巴菲特谈股市

时间：1999年11月22日

来源：Fortune

原文标题： [Mr. Buffett on the Stock Market The most celebrated of investors says stocks can't possibly meet the public's expectations. As for the Internet? He notes how few people got rich from two other transforming industries, auto and aviation.]()

《财富》杂志 - 伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的董事长沃伦·巴菲特几乎从不公开谈论股价的总体水平——无论是在他著名的年度报告中，还是在伯克希尔人山人海的年度会议上，亦或是他偶尔的演讲中。然而，在过去的几个月里，巴菲特在四个场合针对这个主题发表了观点，以分析和创新的方式阐述了他对股票长期前景的看法。《财富》杂志的卡罗尔·洛米斯听到了他在九月份对一群巴菲特的朋友们（她也是其中之一）的最后一次演讲，也观看了他在七月份在爱伦·公司在爱达荷州太阳谷为商业领袖们举办的派对上的第一次演讲的录像。洛米斯从这些即兴演讲中（第一次演讲时道琼斯工业平均指数为11194）提炼出了巴菲特说过的内容，巴菲特审阅了它，并对一些内容进行了澄清。

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, almost never talks publicly about the general level of stock prices–neither in his famed annual report nor at Berkshire’s thronged annual meetings nor in the rare speeches he gives. But in the past few months, on four occasions, Buffett did step up to that subject, laying out his opinions, in ways both analytical and creative, about the long-term future for stocks. FORTUNE’s Carol Loomis heard the last of those talks, given in September to a group of Buffett’s friends (of whom she is one), and also watched a videotape of the first speech, given in July at Allen & Co.’s Sun Valley, Idaho, bash for business leaders. From those extemporaneous talks (the first made with the Dow Jones industrial average at 11,194), Loomis distilled the following account of what Buffett said. Buffett reviewed it and weighed in with some clarifications.

现在的股票投资者期望过高，我将解释为什么。这将不可避免地让我谈到市场整体行情，这是我通常不愿讨论的主题。但我想在一开始就明确一件事：尽管我将谈论市场的水平，我不会预测它的下一步动向。在伯克希尔，我们几乎专注于个别公司的估值，对整体市场的估值只有非常有限的关注。即使是这样，评估市场与它下周、下个月或明年将走向何方无关，这是我们从不涉足的思考方式。事实上，市场的行为方式，有时会在很长一段时间内，与价值无关。但是，迟早，价值是重要的。所以，我要说的——假设它是正确的——将对美国股票持有人实现的长期结果产生影响。

Investors in stocks these days are expecting far too much, and I’m going to explain why. That will inevitably set me to talking about the general stock market, a subject I’m usually unwilling to discuss. But I want to make one thing clear going in: Though I will be talking about the level of the market, I will not be predicting its next moves. At Berkshire we focus almost exclusively on the valuations of individual companies, looking only to a very limited extent at the valuation of the overall market. Even then, valuing the market has nothing to do with where it’s going to go next week or next month or next year, a line of thought we never get into. The fact is that markets behave in ways, sometimes for a very long stretch, that are not linked to value. Sooner or later, though, value counts. So what I am going to be saying–assuming it’s correct–will have implications for the long-term results to be realized by American stockholders.

首先，让我们定义一下“投资”。这个定义很简单但经常被忽视：投资就是现在投入资金，期待未来获得更多的资金回报——在考虑通胀因素后，是更多的实际资金。

Let’s start by defining “investing.” The definition is simple but often forgotten: Investing is laying out money now to get more money back in the future–more money in real terms, after taking inflation into account.

现在，为了获取一些历史视角，让我们回顾一下这之前的34年——在这里我们将看到一个近乎《圣经》式的对称，意味着瘦年和丰年——来观察股市发生了什么。首先，从1964年底到1981年的这17年时间，让我们看看在这个时间间隔内发生了什么：

Now, to get some historical perspective, let’s look back at the 34 years before this one–and here we are going to see an almost Biblical kind of symmetry, in the sense of lean years and fat years–to observe what happened in the stock market. Take, to begin with, the first 17 years of the period, from the end of 1964 through 1981. Here’s what took place in that interval:

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

即使我以长期投资和耐心著称，但我也不认为这是大幅波动。

Now I’m known as a long-term investor and a patient guy, but that is not my idea of a big move.

另一个主要而截然不同的事实是：在同样的17年期间，美国的GDP——也就是这个国家的商业活动——几乎翻了五倍，增长了370%。或者，如果我们看另一个衡量标准，FORTUNE 500的销售（当然是不断变化的公司组合）增长了六倍多。然而，道琼斯指数却一直没有变动。

And here’s a major and very opposite fact: During that same 17 years, the GDP of the U.S.–that is, the business being done in this country–almost quintupled, rising by 370%. Or, if we look at another measure, the sales of the FORTUNE 500 (a changing mix of companies, of course) more than sextupled. And yet the Dow went exactly nowhere.

为了理解为什么会这样，我们首先需要看一下影响投资结果的两个重要变量之一：利率。利率对金融估值的影响就像重力对物质的影响：利率越高，下拉的力度就越大。那是因为投资者从任何类型的投资中需要的回报率直接与他们可以从政府债券中获得的无风险利率相挂钩。因此，如果政府利率上升，所有其他投资的价格必须向下调整，以便将其预期回报率保持在一致的水平。反之，如果政府利率下降，这个动作会推高所有其他投资的价格。基本的原理是：投资者今天应该为明天将要收到的一美元支付多少钱，只能首先看一下无风险利率。

To understand why that happened, we need first to look at one of the two important variables that affect investment results: interest rates. These act on financial valuations the way gravity acts on matter: The higher the rate, the greater the downward pull. That’s because the rates of return that investors need from any kind of investment are directly tied to the risk-free rate that they can earn from government securities. So if the government rate rises, the prices of all other investments must adjust downward, to a level that brings their expected rates of return into line. Conversely, if government interest rates fall, the move pushes the prices of all other investments upward. The basic proposition is this: What an investor should pay today for a dollar to be received tomorrow can only be determined by first looking at the risk-free interest rate.

因此，每当无风险利率移动一个基点（0.01%）时，该国每项投资的价值都会发生变化。人们可以很容易地在债券的情况下看到这一点，债券的价值通常只受到利率的影响。在股票、房地产、农场或其他领域的情况下，通常还有其他非常重要的变量在起作用，这意味着利率变化的影响通常被掩盖。尽管如此，这种影响就像无形的引力一样，始终存在。

Consequently, every time the risk-free rate moves by one basis point–by 0.01%–the value of every investment in the country changes. People can see this easily in the case of bonds, whose value is normally affected only by interest rates. In the case of equities or real estate or farms or whatever, other very important variables are almost always at work, and that means the effect of interest rate changes is usually obscured. Nonetheless, the effect–like the invisible pull of gravity–is constantly there.

在1964年至1981年的时期，长期政府债券利率出现了巨大增长，从1964年年末略高于4%上升到1981年末的超过15%。利率的上涨对所有投资价值产生了巨大的抑制作用，但我们当然会注意到的是股票的价格。因此，在利率的引力增加三倍的情况下，这就是为什么经济的巨大增长伴随着股市一片寂静的主要解释所在。

In the 1964-81 period, there was a tremendous increase in the rates on long-term government bonds, which moved from just over 4% at year-end 1964 to more than 15% by late 1981. That rise in rates had a huge depressing effect on the value of all investments, but the one we noticed, of course, was the price of equities. So there–in that tripling of the gravitational pull of interest rates–lies the major explanation of why tremendous growth in the economy was accompanied by a stock market going nowhere.

然后，在20世纪80年代初，情况发生了逆转。你会记得保罗·沃尔克出任美联储主席的情况，也会记得他当时是多么不受欢迎。但他所做的英勇事情——他对经济的举措和对通胀的遏制——导致了利率趋势的逆转，取得了一些相当惊人的结果。假设你在1981年11月16日购买了面值为1百万美元、利率为14%、期限为30年的美国国债，并将票息再投资。也就是说，每当你获得一笔利息支付，你用它来购买更多同一种债券。到1998年底，当时长期政府债券的利率降至5%，你将拥有8,181,219美元，并获得每年超过13%的回报率。

Then, in the early 1980s, the situation reversed itself. You will remember Paul Volcker coming in as chairman of the Fed and remember also how unpopular he was. But the heroic things he did–his taking a two-by-four to the economy and breaking the back of inflation–caused the interest rate trend to reverse, with some rather spectacular results. Let’s say you put $1 million into the 14% 30-year U.S. bond issued Nov. 16, 1981, and reinvested the coupons. That is, every time you got an interest payment, you used it to buy more of that same bond. At the end of 1998, with long-term governments by then selling at 5%, you would have had $8,181,219 and would have earned an annual return of more than 13%.

这种每年13%的回报率比历史上许多17年期间股票的表现要好——事实上，在大多数17年期间都如此。这是一个了不起的结果，而且是来自一张普通的债券。

That 13% annual return is better than stocks have done in a great many 17-year periods in history–in most 17-year periods, in fact. It was a helluva result, and from none other than a stodgy bond.

利率的影响力也推动了股票的上涨，尽管其他因素也起到了额外的推动作用，我们接下来会提到这些因素。在同样的17年时间里，股票的表现如下：如果你在1981年11月16日投资了100万美元在道琼斯指数，并将所有股息再投资，你到1998年12月31日将拥有19,720,112美元。你的年回报率将达到19%。

The power of interest rates had the effect of pushing up equities as well, though other things that we will get to pushed additionally. And so here’s what equities did in that same 17 years: If you’d invested $1 million in the Dow on Nov. 16, 1981, and reinvested all dividends, you’d have had $19,720,112 on Dec. 31, 1998. And your annual return would have been 19%.

自1981年以来，股票价值的增长超过了历史上任何时期的表现。这个增长甚至超过了你在1932年购买股票的情况——当时正值经济大萧条，最低点是1932年7月8日，道琼斯指数收于41.22点——并持有它们17年的情况。

The increase in equity values since 1981 beats anything you can find in history. This increase even surpasses what you would have realized if you’d bought stocks in 1932, at their Depression bottom–on its lowest day, July 8, 1932, the Dow closed at 41.22–and held them for 17 years.

第二个影响这17年股票价格的因素是税后企业利润，这张图表显示了税后企业利润占GDP的百分比。实际上，这张图表告诉你的是美国企业股东每年从GDP中获得了多少份额。

The second thing bearing on stock prices during this 17 years was after-tax corporate profits, which this chart [above] displays as a percentage of GDP. In effect, what this chart tells you is what portion of the GDP ended up every year with the shareholders of American business.