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.

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《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.