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Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds

finance.fortune.cnn.com

11–20 of 208 posts

Re: Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds

#11
His basic point is almost a tautology. Yes, it's great to own productive assets. The real trick is predicting which ones will really stay productive over the long term. Just buying a broad index is often not a winning strategy when you factor in the taxes, inflation, and survivor bias. Certainly Buffet hasn't just bought a broad index -- he makes highly targeted investments.

And he glosses over a basic point that I've seen many commenters miss. An asset like gold behaves differently under bubble conditions than an asset like a tech stock, tulip, or house. The production of those things is price elastic, and rising prices cause rising production that ultimately crashes the bubble.

But expanding the supply of gold available for trade by more than a couple percent a year simply isn't feasible. This is precisely why markets have repeatedly chosen it as a form of money.

Of course this means the market for gold is driven purely by demand sentiment, and of course demand could crash. But this is true of every currency -- it's only valuable because it's valuable.

Re: Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds

#12
post #6

He omits the only valid reason any non-speculator would own gold - it holds it's value through times of political turmoil - holds it's value over millenia rather than decades or centuries. A coup d'etat may result in seizure of private companies, rendering your stock worthless, but not touching the value of gold. It would be speculating to put all your assets into gold, but a small amount is like an insurance policy.…

You had better hope your gold is hidden in a safe place under these circumstances. What percentage of the current gold investors are hoarding trading-size chunks in the cellar and the woods?

Re: Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds

#14
post #6

He omits the only valid reason any non-speculator would own gold - it holds it's value through times of political turmoil - holds it's value over millenia rather than decades or centuries. A coup d'etat may result in seizure of private companies, rendering your stock worthless, but not touching the value of gold. It would be speculating to put all your assets into gold, but a small amount is like an insurance policy.…

... unless some breakthrough in nuclear physics leads to cheap synthesis of precious metals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals

Re: Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds

#15
post #9

He's wrong. Stocks do not beat gold once inflation outpaces the rate of average market returns, which is exactly where we're at now. Gold is up 87 fold over 90 years or so. There is no way to capture that kind of return out of stocks, other than to buy one stock, Apple at the absolute bottom, or buy Dell the day it IPO'd or other similar freak scenarios, and then hold all the way through, and then sell at the absolut…

Are you taking dividend yields into account?

Re: Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds

#16
In the 90s everyone rushed the IT shares and then the dotcom bubble burst.

In the first decade of our new millennium, real estate and all sorts of weird financial products somehow building on real estate were THE best way to invest money because nothing can happen, you have a house standing right there, right?? Then that bubble burst.

Now, you'd think people would have learned by now but no... sure as hell now everyone rushes to buy gold and silver because "hey what could possibly happen"??? Even one of my colleagues who has been burned both times on dotcom shares and some shady real estate thingy in east-germany, no less, now religiously swears by gold and silver because what could possibly happen?

People seem to really not be able to grasp that it is just another market.

Re: Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds

#17
post #10
post #6

He omits the only valid reason any non-speculator would own gold - it holds it's value through times of political turmoil - holds it's value over millenia rather than decades or centuries. A coup d'etat may result in seizure of private companies, rendering your stock worthless, but not touching the value of gold. It would be speculating to put all your assets into gold, but a small amount is like an insurance policy.…

An unstable government could just as easily seize your gold. What investor cares about millennia? Centuries is already too much, unless you're vastly more concerned about your great great great grandchildren than most people. 100 years is probably the absolute largest possible upper limit for a real investor to care about, and typically it's much less still.

I think he was talking about a small amount of gold. Twenty-thousand dollars worth could fit in your hand and easily be smuggled in clothes, luggage, etc. That's pretty handy if you had the flee the country from nazis(or whatever) that have stolen all of your other assets.

Admittedly that's a pretty unlikely scenario.

Re: Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds

#18
post #5
post #2

Buffet: "A century from now the 400 million acres of farmland will have produced staggering amounts of corn, wheat, cotton, and other crops -- and will continue to produce that valuable bounty, whatever the currency may be." Buffet implicitly rejects global warming here, specifically the latest projections on drought: http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2012/01/another-terrifying-dro... and others.

You seem to implicitly reject the human ability to adapt. We'll find a way to adapt to the changing environment. Hell, we might even adapt our habits (ha!) and allow the environment to correct itself. Regardless of the plausibility of global warming, 400 million acres of farmland will still produce more value in crops than you could shake your investment stick at.

No, I read very smart people who try to analyze what it would take to adapt, and they range from deeply concerned to terrified. Start here:

    http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/the-energy-trap/
or here:

    http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/

Re: Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds

#19
post #6

He omits the only valid reason any non-speculator would own gold - it holds it's value through times of political turmoil - holds it's value over millenia rather than decades or centuries. A coup d'etat may result in seizure of private companies, rendering your stock worthless, but not touching the value of gold. It would be speculating to put all your assets into gold, but a small amount is like an insurance policy.…

In any serious failure of government, the value of bullets far outweighs the value of gold.

Re: Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds

#20
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he's rejecting anything, just making a general point about investing in something with cashflow (a business, farmland) vs speculating in something that is only worth what others will pay for it (gold, commodities)

Did you follow the link? Buffet's recommendation comes with a long time horizon, and the asserion that he can predict stability: "Whether the currency a century from now is based on gold, seashells, shark teeth, or a piece of paper (as today), people will be willing to exchange a couple of minutes of their daily labor for a Coca-Cola or some See's peanut brittle." I think he's right about people, but in the statement…

I'd be willing to bet that when he wrote that sentence, global warming was one of the furthest things from his mind.

Even so, I'm pretty sure Warren Buffett is a businessman, not a climate scientist. It's called the Appeal to False Authority, look it up.

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