Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett
Warren Edward Buffett is an American business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He is considered by some to be one of the most successful investors in the world. Buffett is the chairman, CEO and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, and is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people. He was ranked as the world's wealthiest person in 2008 and as the third wealthiest in 2015. In 2012 Time named Buffett one of the world's most influential people...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth30 August 1930
CityOmaha, NE
CountryUnited States of America
Investing is not as tough as being a top-notch bridge player. All it takes is the ability to see things as they really are.
If I eat 2,700 calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola,
Writing checks to the IRS that include strings of zeros does not bother me ... Overall, we feel extraordinarily lucky to have been dealt a hand in life that enables us to write large checks to the government rather than one requiring the government to regularly write checks to us-say, because we are disabled or unemployed.
The range of derivatives contracts is limited only by the imagination of man (or sometimes, so it seems, madmen). Say you want to write a contract speculating on the number of twins to be born in Nebraska in 2020. No problem-at a price, you will easily find an obliging counterparty.
In our view, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction carrying dangers that, while latent, are potentially lethal.
In one way, I'm sympathetic to the institutional reluctance to face the music. I'd give a lot to mark my weight to 'model' rather than to 'market.'
Our future rates of gain will fall far short of those achieved in the past. Berkshire's capital base is now simply too large to allow us to earn truly outsized returns. If you believe otherwise, you should consider a career in sales but avoid one in mathematics.
The power of unconditional love. I mean, there is no power on earth like unconditional love.
Interest rates are to asset prices what gravity is to the apple. When there are low interest rates, there is a very low gravitational pull on asset prices.
If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio's market value.
Investors should remember that their scorecard is not computed using Olympic-diving methods: Degree-of-difficulty doesn't count. If you are right about a business whole value is largely dependent on a single key factor that is both easy to understand and enduring, the payoff is the same as if you had correctly analyzed an investment alternative characterized by many constantly shifting and complex variables.
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.
What we learn from history is that people don't learn from history.
In economics, you always want to ask 'And then what?'