21–30 of 87 posts
Just an interesting sidenote. It does feel like the letter is shorter than it used to be, so I plotted the number of pages by year in the PDF fils on their site. Looks like there was a decrease from 20 pages to 15 starting in 2017. Graph: https://imgur.com/a/TQ2oewY
And they should have an Instagram account with the same letter tl;dr to a 5 image post, for young investors.
If you like them you can read other letters, in particular older letters. The letters for the later part of the 1970s are especially instructive in terms of what is it like to live in an inflationary regime. Buffett is one of the few people that have "seen it all", from deflationary 30s, war 40s, greatest 50s, cultural 60s, inflationary 70s, capitalist 80s, excessive 90s, normal then excessive again 00s, deflationary…
Like every lion in the savanna, it must relinquish its reign at some point. Buffet talks pridefully about holding $250+ BILLION in cash, as if it were pegged to a gold standard. Nearly half his life was based on such a system, and so it’d be hard to remove that idea. Yet he sits on it proudly seemingly unaware that sitting on such an amount has eaten up 3%+ via the printing press of the FED. That and you know... not…
While I'm not of these meme investors who thinks Buffett is "washed up", I confess that I've increasingly wondered if it's just sorta over. In some sense, it's not his fault. Berkshire has grown so large that it has significant scale problems. I joke that Buffett found the investing equivalent of the Donkey Kong kill screen, he basically broke the game. It's incredible. But there have been self-inflicted issues. The…
I think investors over the past year have grown so accustomed to something new and shiny and revolutionary coming every week to get excited about that they've forgotten that making money in markets successfully is about a long term focus and a LOT of boring details and unsexy businesses. I, like a lot of people LOVE trading stocks and derivatives, and trying to beat the market -- more so as a hobby and as an opportun…
While I'm not of these meme investors who thinks Buffett is "washed up", I confess that I've increasingly wondered if it's just sorta over. In some sense, it's not his fault. Berkshire has grown so large that it has significant scale problems. I joke that Buffett found the investing equivalent of the Donkey Kong kill screen, he basically broke the game. It's incredible. But there have been self-inflicted issues. The…
If you think they are stagnating with their current mindset, then shouldn't breaking their existing rules be a good thing?
While I'm not of these meme investors who thinks Buffett is "washed up", I confess that I've increasingly wondered if it's just sorta over. In some sense, it's not his fault. Berkshire has grown so large that it has significant scale problems. I joke that Buffett found the investing equivalent of the Donkey Kong kill screen, he basically broke the game. It's incredible. But there have been self-inflicted issues. The…
In Poker: find the fish, understand why they're fish and exploit it [example, 1].
In investing: find underpriced assets, understand why they're underpriced and exploit it [examples, 2, 3].
From this perspective, Buffett doesn't understand how price movement works in tech companies.
And that's ok.
[0] You can't win everything of course, but if you're going to play a losing game by default then you're basically buying information. Once you have enough information, then it's all about execution. I daresay that Warren Buffett has enough information on a particular method of successful investing. That's all he needs, so he needs to focus on games that he knows how to win.
[1] E.g. through math/theory or math/data -- if you can get your hands on it -- (random player vs tight aggressive player)
[2] E.g. through math/theory or math/data (population will grow to 11 Billion --> economic productivity will therefore grow because bigger global work force --> world economy will grow in the long-term)
[3] Buffett's famous example is of course his own brand of value investing. The central thesis of value investing is: if a company is going to close shop, the scrap value of that company will be higher than the market cap of that company. There's a lot more to it, but that's the gist of it. One nuance, for example, is that you then try to pick the companies that are the most severely underpriced, have amazing management and a solid competitive domination strategy (e.g. crazy brand recognition or a certain asset that has a really high barrier of entry).
While I'm not of these meme investors who thinks Buffett is "washed up", I confess that I've increasingly wondered if it's just sorta over. In some sense, it's not his fault. Berkshire has grown so large that it has significant scale problems. I joke that Buffett found the investing equivalent of the Donkey Kong kill screen, he basically broke the game. It's incredible. But there have been self-inflicted issues. The…
> The seemingly unconditional refusal to explore technology companies. ... The allowing of the two new managers to keep breaking Berkshire's rules If you think they are stagnating with their current mindset, then shouldn't breaking their existing rules be a good thing?
Like every lion in the savanna, it must relinquish its reign at some point. Buffet talks pridefully about holding $250+ BILLION in cash, as if it were pegged to a gold standard. Nearly half his life was based on such a system, and so it’d be hard to remove that idea. Yet he sits on it proudly seemingly unaware that sitting on such an amount has eaten up 3%+ via the printing press of the FED. That and you know... not…
Anyone knows why he doesn't buy real estate in highly desirable locations, which will always be in demand, given that he has a really long view?