13, 2005
Posts selected for this feature rarely stand alone. They are usually a part of an ongoing thread, and are out of context when presented here. The material should be read in that light. How are these posts selected? Click here to find out and nominate a
post yourself!
I took a bunch of students to Omaha for a Q&A with Warren recently, and I thought you might be interested in the back and forth.
Berkshire Hathaway
Warren Buffett Q&A
May 6, 2005
Question: According to a business week report published in 1999, you were quoted as saying 'it's a huge structural advantage not to have a lot of money. I think I could make you 50% a year on $1 million. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.' First, would you say the same thing today? Second, since that statement infers that you would invest in smaller companies, other than investing in small-caps, what else would you do differently?
问：你在1999年商业周报上提及：“钱不多是一个巨大的结构优势，我认为我能用1百万给你一年赚50%。是的，我知道我可以，我保证。”首先，你今天还会这样说吗？第二，由于你提到除了投资小型股意外，你还会投资于更小的公司，这两者有何区别？”
Yes, I would still say the same thing today. In fact, we are still earning those types of returns on some of our smaller investments. The best decade was the 1950s; I was earning 50% plus returns with small amounts of capital. I could do the same thing today with smaller amounts. It would perhaps even be easier to make that much money in today's environment because information is easier to access.
答：是的，我今天还会这样说。实际上，我们现在还在我们的一些很小的投资上获得了这样的回报。最好的时期是50年代，我用很小的资本获得了50%的收益率，今天用很小的资本，我可以同样做到。而且今天可能更容易赚到那么多钱，因为信息发达。
You have to turn over a lot of rocks to find those little anomalies. You have to find the companies that are off the map - way off the map. You may find local companies that have nothing wrong with them at all. A company that I found, Western Insurance Securities, was trading for $3/share when it was earning $20/share!! I tried to buy up as much of it as possible. No one will tell you about these businesses. You have to find them.
你必须翻开一块又一块岩石，去找出那些小的反常案例，你必须寻找到那些不在地图上标注的公司。你可以找到并没有犯错误的地区小公司，比如我找到的一个，西部保险证券，每股价格$3，每股收益高达$20！我拼命地买。没人告诉你这些，你得自己去寻找他们。
Other examples: Genesee Valley Gas, public utility trading at a P/E of 2, GEICO, Union Street Railway of New Bedford selling at $30 when $100/share is sitting in cash, high yield position in 2002. No one will tell you about these ideas, you have to find them.
再比如：Genesee山谷天然气公司，公开交易价格为2倍PE。还有GEICO。还有新贝德福德的联合街道铁路，2002年，每股$100的现金，收益率高，却以$30的价格出售。没人告诉你这些，你得自己去寻找他们。
The answer is still yes today that you can still earn extraordinary returns on smaller amounts of capital. For example, I wouldn't have had to buy issue after issue of different high yield bonds. Having a lot of money to invest forced Berkshire to buy those that were less attractive. With less capital, I could have put all my money into the most attractive issues and really creamed it.
答案就是，今天你仍旧可以用很小的资本获得超额回报。比如，我不会再购买问题众多的高收益率债券，但现在由于资金量太庞大，伯克希尔被迫购买这些没有什么吸引力的债券。如果只有很小的资本，我会将我所有的钱都投入到最最有吸引力的机会中。
I know more about business and investing today, but my returns have continued to decline since the 50's. Money gets to be an anchor on performance. At Berkshire's size, there would be no more than 200 common stocks in the world that we could invest in if we were running a mutual fund or some other kind of investment business.
今天，对于商业和投资，我知道得更多，但是我的投资回报从50年代以来持续下降。钱多影响了投资绩效。如果我们运营一支基金或别的投资业务，规模大小类似现在的伯克希尔，那么，世界上不会有超过200支普通股票值得我们投资。
Q: Since Ben Graham isn't around anymore, what money managers do you respect today? Is there a Ben Graham today?
问：由于本格雷厄姆不在了，今天你还尊敬那些资产管理者？今天还有格雷厄姆吗？
You don't need another Ben Graham. You don't need another Moses. There were only Ten Commandments; we're still waiting for the eleventh (j/k). His investing philosophy is still alive and well. There are disciples of him around, but all we are doing is parroting. I did read Phil Fisher later on, which showed the more qualitative aspects of businesses. Common stocks are part of a business. Markets are there to serve you, not to instruct you. You can often find a couple of companies that are out of line. Find one; get rich. Most people think that what the stock does from day to day contains information, but it doesn't. It isn't just something that wiggles around. The stock market is the best game in the world. You can take advantage of people who have no morals. High prices inside of a year will typically be 100% of the low price. Businesses don't change in value that much. That is simply crazy. There are extreme degrees of fluctuation, and Mr. Market will call out the prices. Wait until he is nutty in one direction or the other. Put in a margin of safety. Don't find a bridge that says no more than 10,000 pounds when you have a 9800 pound vehicle. It isn't a function of IQ, but receptivity of the mind.
答： 你不需要一个新的格雷厄姆，你也不会需要一个新的墨斯。只有十诫，我们却还在等第十一个（开玩笑）。他的投资哲学现在仍旧很好。他有很多追随者，但我们都只不过是鹦鹉学舌罢了。我后来是读过费雪的书，他更多地描写了质的方面。普通股是生意的一部分，市场先生是为你服务的，不是来指导你的。你常常可以发现一些价格与价值背离的公司，找到一个就发了。许多人认为股票每天的表现包含某些信息，但其实没有，那只不过是一些来回波动的东西。股票市场是世界上最好的游戏。你可以利用那些没有常识的人们，一年内，高价可以是低价的2倍，而生意价值没有任何改变。很简单的疯狂。这里有极端的波动，市场先生叫价，等待他在一 个方向上或另一个方向上狂热，进入到安全空间，不要在一座承载不超过1万磅的桥上开9800磅的车。不需要什么IQ，只需要接受这个思想。
When investing you don't have to invest in all 10,000 companies available, you just have to find the one that is out of line. Mr. Market is your servant. Mr. Market is your partner and wants to sell the business to you everyday. Some days he is very optimistic and wants a high price, others he is pessimistic and will sell at a low price. You have to use this to your advantage. The market is the greatest game in the world. There is nothing else that can, at times, get this far out of line with reality. For example, land usually only fluctuates within a 15% band. Negotiated transactions are less volatile. Some get this; others don't. Just keep your wits about you and you can make a lot of money in the market.
投资时，你不必投资于所有可投的1万家公司，你只需找到那家反常的。市场先生是你的仆人，是每天都想将生意出售给你的合伙人。有时，他很乐观，想要个高价，有时很悲观，会以低价出售。你得利用他。这个市场是世界上最棒的游戏。 没有别的东西可以在现实中如此反常。比如：地产通常在15%的幅度内波动，协议交易更少。一些可参与，一些不能。保持你的智慧，你就可以在这个市场上挣到很多钱。
Q: Do you expect the stock market premium to continue to be 6.5% over bonds?
问：你预期股票市场的收益率会持续超越债券6.5%吗？
I don't think that the stock market will return 6.5% over bonds in the future. Stocks usually yield a little more, but that isn't ordained. Every once in a while, stocks will get very cheap, but it isn't ordained in scripture that this is so. Risk premiums are mostly nonsense. The world isn't calculating risk premiums.
答：我不认为未来股票市场会超越债券6.5%。股票收益通常会多一点点，但不注定是这样。总有时候，股票会变得很便宜，但这不注定是这样。风险溢价通常没有意义。世界计算不出风险溢价。
Best book prior to Graham was written by Edgar Lawrence Smith in 1924 called Common Stocks as Long Term Investments. It was a study that evaluated how bonds compared to stocks in various decades of the past. There weren't a whole lot of publicly traded companies back then. He thought he knew what he was going to find. He thought that he'd find that bonds outperformed stocks during periods of deflation, and stocks outperformed during inflationary times. But what he found was that stocks outperformed the bonds in nearly all cases. John M. Keynes then enumerated the reasons that this was so. He said that over time you have more capital working for you, and thus dividends would grow higher. This was novel information back then and investors then went crazy and started buying stocks for these higher returns. But then they started to get crazy, and no longer really applied the sound tactics that made the reasons given in the book true. Be careful that when you buy something for a sound reason, make sure that the reason stays sound.
在格雷厄姆之前，最好的书是埃德加.劳伦斯.史密斯于1924年写的《将普通股做为长期投资》。其研究评估了债券与股票在过去的年代如何不同，当时债券和股票背后没有大量公开交易的公司，他认为他知道他要找什么。他本认为他会发现债券在过去的通缩时期击败了股票，而股票在通胀时期击败了债券。但是实际上他发现的是股票在几乎所有的案例中都击败了债券。约翰.M.凯恩斯指出了原因，他说随着时间的推移，你有更多的资本为你工作，结果分红更多。这是一个新奇的信息，投资者开始变得疯狂，开始购买股票，期望获得更高的回报。但是他们陷入疯狂后，不再真正地采取合理的策略。当你以一个合理的理由购买东西时，一定要保证这个理由忠实可信。
If you buy GM, you need to write the price and the respective market valuation. Then write down why you are buying the business. If you can't, then you have no business doing it.
如果你要买GM，你要写下价格和市场估值，然后写下你为什么要买这项业务，如果你不能，那么你不应该买。
Quote from Ben Graham: 'You can get in more trouble with a sound premise than an unsound premise because you'll just throw out the unsound premise'.
引自本格雷厄姆：“合理的假设会比一个不合理的假设更容易让你陷入麻烦，因为你会将不合理的假设扔掉”。
Q: What was your biggest mistake?
问：你犯过的最大错误是什么？
First off, follow Graham and you'll be fine.
答：首先，跟随格雷厄姆，会不错。
My biggest mistakes were errors of omission vs. commission. Berkshire Hathaway was also a big mistake. Sometimes the opportunity costs of keeping money in something (like a lousy textile business) can be a drag on Berkshire's performance. We didn't learn from the previous mistake and bought another textile mill (Womback Mills) 6-7 years after buying Berkshire Hathaway. Meanwhile, I couldn't run the one in New Bedford.
我最大的错误是作为和不作为的错误。伯克希尔同样是一个大错误。有时将现金留在某些业务（比如糟糕的纺织业务）里面的机会成本会严重阻碍伯克希尔的绩效。我们没有从先前的错误中得到教训，在购买伯克希尔6-7年后，又买了另一家纺织工厂（Womback工厂），与此同时，我不能运营新贝德福德的那家。
Tom Murphy, my friend, bought the newspaper in Fort Worth. The previous ownership of these entities owned NBC as well, but he wanted to divest the NBC affiliate - $30 million to buy, doing $75 million in earnings. It was really a pretty good company, but he wanted to sell it anyway. There wouldn't be many more of it. Network television stations don't require excessive brains to run. They add a lot of money to our bottom lines.
We have never lost lots of money in things, except in insurance after 9/11. We don't do the kinds of things that lose you a lot of money. We just might not be finding the 'best' opportunities.
Don't worry about mistakes. You'll make mistakes. Get over it. At the same time, it's important to learn from someone else's mistakes. You don't want to make too many mistakes.
Side note: Warren once asked Bill Gates, 'If you could only hire from one place, where would it be?' Gate's reply was Indian Institute of Technology.
Q: Could you comment on your currency position?
We have about $21 billion in about 11 foreign currencies. We have $60-70 billion in things that are denominated in US Dollars. We still have a huge US bias. If Martians came down with currency certificates and could choose any currency on earth, I doubt it would be 80% in US Dollars.
We are following policies that make me doubt that our currency will not follow a downward spin. We lost $307 million this quarter. The net gain since we started holding foreign currencies in 2002 is $2.1 billion. We have to mark these future contracts to market daily. If we owned bonds instead of sterling forward contracts, it wouldn't fluctuate around so much.
Identifying bubbles is fairly easy. You don't know how big they will get and you don't know when they will pop. You don't know when midnight will hit, but when it does, it turns carriages to pumpkins and mice. What markets will do is pretty easy. When they will do it is more difficult. Some people want to stick around for the last dance, and they thought that a bigger fool would be just around the corner tomorrow.
When we bought those junk bonds, I didn't know we would make $4 billion in such a short time. It would have been better if it wouldn't have happened so quickly, as we would have gotten a bigger position.
Q: When did you know you were rich?
I really knew I was rich when I had $10,000. I knew along time ago that I was going to be doing something I loved doing with people that I loved doing it with. In 1958, I had my dad take me out of the will, as I knew I would be rich anyway. I let my two sisters have all the estate.
I bet we all in this room live about the same. We eat about the same and sleep about the same. We pretty much drive a car for 10 years. All this stuff doesn't make it any different. I will watch the Super Bowl on a big screen television just like you. We are living the same life. I have two luxuries: I get to do what I want to do every day and I get to travel a lot faster than you.
You should do the job you love whether or not you are getting paid for it. Do the job you love. Know that the money you will follow. I travel distances better than you do. The plane is nicer. But that is about the only thing that I do a whole lot different.
I didn't know my salary when I went to work for Graham until I got his first paycheck. Do what you love and don't even think about the money. I will take a trip on Paul Allen's Octopus ($400M yacht), but wouldn't want one for myself. A 60 man crew is needed. They could be stealing, sleeping with each other, etc. Professional sports teams are a hassle, especially when you have as much money as him. Fans would complain that you aren't spending enough when the team loses.
If there is a place that is warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and you do what you love doing, you will do fine. You're rich if you are working around people you like. You will make money if you are energetic and intelligent. This society lets smart people with drive earn a very good living. You will be no exception.
Q: What is your opinion of the prospects for the Kmart/Sears merger? How will Eddie Lambert do at bringing Kmart and Sears together?
Nobody knows. Eddie is a very smart guy but putting Kmart and Sears together is a tough hand. Turning around a retailer that has been slipping for a long time would be very difficult. Can you think of an example of a retailer that was successfully turned around? Broadcasting is easy; retailing is the other extreme. If you had a network television station 50 years ago, you didn't really have to invent or being a good salesman. The network paid you; car dealers paid you, and you made money.
But in retail you have to be smarter than Wal-Mart. Every day retailers are constantly thinking about ways to get ahead of what they were doing the previous day.
Retailing is like shooting at a moving target. In the past, people didn't like to go excessive distances from the street cars to buy things. People would flock to those retailers that were near by. In 1996 we bought the Hochschild Kohn department store in Baltimore. We learned quickly that it wasn't going to be a winner, long-term, in a very short period of time. We had an antiquated distribution system. We did everything else right. We put in escalators. We gave people more credit. We had a great guy running it, and we still couldn't win. So we sold it around 1970. That store isn't there anymore. It isn't good enough that there were smart people running it.
It will be interesting to see how Kmart and Sears play out. They already have a lot of real estate, and have let go of a bunch of Sears' management (500 people). They've captured some savings already.
We would rather look for easier things to do. The Buffett grocery stores started in Omaha in 1869 and lasted for 100 years. There were two competitors. In 1950, one competitor went out of business. In 1960 the other closed. We had the whole town to ourselves and still didn't make any money.
How many retailers have really sunk, and then come back? Not many. I can't think of any. Don't bet against the best. Costco is working on a 10-11% gross margin that is better than the Wal-Mart's and Sams'. In comparison, department stores have 35% gross margins. It's tough to compete against the best deal for customers. Department stores will keep their old customers that have a habit of shopping there, but they won't pick up new ones. Wal-Mart is also a tough competitor because others can't compete at their margins. It's very efficient.
If Eddie sees it as impossible, he won't watch it evaporate. Maybe he can combine certain things and increase efficiencies, but he won't be able to compete against Costco's margins.
Q: What led you to develop your values and goals at an early age?
I was lucky because I knew what I loved at an early age. I was wired in a certain way when I was born, and I was lucky enough to stumble upon some books at a library at a very early age. In 1930, I won the ovarian lottery. If I had been born 2000 years ago, I'd have been somebody's lunch. I couldn't run fast, etc.
I was lucky. I had a terrific set of parents. My father was an enormous inspiration for me. The job when you are a parent is to teach them. Be a natural hero. They are learning from you every moment you are around. There is no rewind button. If your parents do what they say and their values match what they teach you, you are lucky. What I observed in the world was consistent with what my parents taught me. That was important. If you are sarcastic, and use it as a teaching tool to kids, they'll never learn to get over it. Those first few years they are very impressionable.
Q: Could you discuss your views on estate planning and how you will allocate your wealth to your children?
It really reflects my views on how a rich society should behave. If it weren't for this society, I wouldn't be rich. It wasn't all me. Imagine if you were one of a pair of identical twins and a genie came along and allowed you to bid on where you could be born. The money that you bid is how much you had to agree to give back to society, and the one who bids the most gets to be born in the US and the other in Bangladesh. You would bid a lot. It is a huge advantage to be born here.
There should be no divine right of the womb. My kids wouldn't go off and do nothing if I give them a lot of money, but if they did, that would be a tragedy. $30 billion will be generated from estate taxes, which will go to help pay for the war in Iraq and other things. If you take away the estate tax, that money will have to come from somewhere else. If not from estate taxes then you inherently get it from poorer citizens. Less than 2% of estates will pay the estate tax. They would still have $50 million left over on average. I think those that get the lucky tickets should pay the most to the common causes of society. I believe in a big redistribution. Wealth is a bunch of claim checks that I can turn in for houses, etc. To pass those claim checks down to the next generation is the wrong approach. But for those that think I am perpetuating the welfare state, consider if you are born to a rich parent. You get a whole bunch of stocks right at the beginning of your life, and thus you are sort of on a welfare state of support from your rich parents from the beginning. What's the difference?
At $100,000 a year, I can find 10 people to paint my portraits to find the perfect one. I have that kind of money. But that is a waste, as those people could be doing something useful. I feel the same way about my kids and other heirs. They should be doing things that help to contribute to society.
Q: What kind of impact will the demographic shift (i.e. baby boomers) have on the United States?
We aren't big on demographic trends. It's difficult to translate that information into profitable decisions. It is hard to figure out what businesses will prosper in the future, based on macro trends. See's candy is for anyone and Fruit of the Loom is for people who need underwear today. We want to be right on something that will work right now, not something that might work in the future. I doubt that Wal-Mart spends a lot of time on demographics. They instead focus on where to put the store and what to put on the shelves. I've never found those kinds of stats useful. People were all excited to go into stocks 6 years ago, but it wasn't because of demographic trends.
Warren then referred to a recent WSJ article written by Jeremy Siegel that discussed funds flowing out of investments because baby boomers will need to cash in their investments during retirement. He said he respected Siegel, but he doesn't find fund flows data useful.
Q: What would Berkshire be like if you hadn't met Charlie Munger?
It would be very different, but I could say the same thing about a lot of other people, too. I've had a lot (at least a dozen) of heroes, including my parents. Charlie and I didn't meet until 1959, although he grew up a half a block from where I lived. Charlie was 35 and I was 29. We've been partners ever since. He is very strong-minded, but we've never had an argument that whole time. I've never been let down once. It must be a terrible feeling to be let down by a hero.
Hang around people who are better than you all the time. You do pick up the behavior of people who are around you. It will make you a better person. Marry upward. That is the person who is going to have the biggest effect on you. A relationship like that over the decades will do nothing but good.
Q: Are investors more or less knowledgeable today compared to ten years ago?
There is no doubt that there are far more 'investment professionals' and way more IQ in the field, as it didn't use to look that promising. Investment data are available more conveniently and faster today. But the behavior of investors will not be more intelligent than in the past, despite all this. How people react will not change ?their psychological makeup stays constant. You need to divorce your mind from the crowd. The herd mentality causes all these IQ's to become paralyzed. I don't think investors are now acting more intelligently, despite the intelligence. Smart doesn't always equal rational. To be a successful investor you must divorce yourself from the fears and greed of the people around you, although it is almost impossible.
Do you think Ponzi was crazy? The tech and telecom madness that existed just 6 years ago is right up there with the craziest mania's that have ever happened. Huge training in capital management didn't help.
Take Long Term Capital Management. They had 100's of millions of their own money, and had all of that experience. The list included Nobel Prize winners. They probably had the highest IQ of any 100 people working together in the country, yet the place still blew up. It went to zero in a matter of days. How can people who are rich and no longer need more money do such foolish things?
Q: What effect does large institutional ownership have on stock price volatility?
Never has so much been managed by so few that care so much about what happens tomorrow. So much of the world of investing is people who are trying to beat indexes, and they have a willingness and eagerness to make decisions in the next 24 hours. This condition didn't exist years ago. It has created a 'hair trigger' effect. An example of this hair trigger effect was Black Monday in '87. The cause was program trading and stop loss orders.
Q: What sectors are hurting? Is there a bear market coming?
Humans are still made up of the same psychological makeup, and opportunities will always present themselves. All these people have not gotten more rational. They are moved by fear and greed. But I'm never afraid of what I am doing. What are directors thinking [by not repurchasing shares] if the business is selling on a per share basis for one-fourth of what the whole business would sell for? They don't always think rational. I simply don't have that problem.
Berkshire owned the Washington Post, the ABC network and Newsweek. It was selling for $100 million based on the stock price. No debt. You could have held an auction, and sold off the companies individually for $500M total, but $100M was the price. In other words they were willing to sell us money that was worth $1 for $0.25. According to efficient markets, the beta was higher when the stock was at $20 than at $37. This is insanity. We bought what was then worth $9 million that is now worth $1.7 billion.
Q: How do you feel about divisions of conglomerates trying to horde capital?
Berkshire wants the capital in the most logical place. Berkshire is a tax efficient way to move money from business to business, and we can redeploy capital in places that need them. Most of the managers of companies we own are already independently rich. They want to work, but don't have to. They don't horde capital they don't need.
Q: How do you feel about the current real estate environment?
If you are buying to own a home, that is fine. Otherwise, it seems to be getting into bubble territory. We're not excited about real estate because generally there is not enough return at current prices.

http://www.fool.com/community/pod/2005/050713.htm

留言板

下载客户端体验更佳，还能发布图片和表情~

亿万博主正在被热评！
999+

给此博文留言吧！ 有机会上热评榜！ 攒金币兑换礼品！

好的评论会让人崇拜发布评论

关注

我的更多文章

下载客户端阅读体验更佳

APP专享