You don’t have to be right about thousands and thousands of companies, you only have to be right about a couple. The most important thing is to decide – is to be able to define which ones you can come to an intelligent decision on and which ones are beyond your capacity to evaluate. You […]
Buffett: Banking, if you can just stay away from following the fads and making bad loans, has been a remarkably good business. Since WW II, ROE for banks that have stayed out of trouble has been good. Some large well-run banks earn 20% ROE. I’ve been surprised that margins in banking haven’t been competed […]
The one thing I will tell you is the worst investment you can have is cash. Everybody is talking about cash being king and all that sort of thing. Most of you don’t look like you are overburdened with cash anyway. Cash is going to become worth less over time. But good businesses are going […]
Under the 1974 headline, “Look At All Those Beautiful, Scantily Clad Girls Out There!,” this profile in Forbes magazine captures Warren Buffett’s personality and chronicles the singular path he cut through the investment world. Though the piece is 34 years old, it sheds light on the man behind Berkshire Hathawayas the company’s shareholders meet this weekend in Omaha, […]
In the Chairman’s Letter of 1992 from Warren Buffet I found this small excerpt on his view about value, growth and using discounted cash-flow analysis. I felt like the writing must have light shed on it and be shared with others as it resinated with me, as does most of Buffett’s writings and insight. I […]
In Buffett Partnership Letter October 9, 1967, Buffett said, “The evaluation of securities and businesses for investment purposes has always involved a mixture of qualitative and quantitative factors. At the one extreme, the analyst exclusively oriented to qualitative factors would say, “Buy the right company (with the right prospects, inherent industry conditions, management, etc..) and […]
Economic franchise is one of the most important investing concepts used by Warren Buffett. Companies with economic franchise are rare in the business world. They are great businesses which enjoy pricing power and could stand incapable management. In his 1991 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Warren Buffett explained the concept of economic franchise: “An economic […]
Warren Buffett is obviously an incredible investor with a track record across many decades. And although he has made countless good investments, that track record is largely due to several great investments such as Coca Cola, American Express and Washington Post. Value investing however, is not easy. Did you know that Buffett was down 25% […]
JOE: Here’s, you know, listening to you talk, though, Warren, when you say with your comments about bonds, that makes me think of financial assets in general, which includes stocks. And I think about the printing presses not only in this country, but around the world. You’ve seen the commercial, cha-chung, cha-chung, cha-chung, with the […]
One usage of retained earnings we often greet with special enthusiasm when practiced by companies in which we have an investment interest is repurchase of their own shares. The reasoning is simple: if a fine business is selling in the marketplace for far less than intrinsic value, what more certain or more profitable utilization of […]