Blog 5 : Warren Buffett’s Quote ประโยคเด็ดจากปู่บัฟฯ

คำพูดบางส่วนของ Warren Buffett ผมดึงมาเฉพาะประโยคที่เห็นว่าดี และน่าสนใจนะครับ

เพราะบางประโยคผมเห็นว่าเข้าใจยากเกินไป และอาจจะเป็นมุมมองเฉพาะในประเทศเค้าครับ เช่นเรื่อง Government

สามารถเข้าไปดูข้อความทั้งหมดได้ที่นี่ครับ : http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett

ประวัติ : Warren Edward Buffett (born 30 August 1930) is an American investor and the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.

Sourced : คำพูดจากต้นฉบับ

You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.
* Berkshire Hathaway 2001 Chairman’s Letter

Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
* As quoted in The Real Warren Buffett : Managing Capital, Leading People (2002) by James O’Loughlin

Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.
* Berkshire Hathaway 2008 Chairman’s Letter

I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.

I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.

Selected :

A story that was passed down from Ben Graham illustrates the lemminglike behavior of the crowd: “Let me tell you the story of the oil prospector who met St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. When told his occupation, St. Peter said, “Oh, I’m really sorry. You seem to meet all the tests to get into heaven. But we’ve got a terrible problem. See that pen over there? That’s where we keep the oil prospectors waiting to get into heaven. And it’s filled—we haven’t got room for even one more.” The oil prospector thought for a minute and said, “Would you mind if I just said four words to those folks?” “I can’t see any harm in that,” said St. Pete. So the old-timer cupped his hands and yelled out, “Oil discovered in hell!” Immediately, the oil prospectors wrenched the lock off the door of the pen and out they flew, flapping their wings as hard as they could for the lower regions. “You know, that’s a pretty good trick,” St. Pete said. “Move in. The place is yours. You’ve got plenty of room.” The old fellow scratched his head and said, “No. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go along with the rest of ’em. There may be some truth to that rumor after all.

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.

Investors making purchases in an overheated market need to recognize that it may often take an extended period for the value of even an outstanding company to catch up with the price they paid.
o Berkshire Hathaway 1998 Annual Meeting

If you’re an investor, you’re looking on what the asset is going to do, if you’re a speculator, you’re commonly focusing on what the price of the object is going to do, and that’s not our game.
o 1997 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

I like to go for cinches. I like to shoot fish in a barrel. But I like to do it after the water has run out.
o October 2003 talking with Wharton MBA students[specific citation needed]

The important thing is to keep playing, to play against weak opponents and to play for big stakes.
o November 2002 talking with students at Gaston Hal

Circle of competency : ขอบเขตความรู้

There are all kinds of businesses that Charlie and I don’t understand, but that doesn’t cause us to stay up at night. It just means we go on to the next one, and that’s what the individual investor should do.
* Morningstar Interview

Intelligent decision making : การตัดสินใจอย่างชาญฉลาด

I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.
* Lecturing to a group of students at Columbia U. He was 21 years old.

The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.
* July 1999 at Herb Allen’s Sun Valley, Idaho Retreat

Success in investing doesn’t correlate with I.Q. once you’re above the level of 125. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.
* BusinessWeek Interview June 25 1999

Time is the enemy of the poor business and the friend of the great business. If you have a business that’s earning 20%-25% on equity, time is your friend. But time is your enemy if your money is in a low return business.
* 1998 Berkshire Annual Meeting

Ben’s Mr. Market allegory may seem out-of-date in today’s investment world, in which most professionals and academicians talk of efficient markets, dynamic hedging and betas. Their interest in such matters is understandable, since techniques shrouded in mystery clearly have value to the purveyor of investment advice. After all, what witch doctor has ever achieved fame and fortune by simply advising ‘Take two aspirins’?
* 1987 Chairman’s Letter to Shareholders

We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet.
* Berkshire Hathaway Owners Manual

Inactivity as intelligent : การอยู่เฉยๆ คือความฉลาด

I call investing the greatest business in the world because you never have to swing. You stand at the plate, the pitcher throws you General Motors at 47! U.S. Steel at 39! and nobody calls a strike on you. There’s no penalty except

opportunity lost. All day you wait for the pitch you like; then when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it.

The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don’t have to swing at everything–you can wait for your pitch. The problem when you’re a money manager is that your fans keep yelling, ‘Swing, you bum!’
* 1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

On margin of safety : เกี่ยวกับ margin of safety

If you understood a business perfectly and the future of the business, you would need very little in the way of a margin of safety. So, the more vulnerable the business is, assuming you still want to invest in it, the larger margin of safety you’d need. If you’re driving a truck across a bridge that says it holds 10,000 pounds and you’ve got a 9,800 pound vehicle, if the bridge is 6 inches above the crevice it covers, you may feel okay, but if it’s over the Grand Canyon, you may feel you want a little larger margin of safety…
* 1997 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

You leave yourself an enormous margin of safety. You build a bridge that 30,000-pound trucks can go across and then you drive 10,000-pound trucks across it. That is the way I like to go across bridges.
* Financial World, June 13, 1984.

Efficient market hypothesis : ทฤษฏีตลาดมีประสิทธิภาพ (EMH)

I’d be a bum on the street with a tin cup if the markets were always efficient.

General rules : กฏทั่วไปของการลงทุน

Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.

It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

You’re neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You’re right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right—and that’s the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don’t have to worry about anybody else.

Our favourite holding period is forever.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

If you don’t know jewelry, know the jeweler.

If you don’t feel comfortable owning something for 10 years, then don’t own it for 10 minutes.

A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect… You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.

The future is never clear, and you pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty is the friend of the buyer of long-term values.

Occasionally, a man must rise above principles.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

When asked how he became so successful in investing, Buffett answered: we read hundreds and hundreds of annual reports every year.

“I never buy anything unless I can fill out on a piece of paper my reasons. I may be wrong, but I would know the answer to that. “I’m paying $32 billion today for the Coca Cola Company because…” If you can’t answer that question, you shouldn’t buy it. If you can answer that question, and you do it a few times, you’ll make a lot of money.

You ought to be able to explain why you’re taking the job you’re taking, why you’re making the investment you’re making, or whatever it may be. And if it can’t stand applying pencil to paper, you’d better think it through some more. And if you can’t write an intelligent answer to those questions, don’t do it.

I really like my life. I’ve arranged my life so that I can do what I want.

If you gave me the choice of being CEO of General Electric or IBM or General Motors, you name it, or delivering papers, I would deliver papers. I would. I enjoyed doing that. I can think about what I want to think. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do.

Views of government and Wall Street : มุมมองต่อรัฐบาล และตลาดหุ้น

Wall Street is the only place that people ride to work in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.

The Stock Market is designed to transfer money from the Active to the Patient.

Working with people who cause your stomach to churn seems much like marrying for money – probably a bad idea under any circumstances, but absolute madness if you are already rich.

One of the ironies of the stock market is the emphasis on activity. Brokers, using terms such as “marketability” and “liquidity,” sing the praises of companies with high share turnover… but investors should understand that what is good for the croupier is not good for the customer. A hyperactive stock market is the pick pocket of enterprise.

The speed at which a business success is recognized, furthermore, is not that important as long as the company’s intrinsic value is increasing at a satisfactory rate. In fact, delayed recognition can be an advantage: It may give us the chance to buy more of a good thing at a bargain price.

The managers at fault periodically report on the lesson they have learned from the latest disappointment. They then usually seek out future lessons.

Walking away : การเดินหนีจากตลาด

I just don’t see anything available that gives any reasonable hope of delivering such a good year and I have no desire to grope around, hoping to ‘get lucky’ with other people’s money. I am not attuned to this market environment, and I don’t want to spoil a decent record by trying to play a game I don’t understand just so I can go out a hero.