Charlie and I have agreed on around 100 stocks over the years that we thought were shorts or promotions. Had we acted on them, we might have lost all of our money, every though we were right just about every time. A bubble plays on human nature. Nobody knows when it’s going to pop, or how high it will go before it pops.
BRK Annual Meeting 2002 Tilson Notes
I had a harrowing experience shorting a stock in 1954. I wouldn’t have been wrong over 10 years, but I was very wrong after 10 weeks, which was the relevant period. My net worth was evaporating.
BRK Annual Meeting 2002 Tilson Notes
The shorts generally have a tougher time of it in this world. More people are bullish on stocks. It’s a tough way to make a living. It’s very easy to spot a phony stock or a heavily promoted stock, but it’s hard to say when it will turn. If it’s trading at five times its intrinsic value, there’s no reason it can’t trade at ten times.
Source: BRK Annual Meeting 2007 Tilson Notes