沃伦·巴菲特谈股市（未完成）

时间：2001年12月10日

来源：Fortune Magazine

原文标题： Warren Buffett On The Stock Market What's in the future for investors--another roaring bull market or more upset stomach? Amazingly, the answer may come down to three simple factors. Here, the world's most celebrated investor talks about what really makes the market tick--and whether that ticking should make you nervous.

《财富》杂志 - 两年前，伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的董事长沃伦·巴菲特在1999年7月的一次演讲中谈到了股市 —— 这对他来说是一个很少公开讨论的主题。《财富》随后刊登了他的发言，标题为《巴菲特先生谈股市》（1999年11月22日）。当时，他的主要观点涉及到美国投资者经历的两个连续且惊人的时期，以及他认为股票收益将大幅下降的观点。自从他发表演讲时道琼斯工业平均指数为11194，而最近该指数约为9900，因此还没有人能够反驳他。

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Two years ago, following a July 1999 speech by Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, on the stock market–a rare subject for him to discuss publicly–FORTUNE ran what he had to say under the title “Mr. Buffett on the Stock Market” (Nov. 22, 1999). His main points then concerned two consecutive and amazing periods that American investors had experienced, and his belief that returns from stocks were due to fall dramatically. Since the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 11194 when he gave his speech and recently was about 9900, no one yet has the goods to argue with him.

那么，我们现在的状况是什么呢？股市似乎反映出了黯淡的利润前景、一场陌生的战争以及受到冲击的消费者信心。对于这个问题，有谁比巴菲特更能提供深刻的见解呢？

So where do we stand now–with the stock market seeming to reflect a dismal profit outlook, an unfamiliar war, and rattled consumer confidence? Who better to supply perspective on that question than Buffett?

以下的观点来自巴菲特的第二次演讲，于去年7月在第一次演讲的地点 —— 艾伦公司为企业高管举办的年度太阳谷盛会 —— 发表。在那里，这位著名的股票投资专家回顾了之前讨论过的主题，并为这个话题带来了新的数据和见解。在与《财富》杂志的Carol Loomis合作下，巴菲特将这次演讲提炼成了这篇文章，为今年的投资者指南创作了一个恰当的开篇。以下是巴菲特先生再次谈论股市。

The thoughts that follow come from a second Buffett speech, given last July at the site of the first talk, Allen & Co.’s annual Sun Valley bash for corporate executives. There, the renowned stockpicker returned to the themes he’d discussed before, bringing new data and insights to the subject. Working with FORTUNE’s Carol Loomis, Buffett distilled that speech into this essay, a fitting opening for this year’s Investor’s Guide. Here again is Mr. Buffett on the Stock Market.

上一次我谈论这个主题是在1999年，当时我将之前的34年分为两个17年时期，从瘦年和丰年的角度来看，它们呈现出惊人的对称性。以下是第一个时期。如你所见，17年间道指涨幅仅为0.1%。

The last time I tackled this subject, in 1999, I broke down the previous 34 years into two 17-year periods, which in the sense of lean years and fat were astonishingly symmetrical. Here’s the first period. As you can see, over 17 years the Dow gained exactly one-tenth of one percent.

道琼斯工业平均指数

1964年12月31日：874.12

1981年12月31日：875.00

Dow Jones Industrial Average

Dec. 31, 1964: 874.12

Dec. 31, 1981: 875.00

以下是第二个时期，以一场令人难以置信的牛市为特点，当我阐述我的观点时，这个牛市即将结束（尽管我当时并不知道）。

And here’s the second, marked by an incredible bull market that, as I laid out my thoughts, was about to end (though I didn’t know that).

道琼斯工业平均指数

1981年12月31日：875.00

1998年12月31日：9181.43

Dow Jones Industrial Average

Dec. 31, 1981: 875.00

Dec. 31, 1998: 9181.43

现在，你不能通过比如说国民生产总值增长的差异来解释市场之间这种显著的分歧。在第一个时期——市场表现低迷的时期——国民生产总值的增长实际上比第二个时期快了两倍多。

Now, you couldn’t explain this remarkable divergence in markets by, say, differences in the growth of gross national product. In the first period–that dismal time for the market–GNP actually grew more than twice as fast as it did in the second period.

国民生产总值增长

1964-1981年：373%

1981-1998年：177%

Gain in Gross National Product

1964-1981: 373%

1981-1988: 177%

那么原因是什么呢？我得出的结论是，市场的对比变动是由两个关键经济变量的非凡变化以及与之相关的心理因素最终发挥作用所导致的。

So what was the explanation? I concluded that the market’s contrasting moves were caused by extraordinary changes in two critical economic variables–and by a related psychological force that eventually came into play.

在此，我需要提醒您关于“投资”的定义，尽管简单，但常常被遗忘。投资就是今天花钱，以便明天能收到更多的钱。

Here I need to remind you about the definition of “investing,” which though simple is often forgotten. Investing is laying out money today to receive more money tomorrow.

这引出了影响两个时期股票价格的第一个经济变量 — 利率。在经济学中，利率的作用类似于物理世界中的重力。在任何时候、任何市场、世界各地，利率的微小变化都会改变每一种金融资产的价值。您可以清楚地从债券价格的波动中看到这一点。但这个规律同样适用于农田、石油储备、股票以及其他所有金融资产。而且利率对价值的影响可能是巨大的。例如，如果利率是13%，那么您未来从投资中获得的一美元的现值就不会像利率为4%时的一美元现值那么高。

That gets to the first of the economic variables that affected stock prices in the two periods–interest rates. In economics, interest rates act as gravity behaves in the physical world. At all times, in all markets, in all parts of the world, the tiniest change in rates changes the value of every financial asset. You see that clearly with the fluctuating prices of bonds. But the rule applies as well to farmland, oil reserves, stocks, and every other financial asset. And the effects can be huge on values. If interest rates are, say, 13%, the present value of a dollar that you’re going to receive in the future from an investment is not nearly as high as the present value of a dollar if rates are 4%.

利率，长期国债

1964年12月31日：4.20%

1981年12月31日：13.65%

1998年12月31日：5.09%

Interest rates, Long-term government bonds

Dec. 31, 1964: 4.20%

Dec. 31, 1981: 13.65%

Dec. 31, 1998: 5.09%

另一个关键变量是投资者预期从投资公司中获得多少美元。在第一个时期，由于企业利润表现不佳，预期大幅下降。实际上，到1980年代初，美联储主席保罗·沃尔克的经济大锤使企业盈利降至自1930年代以来的最低水平。

The other critical variable here is how many dollars investors expected to get from the companies in which they invested. During the first period expectations fell significantly because corporate profits weren’t looking good. By the early 1980s Fed Chairman Paul Volcker’s economic sledgehammer had, in fact, driven corporate profitability to a level that people hadn’t seen since the 1930s.

结果是投资者对美国经济失去了信心：他们认为未来将受到两个负面因素的困扰。首先，他们没有看到公司利润有多少好转。其次，当时的高利率使他们进一步对微薄的利润进行折价。这两个因素共同作用，导致 1964 年至 1981 年间股市停滞不前，尽管这些年国民生产总值取得了巨大进步。国家的企业在增长，而投资者对该企业的估值却在缩水！

The upshot is that investors lost their confidence in the American economy: They were looking at a future they believed would be plagued by two negatives. First, they didn’t see much good coming in the way of corporate profits. Second, the sky-high interest rates prevailing caused them to discount those meager profits further. These two factors, working together, caused stagnation in the stock market from 1964 to 1981, even though those years featured huge improvements in GNP. The business of the country grew while investors’ valuation of that business shrank!

随后，这些因素发生了逆转，在此期间，国民生产总值的增幅大大降低，但市场却获得了丰厚的回报。首先，盈利率大幅提高。其次，利率大幅下降，使得一美元的未来利润变得更有价值。这两种现象都是推动大牛市的真实而有力的因素。随着时间的推移，我提到的心理因素也加入了这个等式： 投机交易爆炸性增长，原因很简单，因为人们看到了市场行为。稍后，我们将探讨这种危险且经常出现的弊病的病理。

And then the reversal of those factors created a period during which much lower GNP gains were accompanied by a bonanza for the market. First, you got a major increase in the rate of profitability. Second, you got an enormous drop in interest rates, which made a dollar of future profit that much more valuable. Both phenomena were real and powerful fuels for a major bull market. And in time the psychological factor I mentioned was added to the equation: Speculative trading exploded, simply because of the market action that people had seen. Later, we’ll look at the pathology of this dangerous and oft-recurring malady.

两年前，我相信有利的基本趋势已基本结束。如果市场要从当时的水平大幅上涨，就需要长期利率进一步下降（这总是有可能的），或者企业盈利能力有重大改善（当时看来，这似乎是相当大的）。可能性较小）。如果你看一下 50 年税后利润占国内生产总值 (GDP) 百分比的图表，你会发现该比率通常落在 4% 之间（例如 1981 年经济不景气时的水平） - 和 6.5%。利率超过 6.5% 的情况很少见。在1999年和2000年利润非常好的年份，这一比率低于6%，而今年很可能会降至5%以下。

Two years ago I believed the favorable fundamental trends had largely run their course. For the market to go dramatically up from where it was then would have required long-term interest rates to drop much further (which is always possible) or for there to be a major improvement in corporate profitability (which seemed, at the time, considerably less possible). If you take a look at a 50-year chart of after-tax profits as a percent of gross domestic product, you find that the rate normally falls between 4%–that was its neighborhood in the bad year of 1981, for example–and 6.5%. For the rate to go above 6.5% is rare. In the very good profit years of 1999 and 2000, the rate was under 6% and this year it may well fall below 5%.

这就是我对这两个截然不同的 17 年的解释。问题是，市场过去的这些时期对其未来有多大影响？

So there you have my explanation of those two wildly different 17-year periods. The question is, How much do those periods of the past for the market say about its future?

为了给出答案，我想回顾一下 20 世纪。如您所知，这确实是美国世纪。我们有了汽车、飞机、收音机、电视和电脑。那是一段令人难以置信的时期。事实上，以实际美元衡量（即不受通货膨胀影响），美国的人均产出增长率达到惊人的 702%。

To suggest an answer, I’d like to look back over the 20th century. As you know, this was really the American century. We had the advent of autos, we had aircraft, we had radio, TV, and computers. It was an incredible period. Indeed, the per capita growth in U.S. output, measured in real dollars (that is, with no impact from inflation), was a breathtaking 702%.

当然，本世纪也有一些非常艰难的年份，例如 1929 年至 1933 年的大萧条时期。但对人均 GNP 的十年观察显示出一些值得注意的事情：作为一个国家，我们在整个世纪中取得了相对一致的进步。因此，您可能会认为美国的经济价值（至少按照其证券市场来衡量）也会以相当一致的速度增长。

The century included some very tough years, of course–like the Depression years of 1929 to 1933. But a decade-by-decade look at per capita GNP shows something remarkable: As a nation, we made relatively consistent progress throughout the century. So you might think that the economic value of the U.S.–at least as measured by its securities markets–would have grown at a reasonably consistent pace as well.

事实并非如此。从我们之前对 1964-98 年时期的考察中我们知道，并行性在那个时代完全崩溃了。但整个世纪也证明了这一点。例如，在建国初期，即 1900 年至 1920 年间，这个国家一路向前，爆炸性地扩大了电力、汽车和电话的使用。然而市场几乎没有变化，年增长率为 0.4%，大致相当于 1964 年至 1981 年间的微薄采收。

That’s not what happened. We know from our earlier examination of the 1964-98 period that parallelism broke down completely in that era. But the whole century makes this point as well. At its beginning, for example, between 1900 and 1920, the country was chugging ahead, explosively expanding its use of electricity, autos, and the telephone. Yet the market barely moved, recording a 0.4% annual increase that was roughly analogous to the slim pickings between 1964 and 1981.

Dow Industrials 道琼斯工业指数 � Dec. 31, 1899: 66.08 1899 年 12 月 31 日的数值：66.08

� Dec. 31, 1920: 71.95 1920 年 12 月 31 日：71.95

在接下来的时期，我们经历了 20 世纪 20 年代的市场繁荣，当时道琼斯指数在 1929 年 9 月上涨了 430%，达到了 381 点。接下来是长达 19 年的时间——道琼斯指数降到了 177 点，只有最初水平的一半。尽管 1940 年代的人均 GDP 增长（50%）是 20 世纪任何十年中最大的，但这依然是事实。随后是一个 17 年的时期，股票终于开始上涨，取得了五倍的巨大收益。最后是开头提到的两个时期：直到 1981 年的停滞，以及结束这个辉煌世纪的繁荣。

In the next period, we had the market boom of the ’20s, when the Dow jumped 430% to 381 in September 1929. Then we go 19 years–19 years–and there is the Dow at 177, half the level where it began. That’s true even though the 1940s displayed by far the largest gain in per capita GDP (50%) of any 20th-century decade. Following that came a 17-year period when stocks finally took off–making a great five-to-one gain. And then the two periods discussed at the start: stagnation until 1981, and the roaring boom that wrapped up this amazing century.

从另一个角度来看，我们经历了三个巨大的世俗牛市，持续了大约 44 年，在这段时间里，道琼斯指数上涨了超过 11,000 点。同时，我们也经历了三个停滞期，持续了大约 56 年。在这 56 年中，国家取得了显著的经济进步，但道琼斯指数却实际下降了 292 点。

To break things down another way, we had three huge, secular bull markets that covered about 44 years, during which the Dow gained more than 11,000 points. And we had three periods of stagnation, covering some 56 years. During those 56 years the country made major economic progress and yet the Dow actually lost 292 points.

这怎么会发生？在一个繁荣的国家，人们专注于赚钱的情况下，怎么会经历三个漫长而痛苦的停滞期，综合起来——不算分红——竟然让你亏损？答案在于投资者反复犯的错误——我之前提到的心理因素：人们习惯性地受到后视镜的影响，通常只关注身后不远的景象。

How could this have happened? In a flourishing country in which people are focused on making money, how could you have had three extended and anguishing periods of stagnation that in aggregate–leaving aside dividends–would have lost you money? The answer lies in the mistake that investors repeatedly make–that psychological force I mentioned above: People are habitually guided by the rear-view mirror and, for the most part, by the vistas immediately behind them.

本世纪的前 20 年生动地展示了这种短视。在这段时间内，股票的收益通常高于高等级债券。虽然这种关系现在看起来有些奇怪，但当时几乎是公认的事实。股票被认为风险更高，那么除非能获得额外的回报，否则为什么要投资呢？

The first part of the century offers a vivid illustration of that myopia. In the century’s first 20 years, stocks normally yielded more than high-grade bonds. That relationship now seems quaint, but it was then almost axiomatic. Stocks were known to be riskier, so why buy them unless you were paid a premium?

然后出现了一本 1924 年的书——薄薄的，起初并不被重视，但注定会以前所未有的方式影响市场——作者是埃德加·劳伦斯·史密斯。这本书名为《普通股票作为长期投资》，记录了史密斯对 1922 年结束的 56 年间证券价格变动的研究。史密斯在研究开始时提出了一个假设：在通货膨胀时期，股票的表现会更好，而在通货紧缩时期，债券的表现会更好。这是一个非常合理的假设。

And then came along a 1924 book–slim and initially unheralded, but destined to move markets as never before–written by a man named Edgar Lawrence Smith. The book, called Common Stocks as Long Term Investments, chronicled a study Smith had done of security price movements in the 56 years ended in 1922. Smith had started off his study with a hypothesis: Stocks would do better in times of inflation, and bonds would do better in times of deflation. It was a perfectly reasonable hypothesis.

但请考虑书中的第一句话：“这些研究记录了一个失败——事实未能支持一个预设的理论。”史密斯接着说：“然而，收集到的事实似乎值得进一步研究。如果它们无法证明我们希望它们证明的内容，那么放手去追踪它们，跟随它们可能引导的任何结果似乎是明智的。”

But consider the first words in the book: “These studies are the record of a failure–the failure of facts to sustain a preconceived theory.” Smith went on: “The facts assembled, however, seemed worthy of further examination. If they would not prove what we had hoped to have them prove, it seemed desirable to turn them loose and to follow them to whatever end they might lead.”

现在，有一个聪明的人，他做了世界上最困难的事情。查尔斯·达尔文曾说，每当他遇到与自己珍视的结论相矛盾的事情时，他必须在 30 分钟内将新的发现记录下来。否则，他的思维会努力拒绝这些不和谐的信息，就像身体拒绝移植一样。人类的自然倾向是坚持自己的信念，尤其是当这些信念受到最近经历的强化时——这是我们性格中的一个缺陷，影响着在世俗牛市和长期停滞期间发生的事情。

Now, there was a smart man, who did just about the hardest thing in the world to do. Charles Darwin used to say that whenever he ran into something that contradicted a conclusion he cherished, he was obliged to write the new finding down within 30 minutes. Otherwise his mind would work to reject the discordant information, much as the body rejects transplants. Man’s natural inclination is to cling to his beliefs, particularly if they are reinforced by recent experience–a flaw in our makeup that bears on what happens during secular bull markets and extended periods of stagnation.

为了报告埃德加·劳伦斯·史密斯的发现，我引用了一位传奇思想家——约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯。他在 1925 年对这本书进行了评论，使其声名鹊起。在他的评论中，凯恩斯提到“也许是史密斯先生最重要的观点……当然也是他最独特的观点。管理良好的工业公司通常不会将全部赚取的利润分配给股东。在好的年份，甚至不是每一年，他们会保留一部分利润并将其再投入到业务中。因此，复利（凯恩斯的斜体字）在稳健的工业投资中起着积极作用。”

To report what Edgar Lawrence Smith discovered, I will quote a legendary thinker–John Maynard Keynes, who in 1925 reviewed the book, thereby putting it on the map. In his review, Keynes described “perhaps Mr. Smith’s most important point … and certainly his most novel point. Well-managed industrial companies do not, as a rule, distribute to the shareholders the whole of their earned profits. In good years, if not in all years, they retain a part of their profits and put them back in the business. Thus there is an element of compound interest (Keynes’ italics) operating in favor of a sound industrial investment.”

这其实很简单。这甚至不算新闻。人们当然知道公司并不会将 100%的收益分配出去。但投资者并没有深入思考这一点的含义。然而，这里有个叫史密斯的人说：“为什么股票通常表现得比债券好？一个主要原因是企业会保留收益，而这些收益又会产生更多的收益——还有股息。”

It was that simple. It wasn’t even news. People certainly knew that companies were not paying out 100% of their earnings. But investors hadn’t thought through the implications of the point. Here, though, was this guy Smith saying, “Why do stocks typically outperform bonds? A major reason is that businesses retain earnings, with these going on to generate still more earnings–and dividends, too.”

这个发现引发了前所未有的牛市。在史密斯的洞察力激励下，投资者纷纷涌入股票，预期会出现双重下跌：股票的初始收益率高于债券，还有额外的增长。对美国公众而言，这种新的理解就像是发现了火。

That finding ignited an unprecedented bull market. Galvanized by Smith’s insight, investors piled into stocks, anticipating a double dip: their higher initial yield over bonds, and growth to boot. For the American public, this new understanding was like the discovery of fire.

但不久之后，公众就遭受了损失。股票价格被推高，最初使其收益率降至债券的水平，最终使其收益率远低于债券。接下来发生的事情让人感到异常熟悉：股票价格迅速上涨的事实成为人们涌入股市的主要动力。1925 年，少数人出于正确的理由购买的股票，到了 1929 年，许多人却出于错误的理由购买。

But before long that same public was burned. Stocks were driven to prices that first pushed down their yield to that on bonds and ultimately drove their yield far lower. What happened then should strike readers as eerily familiar: The mere fact that share prices were rising so quickly became the main impetus for people to rush into stocks. What the few bought for the right reason in 1925, the many bought for the wrong reason in 1929.

凯恩斯在 1925 年的评论中敏锐地预见到了这种反常现象。他写道：“将基于过去经验的归纳论证应用于未来是危险的……除非能够区分出过去经验为何如此的根本原因。”如果你无法做到这一点，他警告说，你可能会陷入期待未来结果的陷阱，而这些结果只有在条件与过去完全相同的情况下才会出现。当然，他所提到的特殊条件，源于史密斯的研究涵盖了一个半个世纪，在此期间，股票的收益通常高于高等级债券。

Astutely, Keynes anticipated a perversity of this kind in his 1925 review. He wrote: “It is dangerous…to apply to the future inductive arguments based on past experience, unless one can distinguish the broad reasons why past experience was what it was.” If you can’t do that, he said, you may fall into the trap of expecting results in the future that will materialize only if conditions are exactly the same as they were in the past. The special conditions he had in mind, of course, stemmed from the fact that Smith’s study covered a half century during which stocks generally yielded more than high-grade bonds.

投资者在 1920 年代所犯的巨大错误在此后以某种形式多次重演。公众在 1920 年代股票狂热后的巨大宿醉，如我们所见，持续到了 1948 年。那时，国家的内在价值远远超过 20 年前；股息收益率是债券收益率的两倍多；然而，股票价格却不到 1929 年峰值的一半。导致史密斯奇迹般结果的条件再次出现，而且是以更强烈的形式。但在 1940 年代末，投资者并没有看到显而易见的情况，而是被 1930 年代初令人恐惧的市场所吸引，避免再次遭受痛苦。

The colossal miscalculation that investors made in the 1920s has recurred in one form or another several times since. The public’s monumental hangover from its stock binge of the 1920s lasted, as we have seen, through 1948. The country was then intrinsically far more valuable than it had been 20 years before; dividend yields were more than double the yield on bonds; and yet stock prices were at less than half their 1929 peak. The conditions that had produced Smith’s wondrous results had reappeared–in spades. But rather than seeing what was in plain sight in the late 1940s, investors were transfixed by the frightening market of the early 1930s and were avoiding re-exposure to pain.

不要一瞬间认为小投资者是唯一对后视镜过于关注的罪魁祸首。让我们看看近年来专业管理的养老金基金的表现。在 1971 年——那是漂亮50时期——养老金经理们对市场充满信心，将超过 90%的净现金流投入股票，创下了当时的记录。然而，几年后，市场崩溃，股票价格大幅下跌。那么养老金基金经理们做了什么呢？他们停止购买，因为股票变得便宜了！

Don’t think for a moment that small investors are the only ones guilty of too much attention to the rear-view mirror. Let’s look at the behavior of professionally managed pension funds in recent decades. In 1971–this was Nifty Fifty time–pension managers, feeling great about the market, put more than 90% of their net cash flow into stocks, a record commitment at the time. And then, in a couple of years, the roof fell in and stocks got way cheaper. So what did the pension fund managers do? They quit buying because stocks got cheaper!

私人养老金基金中投入股票的现金流比例 � 1971: 91% (record high) 1971 年：91%（创历史新高）

� 1974: 13%

这是我永远无法理解的事情。为了谈谈我个人的口味，我打算在余生中一直吃汉堡。当汉堡降价时，我们在巴菲特家里会唱“哈利路亚合唱曲”；而当汉堡涨价时，我们就会感到沮丧。对大多数人来说，生活中他们要购买的所有东西都是如此——除了股票。当股票下跌、你能用更少的钱买到更多时，人们就不再喜欢它们了。

This is the one thing I can never understand. To refer to a personal taste of mine, I’m going to buy hamburgers the rest of my life. When hamburgers go down in price, we sing the “Hallelujah Chorus” in the Buffett household. When hamburgers go up, we weep. For most people, it’s the same way with everything in life they will be buying–except stocks. When stocks go down and you can get more for your money, people don’t like them anymore.

这种行为尤其令人困惑，尤其是养老金基金经理表现出这种行为时，他们理应拥有所有投资者中最长的投资时间。这些经理明天、明年甚至下个十年都不需要动用基金中的钱。因此，他们完全可以放松心情。此外，由于他们并不是在使用自己的资金，原本的贪婪不应该影响他们的决策。他们应该简单地考虑什么是最合理的。然而，他们的行为却像是完全的业余爱好者（尽管他们的薪酬却像是拥有特殊专业知识一样）。

That sort of behavior is especially puzzling when engaged in by pension fund managers, who by all rights should have the longest time horizon of any investors. These managers are not going to need the money in their funds tomorrow, not next year, nor even next decade. So they have total freedom to sit back and relax. Since they are not operating with their own funds, moreover, raw greed should not distort their decisions. They should simply think about what makes the most sense. Yet they behave just like rank amateurs (getting paid, though, as if they had special expertise).

1979 年，当我认为股票是一个绝佳的买入机会时，我在一篇文章中写道：“养老金基金经理在做投资决策时，目光始终盯着后视镜。这种将军打最后一场战争的策略在过去已经证明代价高昂，这次也很可能同样代价高昂。”我这样说是因为“目前股票的价格水平应该能带来远远超过债券的长期回报。”

In 1979, when I felt stocks were a screaming buy, I wrote in an article, “Pension fund managers continue to make investment decisions with their eyes firmly fixed on the rear-view mirror. This generals-fighting-the-last-war approach has proved costly in the past and will likely prove equally costly this time around.” That’s true, I said, because “stocks now sell at levels that should produce long-term returns far superior to bonds.”

回顾 1972 年的情况，当时养老金基金经理仍在大量投资股票：道琼斯指数年末为 1020，平均账面价值为 625，账面收益率为 11%。六年后，道琼斯指数便宜了 20%，其账面价值几乎增长了 40%，账面收益率为 13%。正如我当时所说，“在 1978 年，当养老金基金经理不愿意购买股票时，股票显然比 1972 年便宜，那时他们以创纪录的速度购买股票。”

Consider the circumstances in 1972, when pension fund managers were still loading up on stocks: The Dow ended the year at 1020, had an average book value of 625, and earned 11% on book. Six years later, the Dow was 20% cheaper, its book value had gained nearly 40%, and it had earned 13% on book. Or as I wrote then, “Stocks were demonstrably cheaper in 1978 when pension fund managers wouldn’t buy them than they were in 1972, when they bought them at record rates.”

在文章发表时，长期公司债券的收益率大约为 9.5%。因此，我提出了一个看似显而易见的问题：“在 20 年内，从一组 1999 年到期的 9.5%收益的美国顶尖公司债券中，能否获得比从一组在账面价值附近购买的道琼斯类型股票中获得的更好结果，而这些股票的整体收益率可能约为 13%？”这个问题的答案显而易见。

At the time of the article, long-term corporate bonds were yielding about 9.5%. So I asked this seemingly obvious question: “Can better results be obtained, over 20 years, from a group of 9.5% bonds of leading American companies maturing in 1999 than from a group of Dow-type equities purchased, in aggregate, around book value and likely to earn, in aggregate, about 13% on that book value?” The question answered itself.

现在，如果你在 1979 年读过那篇文章，你一定会经历痛苦——哦，你会经历多么巨大的痛苦！——大约持续了三年。那时我对股票价格的短期波动毫无头绪，现在也是如此。我从来无法预测股票市场在接下来的六个月、明年或接下来的两年会发生什么。

Now, if you had read that article in 1979, you would have suffered–oh, how you would have suffered!–for about three years. I was no good then at forecasting the near-term movements of stock prices, and I’m no good now. I never have the faintest idea what the stock market is going to do in the next six months, or the next year, or the next two.

但我认为，从长远来看，很容易看出可能发生的事情。本·格雷厄姆告诉我们原因：“虽然股市在短期内像投票机一样运作，但在长期内它更像是一个称重机。”恐惧和贪婪在投票时扮演着重要角色，但它们在称重时并不会被记录。

But I think it is very easy to see what is likely to happen over the long term. Ben Graham told us why: “Though the stock market functions as a voting machine in the short run, it acts as a weighing machine in the long run.” Fear and greed play important roles when votes are being cast, but they don’t register on the scale.

我认为，在 20 年的时间里，9.5%的债券表现不会比这种被称为道琼斯的伪装债券更好，而你可以以低于面值的价格购买这种债券——即账面价值——而它的收益率是 13%。

By my thinking, it was not hard to say that, over a 20-year period, a 9.5% bond wasn’t going to do as well as this disguised bond called the Dow that you could buy below par–that’s book value–and that was earning 13% on par.

让我解释一下我提到的“伪装债券”这个术语。债券，大家都知道，具有一定的到期日，并且会附带一些小的票息。例如，6%的债券每六个月支付 3%的票息。

Let me explain what I mean by that term I slipped in there, “disguised bond.” A bond, as most of you know, comes with a certain maturity and with a string of little coupons. A 6% bond, for example, pays a 3% coupon every six months.

股票与此不同，是一种金融工具，拥有对特定企业未来分配的权利，无论这些分配是以股息的形式支付，还是用于回购股票，或是在出售或清算后进行结算。这些支付实际上就像是“息票”。获得这些支付的股东会随着股东的进出而变化。但整体而言，企业所有者的财务结果将由这些息票的金额和时间决定。估算这些细节正是投资分析的核心内容。

A stock, in contrast, is a financial instrument that has a claim on future distributions made by a given business, whether they are paid out as dividends or to repurchase stock or to settle up after sale or liquidation. These payments are in effect “coupons.” The set of owners getting them will change as shareholders come and go. But the financial outcome for the business’ owners as a whole will be determined by the size and timing of these coupons. Estimating those particulars is what investment analysis is all about.

现在，评估这些“优惠券”的规模对于个别股票来说非常困难，但对于股票组合来说就容易多了。正如我提到的，1978 年，道琼斯的平均账面价值为 850 美元，收益率为 13%。这 13%只能作为一个基准，而不是保证。然而，如果你当时愿意在股票上投资一段时间，实际上你是在购买一只债券——在 1979 年，价格很少超过面值——其本金价值为 891 美元，并且本金上有可能获得 13%的利息。

Now, gauging the size of those “coupons” gets very difficult for individual stocks. It’s easier, though, for groups of stocks. Back in 1978, as I mentioned, we had the Dow earning 13% on its average book value of $850. The 13% could only be a benchmark, not a guarantee. Still, if you’d been willing then to invest for a period of time in stocks, you were in effect buying a bond–at prices that in 1979 seldom inched above par–with a principal value of $891 and a quite possible 13% coupon on the principal.

这怎么可能比 9.5%的债券更好呢？从这个起点来看，股票在长期内必须表现得比债券更好。顺便提一下，这在我大部分的商业生涯中都是成立的。但正如凯恩斯所提醒我们的，股票的优越性并不是必然的。只有在特定条件下，它们才能占据优势。

How could that not be better than a 9.5% bond? From that starting point, stocks had to outperform bonds over the long term. That, incidentally, has been true during most of my business lifetime. But as Keynes would remind us, the superiority of stocks isn’t inevitable. They own the advantage only when certain conditions prevail.

让我给你展示一下关于养老金基金中从众心理的另一个观点——这个观点可能因为管理这些基金的人的一些自利而更加明显。下面的表格列出了四家知名公司——这些公司在我可以选择的许多其他公司中是典型的——以及它们在计算每年应为养老金支付的费用（或信用）时所使用的养老金基金资产的预期回报。

Let me show you another point about the herd mentality among pension funds–a point perhaps accentuated by a little self-interest on the part of those who oversee the funds. In the table below are four well-known companies–typical of many others I could have selected–and the expected returns on their pension fund assets that they used in calculating what charge (or credit) they should make annually for pensions.

现在，一家公司用于养老金的预期收益率越高，其报告的盈利就会越高。这就是养老金会计的运作方式——我希望为了简洁起见，你能相信我说的。

Now, the higher the expectation rate that a company uses for pensions, the higher its reported earnings will be. That’s just the way that pension accounting works–and I hope, for the sake of relative brevity, that you’ll just take my word for it.

正如表格所示，1975 年的预期相对保守：埃克森美孚为 7%，通用电气和通用汽车为 6%，而 IBM 则低于 5%。这些假设的奇怪之处在于，投资者当时可以购买收益率为 8%的长期不可赎回政府债券。换句话说，这些公司本可以将整个投资组合都投入 8%的无风险债券，但他们却选择了更低的预期。到 1982 年，正如你所看到的，他们的预期略有上升，大多数达到了 7%左右。然而，此时你可以以 10.4%的收益率购买长期政府债券。实际上，你可以通过购买所谓的“剥离债券”来锁定这个收益率，确保你有 10.4%的再投资回报率。实际上，即使是你的傻侄子也能管理这个基金，并获得远高于公司所使用的投资预期的回报。

As the table shows, expectations in 1975 were modest: 7% for Exxon, 6% for GE and GM, and under 5% for IBM. The oddity of these assumptions is that investors could then buy long-term government noncallable bonds that paid 8%. In other words, these companies could have loaded up their entire portfolio with 8% no-risk bonds, but they nevertheless used lower assumptions. By 1982, as you can see, they had moved up their assumptions a little bit, most to around 7%. But now you could buy long-term governments at 10.4%. You could in fact have locked in that yield for decades by buying so-called strips that guaranteed you a 10.4% reinvestment rate. In effect, your idiot nephew could have managed the fund and achieved returns far higher than the investment assumptions corporations were using.

为什么一家公司会选择假设 7.5%的收益率，而不是在政府债券上获得近 10.5%呢？答案又回到了过去的经历：经历过 1970 年代初漂亮50崩溃的投资者仍然感受到那段时期的痛苦，他们在对回报的思考上已经落后了。他们无法进行必要的心理调整。

Why in the world would a company be assuming 7.5% when it could get nearly 10.5% on government bonds? The answer is that rear-view mirror again: Investors who’d been through the collapse of the Nifty Fifty in the early 1970s were still feeling the pain of the period and were out of date in their thinking about returns. They couldn’t make the necessary mental adjustment.

现在回到 2000 年，当时长期政府利率为 5.4%。那么这四家公司在 2000 年年报中对其养老金基金的预期是怎样的呢？他们的假设利率为 9.5%甚至 10%。

Now fast-forward to 2000, when we had long-term governments at 5.4%. And what were the four companies saying in their 2000 annual reports about expectations for their pension funds? They were using assumptions of 9.5% and even 10%.

我是一个喜欢押注的人，我非常想和这四家公司中的任何一家首席财务官，或者他们的精算师或审计师打个大赌，赌在接下来的 15 年里，他们的平均利率不会达到他们所假设的水平。首先，我们来看看数学。一个基金的投资组合很可能有三分之一是债券，假设有一个保守的发行组合和适当的到期范围，基金今天不能期望赚到超过 5%。因此，很明显，基金需要在三分之二的股票上平均赚取超过 11%，才能整体获得大约 9.5%的收益。这是一个相当大胆的假设，尤其是考虑到一个典型基金所产生的高额投资费用。

I’m a sporting type, and I would love to make a large bet with the chief financial officer of any one of those four companies, or with their actuaries or auditors, that over the next 15 years they will not average the rates they’ve postulated. Just look at the math, for one thing. A fund’s portfolio is very likely to be one-third bonds, on which–assuming a conservative mix of issues with an appropriate range of maturities–the fund cannot today expect to earn much more than 5%. It’s simple to see then that the fund will need to average more than 11% on the two-thirds that’s in stocks to earn about 9.5% overall. That’s a pretty heroic assumption, particularly given the substantial investment expenses that a typical fund incurs.

英雄般的假设确实能对企业的底线产生奇效。通过接受右侧列中显示的预期利率，这些公司报告的收益远远高于使用较低利率时的收益。这一点显然不会被设定利率的人所忽视。参与这个游戏的精算师对未来的投资回报并没有特别的见解，但他们知道客户希望利率能够更高。而一个满意的客户就是一个持续合作的客户。

Heroic assumptions do wonders, however, for the bottom line. By embracing those expectation rates shown in the far right column, these companies report much higher earnings–much higher–than if they were using lower rates. And that’s certainly not lost on the people who set the rates. The actuaries who have roles in this game know nothing special about future investment returns. What they do know, however, is that their clients desire rates that are high. And a happy client is a continuing client.

我们在谈论大数字吗？让我们来看看通用电气，这个国家最有价值和最受尊敬的公司。我自己也是它的忠实崇拜者。通用电气在过去几十年里出色地管理着其养老金基金，其对回报的假设也符合行业的普遍标准。我之所以以这家公司为例，仅仅是因为它的知名度。

Are we talking big numbers here? Let’s take a look at General Electric, the country’s most valuable and most admired company. I’m a huge admirer myself. GE has run its pension fund extraordinarily well for decades, and its assumptions about returns are typical of the crowd. I use the company as an example simply because of its prominence.

如果我们能再次回到 1982 年，通用电气记录了 5.7 亿美元的养老金费用，这使得公司损失了 20%的税前收益。去年，通用电气记录了 17.4 亿美元的养老金信贷，占公司税前收益的 9%。这笔信贷是家电部门利润 6.84 亿美元的 2.5 倍。17.4 亿美元的信贷无疑是一笔巨款。如果降低养老金的假设，几乎可以消除大部分信贷。

If we may retreat to 1982 again, GE recorded a pension charge of $570 million. That amount cost the company 20% of its pretax earnings. Last year GE recorded a $1.74 billion pension credit. That was 9% of the company’s pretax earnings. And it was 2 1/2 times the appliance division’s profit of $684 million. A $1.74 billion credit is simply a lot of money. Reduce that pension assumption enough and you wipe out most of the credit.

通用电气及许多其他公司的养老金信用源于 1987 年生效的财务会计标准委员会的一项规定。从那时起，具备正确假设并获得所需基金表现的公司可以将养老金收入计入其财务报表。根据高盛的数据，去年标准普尔 500 指数中有 35 家公司超过 10%的收益来自养老金信用，尽管在许多情况下，它们的养老金投资价值却在下降。

GE’s pension credit, and that of many another corporation, owes its existence to a rule of the Financial Accounting Standards Board that went into effect in 1987. From that point on, companies equipped with the right assumptions and getting the fund performance they needed could start crediting pension income to their income statements. Last year, according to Goldman Sachs, 35 companies in the S&P 500 got more than 10% of their earnings from pension credits, even as, in many cases, the value of their pension investments shrank.

不幸的是，尽管养老金假设这一主题至关重要，但在公司董事会会议上几乎从未被提及。（我自己曾在 19 个董事会任职，但从未听到过对此主题的认真讨论。）如今，讨论这一问题的必要性尤为迫切，因为目前的假设极为极端，大家都在回顾 1990 年代的辉煌。我邀请你询问一家拥有大型确定福利养老金基金的公司的首席财务官，如果将养老金假设降低到 6.5%，公司收益需要做出怎样的调整。如果你想更苛刻一点，可以问问 1975 年时公司的假设是什么，那时股票和债券的预期回报率远高于现在。

Unfortunately, the subject of pension assumptions, critically important though it is, almost never comes up in corporate board meetings. (I myself have been on 19 boards, and I’ve never heard a serious discussion of this subject.) And now, of course, the need for discussion is paramount because these assumptions that are being made, with all eyes looking backward at the glories of the 1990s, are so extreme. I invite you to ask the CFO of a company having a large defined-benefit pension fund what adjustment would need to be made to the company’s earnings if its pension assumption was lowered to 6.5%. And then, if you want to be mean, ask what the company’s assumptions were back in 1975 when both stocks and bonds had far higher prospective returns than they do now.

随着 2001 年年度报告即将发布，观察公司是否降低了对未来养老金回报的预期将会很有趣。考虑到最近的回报表现不佳以及未来可能面临的挑战，我认为任何选择不降低预期的人——无论是首席执行官、审计师还是精算师——都在冒着因误导投资者而引发诉讼的风险。而那些不质疑这种乐观态度的董事们显然没有履行好他们的职责。

With 2001 annual reports soon to arrive, it will be interesting to see whether companies have reduced their assumptions about future pension returns. Considering how poor returns have been recently and the reprises that probably lie ahead, I think that anyone choosing not to lower assumptions–CEOs, auditors, and actuaries all–is risking litigation for misleading investors. And directors who don’t question the optimism thus displayed simply won’t be doing their job.

我们在过去一个世纪的旅程证明，市场的极端非理性会周期性地爆发，这强烈表明，想要获得成功的投资者最好学会如何应对下一次的爆发。我们需要一种解药，而在我看来，这就是量化。如果你进行量化，虽然不一定能达到辉煌，但也不会陷入疯狂。

The tour we’ve taken through the last century proves that market irrationality of an extreme kind periodically erupts–and compellingly suggests that investors wanting to do well had better learn how to deal with the next outbreak. What’s needed is an antidote, and in my opinion that’s quantification. If you quantify, you won’t necessarily rise to brilliance, but neither will you sink into craziness.

从宏观角度来看，量化并不复杂。以下是一张图表，始于近 80 年前，内容相当基础。该图表显示了所有公开交易证券的市场价值占国家商业的百分比，也就是占国民生产总值的百分比。这个比率在提供所需信息时有一定的局限性，但它可能是任何时刻估值状况的最佳单一衡量标准。正如你所看到的，近两年前这个比率达到了前所未有的水平，这本应是一个非常强烈的警告信号。

On a macro basis, quantification doesn’t have to be complicated at all. Below is a chart, starting almost 80 years ago and really quite fundamental in what it says. The chart shows the market value of all publicly traded securities as a percentage of the country’s business–that is, as a percentage of GNP. The ratio has certain limitations in telling you what you need to know. Still, it is probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment. And as you can see, nearly two years ago the ratio rose to an unprecedented level. That should have been a very strong warning signal.

为了让投资者的财富增长速度超过美国商业的增长，图表上的百分比关系线必须持续上升。如果国民生产总值每年增长 5%，而你希望市场价值增长 10%，那么这条线就需要直直地从图表的顶部延伸出去。但这并不可能。

For investors to gain wealth at a rate that exceeds the growth of U.S. business, the percentage relationship line on the chart must keep going up and up. If GNP is going to grow 5% a year and you want market values to go up 10%, then you need to have the line go straight off the top of the chart. That won’t happen.

对我来说，这张图表传达的信息是：如果百分比关系降到 70%或 80%之间，购买股票很可能会对你非常有利。如果比例接近 200%——就像 1999 年和 2000 年初那样——你就是在玩火。正如你所看到的，最近的比例是 133%。

For me, the message of that chart is this: If the percentage relationship falls to the 70% or 80% area, buying stocks is likely to work very well for you. If the ratio approaches 200%–as it did in 1999 and a part of 2000–you are playing with fire. As you can see, the ratio was recently 133%.

尽管如此，这与我在 1999 年谈论市场时相比，仍然是一个相当大的下降。我当时大胆预测，美国公众在接下来的十年或二十年内（假设包括股息和 2%的通货膨胀）应该期待大约 7%的股权回报。这是一个毛额数字，没有考虑到摩擦成本，比如佣金和费用。净回报，我认为可能在 6%左右。

Even so, that is a good-sized drop from when I was talking about the market in 1999. I ventured then that the American public should expect equity returns over the next decade or two (with dividends included and 2% inflation assumed) of perhaps 7%. That was a gross figure, not counting frictional costs, such as commissions and fees. Net, I thought returns might be 6%.

今天的股市可以说“汉堡”更便宜了。国家经济增长，股票价格下跌，这意味着投资者能获得更多的回报。我预计现在长期回报率会稍微高一些，扣除成本后大约在 7%左右。这并不算坏——除非你仍然是根据 1990 年代的情况来设定预期。

Today stock market “hamburgers,” so to speak, are cheaper. The country’s economy has grown and stocks are lower, which means that investors are getting more for their money. I would expect now to see long-term returns run somewhat higher, in the neighborhood of 7% after costs. Not bad at all–that is, unless you’re still deriving your expectations from the 1990s.