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在奥马哈的伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司股东大会上，“朝圣”的投资者基本上都是奔着“捡拾”亿万富翁沃伦·巴菲特的投资建议而去。 这位“奥马哈先知”已将伯克希尔-哈撒韦打造成了世界上最有价值的公司之一，还在全球范围内发展了一大批打算学习他选股绝技的粉丝。 在上周六的股东大会上，巴菲特和他的左膀右臂兼“逗哏”查理·芒格同台接受“朝拜”，并且圆满回答了股东的问题——这场问答持续了几乎六个小时。一如既往，巴菲特作答的内容无所不包，比如他对中美潜在贸易战的展望，他对苹果股票的喜爱，他的失策——没买谷歌或亚马逊股票，他和亚马逊以及摩根大通成立的医疗保健合资公司，乃至他和特斯拉CEO埃隆·马斯克的分歧。 而今年大会的基调之一是：87岁的巴菲特“看好”美国的未来以及伯克希尔-哈撒韦的前景。这位先知在本次股东大会上做出了诸多论断，以下是我们的精彩节选。 关于苹果公司 “我们赌苹果会推出类似iPhone的成功产品，而且我发现新产品具有一些不寻常的特征……之前我不买苹果，因为只是科技股，后来我出手是因为我确定了两点，一方面是他们很擅长配置资金，更重要的苹果打造出独特的生态系统，而且系统可以长期维持。我也了解了苹果面临的威胁以及其他一些问题。我并不用真去把iPhone拆开研究，弄清楚里面有哪些零件。更重要的是理解消费行为本质，其中蕴含的一些更普适的规律给我很多启发。” 关于世界的未来 “我看好美国的未来，也看好中国的未来，我对世界上其他地方的看法也非常乐观。今后10、20、50年，人们会生活的比现在还好。除了大规模杀伤性武器，我觉得没什么能阻止这样的局面。” 关于男女平等 “我确实很看好，看好人类的未来，当然也看好我们国家的未来，如果看看美国宪法第十九修正案[赋予女性投票权]出台前的情况，再看看出台后很长一段时间，乃至今天的情况，就会发现巨大的进步。我确实觉得对未来更乐观了，因为我觉得人才选拔方面会更加基于个人品质，而不是基于性别、种族或遗产。在我看来，如果一个社会里公司都由长子之类接掌，进步会远小于基于品质选拔人才的社会。” 关于埃隆·马斯克和护城河 “你当然应该设法让自己的护城河变得更好，并且随时保护自己的护城河。埃隆在某些领域也许可以搅个天翻地覆。我觉得他并不打算带我们在糖果行业大干一番。而且其他一些行当并不会那么容易。大家可以看看童装品牌Garanimals……科技不会带走Garanimals的生意——也许其他什么东西能抓住孩子的想象力或者别的什么。但我们身边就有一些相当厉害的护城河。” 关于加密货币 “人们买股票就是希望第二天早上起来发现涨了，要持续涨就得买的人多卖的人少。这一点能实现，而且可以持续，有时可以维持相当长一段时间，甚至积攒到巨大规模，但最后结果都很惨。加密货币的结果会很惨。另外，从资产创造价值的角度来说，加密货币什么也没创造，所以会有很多骗子什么的混迹其间，骗子们想方设法开设各种交易所。一些资质平庸之辈从中看到了剪羊毛的机会，被坑的则是看到邻居买了自己不懂的东西发财了，也想跟着买的人。最后都会很惨。” 关于富国银行 “富国银行证明了激励的功效。但问题是他们给的激励动机不对。这就坏了……大公司出问题并不是特殊情况。实际上，所有大银行都曾有过这样或那样的麻烦。我觉得，作为一家公司，无论从投资角度还是从道德角度来看，今后富国银行没有理由会在任何方面都比自己的竞争对差。。他们犯了个非常大的错误……但我喜欢对它投资，也喜欢[CEO] 蒂姆·斯隆这样的经理人。而且他正在纠正别人犯下的错误。” 关于成为一名伟大的投资者 “我们的业务并不复杂。它需要自律，但并不需要超高的智商或者任何类似的东西。有几条极为重要的基本原则。另外你确实得懂会计，它能帮你出门去跟客户交流，并且在许多方面像客户那样思考，但所有这些都不需要很高的学历。” 关于伯克希尔-哈撒韦为什么不就枪支问题表态 “说到我的政治观点，我觉得在我做那些事时绝不会盲目相信什么东西。2016年我筹了很多钱，是为希拉里[·克林顿]筹的，而且还相当直白地表了态。但这样做时，我不觉得自己是为了伯克希尔做这些，我是作为一个公民个体来发言，我觉得我无权为伯克希尔说什么……而且我觉得我们对Geico[保险]政策也不应该有什么疑问，‘你是全国步枪协会的吗？’如果是，对我们来说你就不是那么好的人了。我不相信自己会把政治观点施加到我们的经营活动中。如果你想问哪些公司是干净的，哪些不干净，我觉得判断难度非常大。” 关于网络安全风险 “预测加州发生地震或者佛罗里达或其他什么地方出现三、四场飓风的可能性，我们有相当好的想法。但我们不知道自己在网络方面做了什么。如果现在有什么人告诉你他们觉得自己非常清楚地知道未来是什么样，或者最糟糕的情况会是什么样，我觉得那是他们想多了。我之所以说每年发生价值4000亿美元事件的可能性大概是2%，这就是原因之一。网络是个未知领域，而且只会越来越糟，而不是变好。” 关于美联储利率 “我们知道当前利率下或利率接近当前水平时长期债券在我们看来是一项糟糕投资。因此，我们所有等待投放的资金基本上都在国债里，而且我觉得是平均期限最多四个月或者差不多那么长的国债。” 关于对中国投资 “到8月份我就88岁了，那是今年的第八个月，而今年又是以八结尾的一年。我们都知道，八在中国是个非常幸运的数字，现在有这么多八，所以如果你在中国为我发现了什么东西，我们就应该去收购。” 关于美国的政治 “在我这一生中，有好几次人们都觉得美国比以往任何时候都要分裂，我也亲见过另一党派当政让我认识和欣赏的人认为再也不会有大选了……如果从一开始你就会告诉我会发生古巴导弹危机，会有核武器，会出现金融恐慌，而且20世纪60年代末这个分裂的国家会有多次衰退和街头暴力事件，那你就会说，‘你究竟为什么还要买股票呢？’美国经历了这一切，情况时好时坏，但美国确实在向前迈进。” “在座每一位的生活水平在很多方面都高于老约翰·洛克菲勒，我年轻时他可是世界上最富有的人。而且和他可能过上的生活相比，我们都过的比他好。所以说，这是一个非常、非常了不起的国家，而且我们已经发现了一些非常特殊的东西。我很愿意出生在今天的美国。”（365娱乐场） 译者：Charlie 审校：夏林 ? |
The investors who make the pilgrimage to Omaha for Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting come largely to glean stock investing advice from billionaire Warren Buffett. The so-called Oracle of Omaha has built Berkshire Hathaway into one of the most valuable companies in the world, and developed a global following of investors who seek to emulate Buffett’s stock-picking prowess. At the Berkshire Hathaway meeting Saturday, Buffett held court on stage—alongside his right-hand man and jokester Charlie Munger—and fielded questions from shareholders for almost six hours straight. As is typical, Buffett’s responses ran the gamut, covering his outlook on a potential trade war with China, his love of Apple stock, his mistake not buying Google or Amazon stock, his health care venture with Amazon and JPMorgan Chase, and even his differences with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. One underlying theme: Buffett, at age 87, is “bullish”—on the future of America, as well as the future of his company Berkshire Hathaway . For more of the Oracle’s pronouncements, here is a selection of the best Buffett quotes from the Berkshire Hathaway meeting 2018. On Apple “We’re betting on the success of Apple products like the iPhone, and I see characteristics in that that make me think it’s extraordinary….And I didn’t go into Apple because it was a tech stock in the least. I went into Apple because I came to certain conclusions about both the intelligence with the capital they deploy but more important the value of an ecosystem and how permanent that ecosystem could be. And what the threats were to it and a whole bunch of things. And I don’t think that required me to take apart an iPhone or something and figure out what all the components were. It’s much more the nature of consumer behavior, and some things strike me as having a lot more permanence than others.” On the world’s future “I’m bullish on the future of the United States, but I’m bullish on the future of China, and to a significant extent the rest of the world. People are going to be living better 10, 20, 50 years from now, and I don’t think that’s something that can be stopped, absent weapons of mass destruction.” On gender equality “It does make me bullish. It makes me bullish on the human race. But certainly our country, because if you look at what happened before the 19th Amendment [granting women the right to vote] and then after the 19th Amendment for a long time and continuing to this day, there’s been significant improvement. And I do feel more optimistic about the future, because I think there will be more selection by merit rather than by gender, or by race or by inheritance. And I think that if you had a system where all businesses got passed on to the eldest son or something, I think that society would make a lot less progress than one that’s merit based.” On Elon Musk and moats “Certainly you should be working on improving your own moat and defending your own moat all the time. And Elon may turn things upside down in some areas. I don’t think he’d want to take us on in candy. And we’ve got some other businesses that wouldn’t be so easy. You can look at something like Garanimals….It won’t be technology that takes away the business in Garanimals—maybe something else that catches the young kids’ fantasy or something. But there are some pretty good moats around.” On cryptocurrency “When you buy something because you’re hoping tomorrow morning you’re going to wake up and the price will be higher, you need more people coming into it than are leaving. And you can get that and it will feed on itself for a while, and sometimes for a long while, and sometimes to extraordinary numbers, but they come to bad endings, and cryptocurrencies will come to bad endings. And along with the fact that there’s nothing being produced in the way of value from the asset, you also have the problem that it draws in a lot of charlatans and that sort of thing, who are trying to create various sorts of exchanges or whatever it may be. It’s something where people who are of less-than-stellar character see an opportunity to clip people who were trying to get rich because their neighbor’s getting rich buying this stuff neither one of them understands. It will come to a bad ending.” On Wells Fargo “Wells Fargo is a company that proved the efficacy of incentives. And it’s just that they had the wrong incentives. And that was bad….The fact that you are going to have problems at some large institution is not unique. In fact all the big banks have had troubles at some point or another. And I see no reason why Wells Fargo as a company from both an investment standpoint and a moral standpoint going forward is in any way inferior to the other banks with which it competes. They made a very big mistake….But I like it as an investment. I like [CEO] Tim Sloan as a manager. And he is correcting mistakes made by other people.” On becoming a great investor “What we do is not a complicated business. It’s got to be a disciplined business, but it does not require a super high IQ or anything of the sort. And there are a few fundamentals that are incredibly important. And you do have to understand accounting, and it helps to get out and talk to consumers and start thinking like a consumer in many ways and all of that, but it just doesn’t require advanced learning.” On why Berkshire Hathaway won’t take a stance on guns “My political views, I don’t think I put them in a blind trust at all when I take the job. In 2016, I raised a lot of money, in my case raised it for Hillary [Clinton] and spoke out in ways that were quite frank. But when I do that, I don’t think I do that for Berkshire, I’m speaking as a private citizen, and I don’t think I have any business speaking for Berkshire….And I don’t think that we should have a question on the Geico [insurance] policy, ‘Are you an NRA member?’ And if you are you’re not good enough for us. I do not believe in imposing my political opinions on the activities of our business. And if you get to what companies are pure and which ones aren’t pure, I think it’s very difficult to make that call.” On cybersecurity risks “We have a pretty good idea of the probabilities of a quake in California or the probability of a 3 or 4 hurricane hitting Florida or wherever it may be. But we don’t know what we’re doing in cyber. I think anybody who tells you now that they think they know in some actuarial way what the general experience is likely to be in the future or what the worst case would be, is getting ahead of themselves, and that’s one of the reasons I say a $400 billion event has a roughly 2% probability per year of happening. Cyber is unchartered territory and it’s going to get worse not better.” On Federal Reserve interest rates “The one thing we know is we think long-term bonds are a terrible investment at current rates or anything close to current rates. So basically all of our money that is waiting to be placed is in Treasury bills that I think have an average maturity of four months, or something like that, at most.” On investing in China “In August I will be 88, and that will be the eighth month of the year, and it’s a year that ends with an 8, and as you and I both know 8 is a very lucky number in China, so if you find anything over there for me, this is the time we should be acquiring something—all those eights.” On politics in the United States “Multiple times in my life people have felt the country was more divided than ever, and I’ve gone through periods where people I knew and admired thought that because the other party was in power that there would never be another election….If you’d told me at the start you’d have a Cuban missile crisis, and you’d have nuclear weapons and you’d have a financial panic and you’d have many recessions and war in the streets in the late ’60s from a divided country, you’d say, ‘Why the hell are you buying stocks?’ And through it all, America—in fits and starts, but America really moves ahead. “Everybody in this room essentially is living better in multiple ways than John D. Rockefeller senior was, who was the richest person in the world during my early years. And we’re all living better than he could live. So this is a remarkable, remarkable country and we’ve found something very special. And I would love to be a baby being born in the United States today.” |
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