巴菲特，1998年佛罗里达大学演讲

时间：1998年10月15日

来源：Florida University School of Business

开场白（0:00 – 1:00）

（测试麦克风）测试，一百万？两百万？三百万？看起来没问题了。

Testing, One million? two million? three million? seems to be working.

我打算就简短的讲几句，然后主要的是几分钟之后的问答环节。因为我想回答一些你们想知道的事情。我恳请你们给我出难题，因为这样对我来说带难度的问题更有意思（巴菲特在这里做了一个棒球的比喻，如果在投出的时候带点速度，可以投出弧线，这样作为击球手将更难命中）。你可以问除了上周德克萨斯A&M比赛以外的任何问题，这就是全部的要求了。

I would like to just say a few words momentarily and then the highlight for me will be getting your questions in a few minutes. Because I want to talk about what is on your mind. I urge you to throw hard balls. It’s more fun for me if you put a little bit speed on your pitch as they come in. You can ask about everything excepts last week’s TexasA&M game. That’s all the limits.

在座的有些是来自太阳信托银行的人。我刚刚从一个可口可乐的会议中结束。我坐在吉米・威廉姆斯的旁边，他在那里已经工作了好几年了。他想确认我当我来这里的时候穿着这件太阳信托银行的T恤。我曾经想从老年高尔夫巡回赛中获得赞助但我一直缺乏运气。但是这次我在投行“巡回赛”中的表现倒是好些了。他说我的报酬是若干个几个百分点的来自银行存款的收益。我决定将从此为“太阳信托银行队”效力，成为太阳信托银行队的0号队员。

We have a couple of men here from SunTrust. I just came from a Cock meeting. I sat next to Jimmy Williams, he has been there for many years. He wanted to be sure that I wore this SunTrust shirt down here. I tried to get sponsorships from the senior golf tour but I ain’t have much luck. But now I’m at the banker’s tour I’m doing a little bit better than that. He said that I got a few percentage of increase of deposits gains from it. I will all go out for SunTrust. Zero SunTrust.

品质比智慧和努力更重要（1:00 – 6:40）

我想用个一分钟和学生们谈谈在你们离开这大学后的将来。因为你们将会学到许多投资的知识并且能够做得足够好。你们都有足够的智商做好。你们都有足够的积极性和能量去做好。否则你们不会在这了。你们中的大部分都能实现你们的抱负。但是，在决定是否你们能成功，有一个比智力和能量更重要的东西。我只想用点时间谈谈这一点。实际上，有一个在奥马哈的伙计，皮特・基威特（财富美国500强企业，基威特公司的创始人），曾经说过：“我们在雇佣的时候看中三点。我们寻找那些正直，聪明，富有能量的人。”然后他说：“对于那些没有前两点的人，只有后两点的人会害了他们的。因为如果他们不够正直，你希望他们又蠢又懒，你不希望他们聪明而富有能量。”（学生大笑）

Warren Buffett: I would like to talk for just one minute to the students about your future when you leave here. Because there is…you’re gonna learn a tremendous amount about investments and you will learn enough to do well. You all have got the IQ to do well. You all have got the initiatives and energy to do well. Or you wouldn’t be here. Most of you will succeed in meeting your aspiration. But, in determining whether you will succeed, there is more to it than intellect and energy. I’d like to talk for just a second about that. In fact, there was a fellow, Pete Kiewit, in Omaha, used to say that: “We look for three things in hiring people. We look for integrity, intelligence, and energy.” And he said that: “The person didn’t have the first two, the latter two will kill them. Because if they don’t have integrity, you want them to be dumb and lazy, you don’t want them to be smart and energetic.”

我认为我应该好好谈谈第一点，因为我们知道你们拥有后两点。花点时间和我玩一个小小的游戏吧。我们都在这待了，我猜，MBA的第二学年的一大半了，对你的同学也足够了解了。花点时间想想，假如我给你一个购买你的某一个同学的未来人生10%的机会 —— 你不能选爸爸最富的那个同学，那不算数（学生大笑）—— 你必须选那个能靠自己的本事做事情的人。我会给你一个小时去思考这个问题。在你的同学中你选谁，那个你愿意拥有10%未来人生的那个人？你会让每个人都做个IQ测试然后选那个最聪明的？我不觉得。你会选择那个成绩最好的？我不觉得。你也不太可能选那个最富有能量的那个，因为你们都是非常富有能量的人。

I thought I really like to talk about that first one, because we know you have got the second two. Play along with me in a little game for just a second in terms of thinking about that question. We have all been here, I guess, almost all of your second year MBA and got to know your classmate. Think for a moment that I granted you the right to buy 10% of one of your classmates for the rest of his or her lifetime – you can’t pick one with the richest father, that doesn’t count – you got to pick them…somebody who is going to do it on their own merit. I will give you an hour to think about it. Which one are you going to pick among all of your classmates, the one that you want to own 10% for the rest of life time? Are you going to give them an IQ test? Pick the one with the highest IQ? I doubt it. Are you going to pick the one with the best grade? Er…I doubt it. You ain’t going to pick the most energetic one, necessarily, you have been the one who display the most initiatives.

你们会开始寻找一些定性的因素。因为每个人都足够好的大脑，也富有能量。我会说如果你真的花了一个小时想了这个问题，考虑好你打算赌在谁身上，你可能会选一个你最合得来的人。那个有着领袖特质的人。那个帮别人实现他们的想法的人。那个慷慨的，诚实的，而且不会和抢着和别人邀功的人，即使私下那其实是他们自己的想法。各种像这样的品质。你可以写下那些你在别人身上发现让你欣赏的品质，那些你在班上最敬佩的人。

You are going to start looking for qualitative factors, in additions. Because everybody have got good brain here and are energetic. I would say if you have thought about it for an hour and have decided who you are going to place your bet on, you probably picked the one who you responded the best to. The one who is going to have the leadership qualities. The one who is going to get other people to carry out their interest. That would be the person who is generous, honest, and give credits to other people even if those was their own ideas. All kinds of qualities like that. You could write down those qualities that you admire in these other persons, whoever you admire the most in the class.

然后我会给你们添乱，我会说：“在你能买别人10%的同时，你也可以做空某个人未来的10%。”（学生大笑）这更有意思了，不是吗？然后你就会想，“我该做空谁呢？”同样的，你不会选那个IQ最低的，你会开始思考那些，因为某些原因，让你看不惯的那些人。他们有着各类的品质，和学术上无关的那些。但是这些品质，本质上，让你并不想和他们相处。其实其他人也不愿意和他们相处。那这些品质是哪些呢？这些品质有一堆。那可以是某个人的自大，某个人的贪婪，某个人的不诚实，投机取巧。这类的品质。你可以把这些品质写在一张纸的右边。

And then, I would throw in a hooker, I would say: “As part of owning 10% of this person, you have to really go short 10% of somebody else in this class. That’s more fun, isn’t it? Then you will think: “Who am I want to go short of?” Again, you wouldn’t pick the person with the lowest IQ, or… You will start thinking about the person, really, who had turned you off for one reason or another. They have various qualities, quite apart from their academic achievements. But they have various qualities, in the end, you really don’t want to be around with them. And other people don’t want to be around with them. What will the qualities that lead to that? That would be a whole bunch of things. It’s the person who is egotistic. Or it’s the person who is greedy. Or it’s the person who is slightly dishonest and cuts corners. All of these qualities. You can write those down on the right-hand side of the page.

当你看到纸上左边和右边这些品质，你会发现一个有意思的一点。这些和能把橄榄球扔60 码无关，也和能在9.3秒跑完100码无关，也和长得最好看无关。这些在纸的左边，都是那些如果你想要就能拥有的。我的意思是，它们都是每个人可以做到的行为，性情，品格。并不是说你们中的有些人不可能拥有这些。你再看看纸的右边，那些你在别人身上发现的让你不喜欢的品质，其实也不是你必须有的品质。如果你有，你可以改掉的。在你们这个年龄改起来比我这个年龄容易多了。因为大部分的行为都是习惯。人们说：“习惯的锁链轻的难易察觉，直到重的难以挣脱。”这句话是对的。我看到人们在我这个年龄，或者比我小上10,20岁，有着自毁性的行为习惯。他们已经陷在其中了。他们做着各种各样让人们难以接受的事情。他们没必要这样，但是在某个时刻，这个习惯已经几乎改不掉了。但是在你们这个年龄你们可以拥有任何你想要的习惯，任何行为模式。

When you look at that…oops…(the microphone is slipping off the podium, and Warren catches it and put it aside) I don’t know which one I’m going to use…can you hear me? Ok with this? Fine…What am I going to do with it (someone is telling Warren to use the microphone attached on his belt)? Oh, it just came loose? Ok. You can see why I avoid technology. Chewing gum is about as far as I get. As you look at those qualities on the right and left hand side, there is one interesting thing about them. It’s not the ability to throw football 60 yards. It’s not the quality to run a 100-yard dash in 9.3. it’s not being the best-looking person in the class. They are all qualities that if you really want to have, the ones on the left-hand side, you can have them. I mean, they are qualities of behaviors, temperaments, characters that are achievable. They are not forbidden to anybody in this group. If you look at the qualities on the right-hand side, the ones that you find turn you off in other people, there is not a quality there that you have to have. If you have them you can…you can get rid of it. You can get rid of them a lot easier in your age than you can in my age. Because most behaviors is habitual. They say: “The chain of habits is too light to be felt, until they are too heavy to be broken.” There is no question about that. I see people with these self-destructive behavior patterns at my age or even 10 or 20 years younger. They really are entrapped by that. They go around and do things that turn off other people right and left. They don’t need to be that way but by a certain point they get so they can hardly change it. But at your age you can have any habits, any patterns of behavior, that you wish. It’s simply a question of which you decide and want to decide the ones that…I mean…if you like.

本・格雷厄姆，或者更早的，本・富兰克林做过这样的事。本・格雷厄姆在他只有10来岁的时候，四处观察，看了看他钦佩的那些人，然后想：“我也想被人钦佩，所以为何我不学着像他们那样？”他发现这并没有什么不可能。同样的，对于那些他想摆脱的品质，他也做了类似的事情。

Ben Graham did this…Ben Franklin did this before him. Ben Graham in his low teens…looked around…he looked at the people who he admired and he said, you know, “I want to be admire, so why don’t I just behave like them?” He found that there is nothing impossible about behaving like them. Similarly, he did the same thing on the reverse side in terms of getting rid of those qualities.

我建议如果你写下了你喜欢的品质并且思考过。那就让纸上的这些成为你们的习惯。你最后会成为那个在以后你想买下未来10%的人。事实的美好之处在于，你已经拥有了自己的100%，这是已经确定的。你干脆就让这些品质集中在自己身上好了。

I would suggest that if you write those qualities down and think about them a little while. Make them habitual. You will be the one that you want to buy 10 percent when you get old. The beauty is you have already own 100% of you and you are stuck with it. You might as well be that person as oppose to somebody else.

投资日本：寻找绩优股而不是廉价股（6:40 - 9:40）

沃伦巴菲特：这是一点简短的说教。来谈谈你们感兴趣的话题吧。像我之前说的，你可以问任何问题。我不知道因此会发生什么。不过，让我们从这里或者那里举起的手来开始（问答）吧。从哪里开始好？好，就你吧！

Warren Buffett: That’s a short little sermon. Let’s get on to what you are interested in. Like I said, you can go all over the lot. I don’t know exactly how we are going to handle this. But, let’s starts with the hand in somewhere or the other. Where should we go? Yeah right here!

学生：你对日本的看法？

Student: Your thought about Japan?

沃伦巴菲特：我对日本的看法？我不是一个宏观的人（译者注：巴菲特很少做宏观经济分析）。我对自己说：“伯克希尔哈撒韦现在在日本贷款10年只需要1%的利率。”1%。然后我对自己说：“天…45年前我上过格雷厄姆的课。并且我已经为此努力工作了45年。也许我可以赚高于1%的回报率！如果我足够认真的话。”（学生大笑）一年1%，并不是不可能，不是吗？因为我不想牵扯汇率风险，所以我只能在日元计价的东西上投资。我要做的就是在日本房地产，日本商业，或者某些类似的东西中选择。我要做的就是比1%好。这是我的全部成本。对我来说在十年内做到这一点并不难。但目前为止我什么机会都没找到（学生大笑）。

Warren Buffett: My thought about Japan? I’m not a “micro” guy. I say to myself: “Berkshire Hathaway can borrow money for ten years at 1% in Japan now.”1%. And I say to myself: “Gee… I took Graham’s class 45 years ago. I’m been working hard on this thing all my life. Maybe I can earn more than 1%! If I really work hard at it!”1% a year, doesn’t seem impossible, does it? I wouldn’t want to get involved in currency risk so I have to do with something that is Yen-denominated. So I have to be in Japanese real estate, or Japanese business, or something of the sort. All I have to do is to beat 1%. That’s all the money gonna cost me. I can get it for ten years. So far I haven’t found anything.

这应该很有趣了。日本公司的权益回报率都很低。他们中的有一些公司的权益回报率是4,5,6%。当你在一个回报率不怎么高的公司里成为一个投资者非常难赚很多钱。不过有的人能做到。实际上，我有一个曾经和我一起为格雷厄姆工作的朋友，沃尔特・施洛斯能做到。那是一种我最初面对股票的做法：买价格比营运资金低得多的股票。量化层面上的便宜股票。我称之为“雪茄烟蒂投资法”。你走在街上，四处寻找某处存在的烟蒂。找了一段时间你终于找到了一个，已经浸水了，蛮令人反胃的，但还能吸上一口。所以你捡起来。吸的这一口是免费的！我的意思是这是一个烟蒂股。你得到了那免费的一口烟，扔掉，然后继续在街上行走试着寻找下一个（学生大笑）。我的意思是这并不优雅但确实可行（学生大笑）。如果你找的是免费的一口烟，这能行的通！这些都是低回报率公司。但是时间是绩优的公司的朋友也是糟糕公司的敌人。如果你长期待在糟糕公司里，你能得到的结果也是糟糕的，尽管你可能买入时的价格低廉。如果你在一个绩优的公司待上很长一段时间，即使你当时支付了有些高的价格，你会得到优良的结果，如果你愿意在那儿停留一长段时间。

It’s gotta be interesting. Japanese companies earn very low returns on equity. They have a bunch of businesses that earn 4，5，6% on equity. It’s very hard to earn a lot as an investor when the business you are in doesn’t make very much money. Some people do it. In fact, I got a friend, Walter Schloss, who worked with Graham at the same time I did. It was the first way I went at stocks: to buy stocks selling way below working capital. Very cheap quantitatively stocks. I call it “the cigar butt approach to investing”. You walk down the street and look around for cigar butts some place. You finally see one and its soggy and kind of repulsive, but there is one puff left in it. So you pick it up. The puff is free! I mean it is a cigar butt stock. You got one free puff out of it and you throw it away and walk down the street trying to find another one. I mean it’s not elegant but it works. If you are looking for a free puff, it works! Those were low return businesses. But time is the friend of a wonderful business and is the enemy of a lousy business. If you are in a lousy business for a long time, you gonna get a lousy result, even if you buy it cheap. If you are in a wonderful business for a long time, even if you paid a little bit too much going in, you gonna get a wonderful result if you stay in it for a long time.

我当今…现在…找到的绩优的日本公司非常少。他们可能会在某个方面改变这种文化，于是管理层能够接受更多的股东反馈。这样回报率可能会高一些。但是当今你能找到非常…很多…低回报公司。在日本经济腾飞的那段时间这个情况依然存在。这很奇怪了：他们有着了不起的市场但没有了不起的公司。他们在做各类生意都很了不起，但他们在权益回报率上并没有了不起。这最终伤害了他们。所以到目前为止我们（伯克希尔哈撒韦）什么都没做。但是只要钱只需1%我会一直找机会的（学生大笑）。

I find a very few wonderful businesses in Japan at present…now. They may change the culture in some way so the management gets more stockholder responses over there. The returns may be higher. But at present time you will find a very…lots of…low return businesses. That’s true even when the Japanese economy was booming. It’s amazing: they had an incredible market without incredible companies. They were incredible in terms of doing a lot of businesses but they weren’t incredible in terms of the return on equity they had achieved. That has finally caught up with them. So we have so far done nothing there. But as long as money is 1% I will keep looking.

长期资本管理公司的失败案例：金钱重要，重要的是从事自己热爱的工作（9:40 – 21:15）

巴菲特：好的!（巴菲特点名让学生提问）

Warren: Yeah! (Buffett lets one of student audience to ask a question).

学生：有传言你是长期资本管理公司其中的一个救市者。具体是发生了什么事？你的看法是什么？

Student: You were rumored to be one of the rescue buyers of Long Term Capital Management. What was the play there? What did you see?

巴菲特：好吧在财富杂志有一个完整的故事，封面有鲁伯特・默多克的那一期，讲述了我们参与的全部细节。那是一个有意思的故事…那是一个很长的故事所以我不打算全部叙述了。我当时接到了一个非常紧急的电话，关于长期资本管理公司，大概是4周前的这个周五…无所谓了（巴菲特不太记得细节了）。那时我的曾女…当时是下午3点左右…我的曾女准备在那天晚上举办一个生日派对。而我当晚准备去西雅图和盖茨一起出发去一个在阿拉斯加为期12天的假期…搭乘私人飞机…等等一类的事情。我当时几乎没有办法和外界联系。那个周五的下午我接到一个电话说（长期资本管理公司的）事情真的很严重了。我在这个（财富杂志的）那篇文章出来之前的几个周前接到一些别的电话过。（长期资本管理公司的）我都认识，大部分人我都很了解。在我还在所罗门的时候，大部分人都在所罗门兄弟工作。

Buffett: well there’s a story in the current Fortune magazine, the one has Rupert Murdoch’s picture on the cover that tells the whole story of our involvement. It’s kind of interesting story because… it’s a long story so I won’t go into all the background of it. But I got the really serious call about Long Term Capital about four weeks ago this Friday… whenever it was. It was my granddaughter…I got there in midafternoon… my granddaughter was having her birthday party that evening and then I was flying that night to Seattle to go on a 12-day trip with Gates to Alaska…on a private plane…all kinds of things. I was really out of communication. But I got this call on a Friday afternoon saying things were really getting serious there. I had some other calls before that article gets into…a few weeks earlier. I know those people – most of them – pretty well. A lot of them were in Solomon when I was there.

（长期资本管理公司的）股价在崩溃，而美联储在周末不停的派人去处理。在那个周五和下个周三之间，纽约美联储实质上是促成了一个救市举动，尽管没有政府的资本参与。我当时在积极相应但是过程并不轻松，因为我们正在峡谷间航行，这对在阿拉斯加的我来说并没啥有趣的。船长当时正在说：“你们知道吗，如果我们待在这里，我们可能能见到一些北极熊和鲸鱼”我说：“待在良好卫星信号的地方吧！” （学生大笑）当时的我背对着所有景色，打着电话。整群人都认为我的举动很滑稽。

The price was imploding and the Fed was sending people up that weekend. Between that Friday and the following Wednesday, when the New York Fed in effect orchestrated a rescue effort but without any federal money involved. I was quite active but I was having this terrible time because we were sailing up through these canyons which were of no interest for me whatsoever in Alaska. The captain would say: “you know, if we just stay over here we might see some bears and wales.“ I said: “stay where you got a good satellite connection!” That was the picture. Unfortunately, I got all things going off all behind me and I got my back to it – I’m on a phone which was – the people, the group – they find it funny the way I’m working on the phone.

周三早上我们提交了买入请求。在那个时候我在蒙大拿州博兹曼市，我和比尔・麦克多诺，纽约美联储主席，谈了话。那天纽约早上时间10点还在和银行家们开会。实际上，当我还在怀俄明他给我打电话的时候，我们在纽约早上时间10点前传达了信息。我们提交了买入请求。因为是距离遥远，所以提出的一切都是一个简单的纲要。最后我们提出为净资产支付2.5亿。我们本来是会再支付大约30到32.5亿的。这样的话就是30亿来自伯克希尔哈撒韦，7亿来自美国国际集团，3亿来自高盛。我们提交买入请求但要求很快就会撤回。因为你实际上是在为价值千亿但并价格不稳定的证券买单。所以你不会想去为这个并不稳定的资产支付一个固定的价格，何况我们还担心会被人做空。在最后银行家们促成了交易，那是一段有趣的时期。

We put in a bid on Wednesday morning. By then I was in Bozeman, Montana, I talked to Bill McDonough, the head of New York Fed by 10 o’clock. They were having a meeting with bankers at 10 o’clock that morning in New York. We called them…we actually delivered the message when he called me out there in Wyoming a little bit before 10, New York time. We made a bid. Because it was being done in a long distance, everything was really the outline of a bid. In the end, I was in a bid for 250 million essentially for the net assets. We would have put in three or three-quarters billion on top of that. It would have been three billion from Berkshire Hathaway 700 million from AIG and 300 million from Goldman Sachs. We submitted that but with a very short time limit with that. Because when you’re bidding on hundred-billion-dollar worth of securities that are moving around. You don’t wanna leave a fixed price bid out there very long plus we were worried about it would be getting shorted. In the end the bankers made the deal. It was an interesting period.

整个长期资本管理公司，我希望你们了解，整个的故事非常惊奇。如果你考虑到约翰・梅里韦瑟，埃里克・罗森费尔德，拉里・西利布兰，格雷格・霍金斯，维克托・黑格尼，那两个诺贝尔得主默顿和斯克尔斯，如果你考虑到那16个人，他们大概是有着国内最高的平均IQ的16人企业团队，比微软或者是其他任何一个美国企业都好。惊人的高智商人群。然后你再考虑一个事实，那16人有着丰富的从业经验。那些人不是以前干男士服装销售然后突然再转行做证券的生意的。他们有，16人共计，大概350年到400年历史的经验，过去就已经在从事现在在做的事情了。然后你再考虑到第三个因素，大部分人将他们几乎所有的净值都投入了这个公司，所以他们自己的钱也在里面，几亿几亿的钱。超高智商人群，从事熟知的行业，然后基本就破产了。这件事对我来说简直惊奇。

The whole Long Term Capital Management, I hope most of you are familiar with it, the whole story is really fascinating. If you take John Meriwether, Eric Rosenfeld, Larry Hilibrand, Greg Hawkins, Victor Haghani, the two Nobel Prize winners, Merton and Scholes – if you take the sixteen of them – they probably have the highest average IQ than any sixteen people working together in one business in the country, including Microsoft or whatever you want to name. Incredible amount of intellect in that room. Now you combine that with the fact that those sixteen had extensive experience in the field they are operating. These are not a bunch of guys would make their money, you know, selling men’s clothing and all out of sudden went in the securities business or any. They had, in aggregate, the sixteen, probably 350 or 400 years of experiences doing exactly what they were doing. Then you throw into the third factor, most of them had virtually all of their very substantial net worth in the business, so they have their own money up, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money up. Super high intellect, working in the field they know, and essentially they went broke. That to me is absolutely fascinating.

如果我要写本书，书名应该叫做《为什么聪明人会做蠢事》。我的合伙人说这本书应该写成自传（学生大笑）。这应该是一个有趣的例子。（长期资本管理公司）的人都是有不错的人。我尊重他们，在我在所罗门有麻烦的时候他们也帮过我。他们完全不是糟糕的人。但是，为了赚他们并不需要，并不拥有的钱，他们挺着损失已有的，本需要的钱的风险。这太愚蠢了。这单纯就很蠢。我不知道这样IQ意味着什么。如果你拿着对你来说重要的东西，拿来争取并不重要的东西，这完全不合理。我不管概率是否是100次赢1次输还是1000次赢1次输。如果你递给我一把枪，有着1000个弹仓，100万个弹仓，只有其中一个有子弹。然后你问我，“拿起这把枪指着你的太阳穴，你需要从我这里拿走多少钱，才会愿意拨动一次扳机？”我不会拨动的。你可以提出任何价格，但是对我来说这收益都毫无意义。我认为这个风险太明显了（学生大笑）。我对这种游戏并不感兴趣。但是人们似乎不假思索的参与这种金融游戏。

If I have to write a book it’s going to be call “why do smart people do dumb things.” My partner says it should be autobiographical. This might be interesting illustration. These are perfectly decent guys. I respect them and they helped me out when I was having problems in Solomon. They are not bad people at all. But, to make money they didn’t have and didn’t need, they risked what they did have and did need. That’s foolish. that’s just plain foolish. I don’t know what such IQ is. If you risk something that is important to you, for something that is unimportant to you, it just does not make any sense. I don’t care whether the odds are a hundred one you succeed or a thousand one to succeed. If you hand me a gun with a thousand chambers, a million chambers, and there is one bullet in one of the chambers. You say, “put it up to your temple how much do you want to be paid to pull the trigger once?” I’m not gonna pull it. You can name any sum you want but it doesn’t do anything for me on the upside. I think the downside is fairly clear. I’m not interested in that kind of game. Yet, people do it financially without thinking about it very much.

曾有一本很好的书…并不是好书…只是有一个很好的标题…曾有一本有很好的标题的烂书（学生大笑），作者是沃尔特・古特曼，标题叫做《你只需要致富一次》。现在看起来道理很明了不是吗？如果你在年初有一亿，99%的可能性你用它大概能获得10%的收益，或者进行融资杠杆获得20%的收益。到最后一年结束了，1.1亿和1.2亿的区别有多大？并没有！如果你在年底不幸去世，写讣告的人写错了字。把1.2亿写成了1.1亿，结果你等于什么都没多赚（学生大笑）！对于你家人来说没有区别，绝对在任何情况下都没区别。但是在这其中存在的风险，尤其是你在管理他人的资产，将是赔掉自己的钱，以及面对朋友们时对于你造成的损失带来羞辱和不堪。我不敢相信在什么情况能让这种事情看来合理。然而这16人，有着高智商，有分寸的人，参与了这种游戏。我觉得这是一种疯狂。这来自于一个，从某种程度上说，过度依赖于，那些人所谓的6个西格玛事件，或者7个西格玛都不会触发的事。但他们错了。

There was a great book…not a great book, only with a great title…it is a lousy book written once with a great title by Walter Gutman, the title was “you only have to get rich once.” Now that seems pretty fundamental, doesn’t it? If you got a hundred million dollars at the start of the year and you are gonna make ten percent of your unleveraged – twenty percent if you are leveraged – 99 times out of 100, what difference does it make the end of the year if you got a 110 million and 120 million? Makes no difference at all! If you die at the end of the year, the guys who writes the story makes a typo. He may say 110 million even if you have 120 million, so you’ve gained nothing at all. It makes absolutely no difference! Makes no difference to your family, makes no difference to anything. Yet, the downside, particularly when you’re managing other people’s money is not only losing all your money but also disgrace and humiliation facing friends for money you have lost. I just can’t image an equation that makes sense for it yet sixteen guys with very high IQs, very decent people, entered that game. I think it is madness. It’s produced by an overreliance, to some extent, on things – those guys would tell me back when I was in Solomon that a six-sigma event wouldn’t touch or seven-sigma. But they are wrong.

历史不会告诉你未来金融事物发生的概率。他们过度的依赖数学，觉得股票的贝塔能够告诉你股票的风险。它鬼才会告诉你股票的风险，在我看来。西格玛不会告诉你破产的风险，在我看来，也许现在在他们看来也如此了（学生大笑）。

History does not tell you the probability of future financial things happening. They had a great reliance on mathematics and they felt that the beta of a stock told you something about the risk of a stock. It doesn’t tell you a damn thing about the risk of a stock in my view. Sigma does not tell you about the risk of going broke in my view, maybe in their view now too.

我其实都不喜欢用他们来举例，因为同样的事情可以变成另一种形式发生。它可以在我们之间的任何人发生。因为我们对其他方面悉数掌握，我们会对某些重要的事情视而不见。就像亨利・考夫曼曾经说的：“那些在这种情况下破产的人有两种，第一种对什么都不了解，另一种是什么都了解。”这让人难过。我恳请你们…任何情况…我们（伯克希尔哈撒韦）基本上从未借钱，（尽管）我们会从来自保险的存浮金中取一些。我从未借钱，在我基本上只有1万块的时候也没借钱。（借钱）能带来什么改变呢？我一直以来都很开心。对我来说，有1万，100万，1000万都不代表任何事情，除了我有医疗上的紧急事故或者类似的。但是在我只有一点点钱和在我有很多钱的时候，我也会做相同的事情。

I don’t like even to use they as an example because the same thing in different ways can happen to any of us probably, where we really have a blind spot about something that is crucial because we know a whole lot about something else. It’s like Henry Kaufman said in the other day:” the people who are going broke in this situation are two types: the ones who knew nothing and the ones who knew everything.” It’s sad in a way. I urge you…in anything…we never basically borrow money – although we got float through insurance business. I never borrowed money: I never borrowed when I had 10,000 bucks basically. What difference that can make? I was having fun as I went alone. It didn’t mean anything when I had 10,000 dollars or a million dollars or 10 million dollars except if I have a medical emergency or something that comes along. But I’m gonna do the same things when I have a lot of money or when I have very little money.

如果你想想你们和我之间生活上的差别。我们基本上穿的是一样的衣服。好吧太阳信托银行送了我身上这件T恤（学生大笑）。我们都有机会饮用上帝之泉（水）（译者注：一边说着巴菲特打开一听樱桃味可口可乐）（学生大笑），我们都去麦当劳，或者，更好的，冰雪皇后（译者注：巴菲特给自己的子公司打了一个广告）（学生大笑）。我们都住在冬暖夏凉的房子。我们都能用大屏幕看內布拉斯加州的，德克萨斯州的A&M比赛。我们看比赛的方式是一模一样的。意外发生时你会有一个不错的医疗保障，我也一样。唯一的区别是我们出行的方式：我坐着这小飞机（译者注：指他的私人飞机）（学生大笑），我爱这飞机。这蛮花钱的。但是如果你抛开这一点，除了出行，仔细想想，有什么我在做的你做不到？我从事自己喜爱的工作，但是我一直都做自己爱的工作。我爱现在的工作和我爱当时来说1000美元就是巨款的工作时是一样的。我恳求你们从事自己喜爱的工作。

If you think about the difference between me and you in terms of how we live. We wear the same cloth basically. All right, SunTrust gives me mine. We all have a chance to drink the juice of god here. We all go to McDonald or, better yet, Dairy Queen. We live in a house that’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We watch the Nebraska and Texas A&M on a big screen. You see it in the same way I see it. We do everything… our life ain’t that different, you know. You will get decent medical care when something happens to and I will get decent medical care. The only thing we do differently is we travel differently: I ride around this little plane and I love it. That takes money. But if you leave that aside, other than travel, think about it, what can I do that you can’t do? I get to work in a job that I love, but I always work in a job I love. I love it just as much when it was a big deal if I made a thousand bucks. I urge you to work in jobs you love.

我认为你如果不停地从事不爱的工作，仅仅为了写在简历上好看，一定是疯了。我曾被一个哈佛的伙计邀请聊天，他当时28岁，说着他做过的事情，非常了不起。然我问他：“那你下一步做什么？”他说：“好吧，当我结束了我的工商管理硕士，我大概会去一家管理顾问公司工作，因为这在简历上看起来不错”我说：“等一下。你已经28岁了，你一直都在做这样的事情，我的意思是说你有着比我见过的人好上10倍的简历”我说：“如果你再做一份你不爱的工作，这是不是有点像是把性生活留在晚年享受？” （学生大笑）你需要开始从事你的事业的那一天会到来的 —— 我觉得我已经从刚刚的问题离题很远了 —— 如果你在大学毕业需要选一份工作，别选一个简历看起来好看的工作。选一个你热爱的工作。你未来可能会改变主意，但是你会开心地每天从床上跳起去上班。

I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it’ll look good on your resume. I was with a fellow at Harvard the other day who was taking me over to talk to him. He was 28 and he told me what he had done in life, which is terrific. Then I said: “What are you going to do next?” He said: “Well, after I get out of my MBA, I think maybe I’ll go work for a management consulting firm because it looks good on my resume. I said: “Wait a second. You are 28, you have been doing all these things. I mean you have got a resume that’s 10 times as good as anybody I have ever seen.” I said: “If you take another job you don’t like, doesn’t a little like saving up sex for your old age?” There comes to a time when you ought to do what you are going to do – I think I’m out of the boarder of the question – If you ought to take a job when you get out of college, don’t take a job you think it’s going to look good on your resume. Take the job you love. You may change later on but you will jump out of the bed in the morning.

当我从哥伦比亚大学毕业，第一件事情就是试着立刻为格雷厄姆工作。我说我愿意免费工作，结果他还是说我要价过高（学生大笑）。但是我不停的纠缠他。我回到了奥马哈市，这三年在父亲的公司卖证券。我不停的和他写信，提出一些我的想法。终于，我去他那里工作了两年。那段经历很美好。我总是在做着我喜欢的工作。

When I got out of Columbia, the first thing I tried is to go to work for Graham immediate. I offer to work for him for nothing. He said I was overpriced. But I kept pestering. I went to Omaha and sold securities for three years. I kept writing him and giving my ideas. Finally, I went to work for him a couple of years. It was great experience. I always really work in a job that I love doing.

你真的应该选那些如果你能达到经济独立时都愿意选的工作。那才是你应该选的工作，因为这样你会有极大的乐趣而且能学到东西。你会因此非常兴奋并且很难再舍弃。你可能在未来会改变但是你依然还会有巨大的收获。我不管初始工资是多少或者是其他类似的事情 —— 我现在说的好像和刚开始的问题跑题但是既然已经说到这了 —— 我确实相信如果你以为你会因为赚两倍的工资会比一倍好，你大概是搞错了。我的意思是你应该找一些你喜欢的事情。为此工作。如果你认为赚10倍，20倍工资是解决一切问题的答案，你将会遇到大麻烦。因为你会因此在并不需要钱的时候借钱或者是在你雇主不希望的情况下投机取巧。这样做并不合理，当你回忆起过去的时候你不会喜欢的。

You should really take a job that if you are independently wealthy you will take. That’s the job to take because that’s the one you’re going to have great fun and you’ll learn something, you’ll be excited about it and you can’t miss. You may go do something else later on but you’ll get way more out of it. I don’t care what the starting salary is or anything of the sort – I don’t know how I got off on that but there I am – I do think that if you think you’re going to be a lot happier if you’ve got 2X instead of X, you’re probably making a mistake. I mean you ought to find something you like. Works with that. You’ll get into trouble if you think making 10X or 20X is the answer to everything in life. Because then you will do things like borrow money when you shouldn’t or maybe cut corners on things your employer doesn’t want you to cut corners on. It just doesn’t make any sense. You don’t like it when you look back on it.

选能看懂的股票：找到有护城河的企业（21:15 - 28:35）

巴菲特：好的！（巴菲特点名让对方提问）

Buffett: Yep! (Buffett lets one of student audience to ask a question).

学生：你能和学生们说说你喜欢的公司吗？我不是指名字。我是说，是什么让这些公司…让你喜欢这些公司？

Student: Can you talk to the students about companies that you like? I don’t mean names. I mean what makes the companies…companies that you like.

巴菲特：我喜欢我能看懂的公司。这样一来，这就剔除了90%的公司了。（学生大笑）有各种公司我都不懂，不过幸运的是我能看懂的已经足够了。这个世界很大，而这几乎所有的公司都是上市公司。所以说基本上所有美国公司你都能够买一部分。这样看来，投资你能看的懂的公司是个合理的做法。你可以懂一些公司的。我能看懂这个。（巴菲特举起手中的樱桃味可口可乐）你可以看懂这个公司，每个人都可以。这是一个自从他们引入樱桃味可乐之后就没有再改变的产品。你知道的，自从1886年，或者之类的，他就是这样的简单的公司了。不一定是容易做的生意，我不希望一个生意即使对于竞争者来说也是很容易做的。我希望一个有护城河包围着它的公司。我想要的这种公司有一个珍贵的城堡。我想那个负责管理城堡的公爵会是一个诚实，努力，有能力的人。我希望这个城堡有巨大的护城河。

Buffett: I like…I like businesses I can understand. Let’s start with that. That narrows down about 90%. There are all kinds of thing I don’t understand, but fortunately there is enough I do understand. You have this big wide world out there, almost every company publicly owned. So you have all American businesses practically available to you. To start with, then it makes sense to go with things that you think you can understand. You can understand something. I can understand this! (Buffett is holding a tin of cherry-favored Cola) You can understand this, everybody can understand this! This is a product that basically hasn’t changed when they take out the cherry. You know, since 1886, or whatever it was, it is a simple business. It’s not an easy business, I don’t want a business that is easy for competitors. I want a business with a moat around it. I want a very valuable castle in the middle. Then I want the duke who’s in charge of that castle to be honest and hardworking and able. Then I want a big moat around the castle.

护城河可以是很多东西。公司的护城河…比如像我们的汽车保险公司，政府员工保险公司，是低价。我的意思是，人们必须要买汽车保险。所以每个人基本上是要为每一辆车买一分保险…或者每一个司机。我不能给一个人卖20份，但是他们必须要买一份。那他们会选哪一份保险？他们会按照服务和价格来选择。大部分人会假设服务是几乎一样的，或者差不多的。所以我们做的就是价格！我需要成为低价提供者。这是我的护城河。我的价格进一步的低于他人？那我就相当于在护城河里放了几只鲨鱼。任何时候，如果你有一个很好的城堡，总有人在外面想要攻击它，拿走它。我想要我能看懂的城堡，但这城堡需要有护城河。

That moat can be various things. The moat in a business…like our auto insurance business, GEICO, is low cost. I mean, people have to buy auto insurance so everyone’s gonna have one auto insurance policy per car basically…per driver. I can’t sell them 20, but they have to buy 1. What are they gonna buy? They gonna buy on…base on service and cost. Most people will assume the service is fairly identical among companies or close enough. So we’re going to do on cost! I gotta be the low-cost producer. That’s my moat. My cost got further lower than the other guy? I’ve thrown a couple of sharks into the moat. All the time, if you got a wonderful castle, there are people out there are trying to attack it, taking away from you. I want a castle I can understand but I want a castle with a moat around it.

30年前，伊士曼柯达的护城河和可口可乐的护城河一样宽。我的意思是如果你打算给你的6个月大的婴儿拍照片然后希望20年后，50年后能看一看 —— 你不知道未来的效果如何因为你不是专业摄影师，所以你也不知道那些20年前，50年前的照片的效果究竟好不好。在你心中你希望你理想的相片公司是最重要的事情，因为他们承诺你，你今天拍下来的对你来说重要的东西的照片在20年，30年，50年后看起来依然很不错。可能是你的宝宝或者别的。好吧，柯达在过去的30年做的非常好 —— 他们独占了这一点。他们有着我说的思想份额。忘了市场份额吧。思想份额。

30 years ago, Eastman Kodak’s moat was just as wide as Coca Cola’s moat. I mean if you gonna take a picture of your six-month-old baby and you’re gonna want to look at that picture 20 years from now, or you’re gonna want to look at that 50 years from now – you never got a chance because you are not professional photographer so you’re gonna to evaluate what’s gonna look like 20 or 50 years ago. What is in your mind about that photography company is what counts because they are promising you that the pictures you take today is going to be terrific to look at 20 years, 30 years, 50 years from now, about something that is very important to you. May be your own child or whatever may be. Well, Kodak had that in spades 30 years ago – they owned them. They had what I call “share of mind.” Forget about share of market. Share of mind.

他们在每个人的心中都占据了一个位置，全世界，每一个国家。那个小黄盒子或别的，说着：“柯达是最好的。”这价值连城。他们失去了一些。但是还没有失去全部。不是因为乔治・费舍。乔治做的挺不错的。但是他们让护城河变窄了。他们让富士参与进来并且从各个方面缩小着护城河。他们让富士进入了奥林匹克这个领域，夺走了柯达那独特的一面，曾经只有柯达能够给奥林匹克拍照。富士参与了。立刻在人们心中，富士变得能和柯达平齐了。

They had something in everybody’s mind around the countries, around the world. The little yellow box or anything that said “Kodak is the best.” It’s priceless. They have lost some of that. They haven’t lost them all. It’s not due to George Fisher. George is doing a great job. But they let that moat narrowed. They let Fuji come and start narrowing the moat in various ways. They let them get into the Olympics and take away that special aspect that only…only Kodak was fit to photograph the Olympics. Fuji gets there. Immediately in people’s minds, Fuji becomes more in parity with Kodak.

你还见不到可乐发生这样的事情。可乐如今的护城河比30年前要宽。你每天都去看，你肉眼察觉不到护城河的变化。但每一次，一个设施在某个国家建设完成，还未能达成盈利，但20年以后会，护城河又宽了一点。事情能够不断地变化，一个方向或者另一个方向。10年后你就能看出差距了。

You haven’t seen that with Coke. Coke’s moat is wider now than it was 30 years ago. You can’t see the moat (change) day by day. But every time, an infrastructure gets built in some country that hasn’t yet been profitable for Coke, but will be 20 years from now, the moat is widening a little bit. Things are all the time changing in one direction or the other. 10 years from now you can see the difference.

我们公司的管理者，我给他们一个信息，那就是“让护城河变宽。”我们往护城河里面投入鳄鱼，鲨鱼，一切东西，短吻鳄，我猜，（学生大笑）来驱赶竞争者。方式可以是服务，可以是产品，可以是价格，有时可以是专利，可以是商铺地理位置的选择。这就是我想找的公司类型。

Our managers of our business we run, I got one message to them, which is “widen the moat.” We wanna throw crocodiles and sharks and everything else, gators I guess, into the moat to keep away competitors. That comes about through service. That comes about through quality of product. That comes about through cost. That comes about sometimes through patents. That comes about through real estate location. So that’s the business I’m looking for.

那么我要怎么找这些公司？好吧，我需要从简单的产品中找。因为我不知道甲骨文，莲花软件，或者微软10年的状况。我的意思是，盖茨是我见过最好的生意人。他能（在软件行业中）占据很好的地位。但是我真的不知道他们的公司10年会是什么样子。而且我也肯定不知道他们的竞争者10年后什么样子。这些是为什么我没有拥有这些名字（甲骨文，莲花，或微软）。我知道口香糖行业10年后怎么样。互联网不会改变人们咀嚼口香糖的方式。没有什么能改变我们咀嚼口香糖的方式。总会有无数多的新产品上市，但是箭牌的薄荷味，多汁果味的口香糖会在未来某一天消失吗？不会发生的。如果你给我10亿，让我进入口香糖行业，然后试着给箭牌口香糖带来实质性的伤害。我办不到。这就是我思考公司的方式。我会问自己，如果给我10亿，我能给这个人带来多少伤害？给我100亿…给我100亿，我能给可口可乐造成多少伤害？我办不到。这些都是优良的公司。给我一些钱然后让我去别的行业造成伤害，我是能想出办法做到的。

Now, what kind of business I’m gonna find like that? Well, I’m gonna find them in simple products. Because I’m not going to be able to figure out what the moat is going to look like for Oracle, or Lotus, or Microsoft ten years from now. I mean, Gates is the best businessman I ever run into. He got a hell of a position. But I really don’t know, what their business is going to look like ten years from now. And I certainly don’t know what their competitors are going to look like ten years from now. Now they’re the names I don’t own. I know what the chewing gum businesses are going to look like ten years from now. The Internet is not going to change everyone chew gum. Nothing much else is going to change how we chew gum. There are going to be lots of new products. Really, are spearmint, juicyfruit, all those, going to evaporate some day? They ain’t gonna to happen. If you give me a billion dollars and tell me to go into chewing gum business and trying to make a real dent in Wrigley’s. I can’t do it. That’s the way I think about businesses. I say to myself, give me a billion dollars, how much am I gonna to hurt this guy? Give me ten billion dollars…give me ten billion dollars, how much am I gonna hurt Coca-Cola around the world? I can’t do it. Those are good businesses. Give me some money and tell me to hurt somebody in some other fields, I can figure out how to do it.

所以我需要简单的公司，容易理解，目前经济环境良好，诚实和有能力的管理层。然后我需要能够，粗略的，知道他们10年后的样子。如果我不知道他们10年后的样子？我不会买。基本上，我不会买那种，如果纽约股票交易所在明天开始休市5年，我不会开心地持有的公司。如果我买农场，而我将在未来5年不知道它的市价，如果农场一直挺好我也很开心。你知道的，如果我买一套公寓型房产，在未来5年不知道他的市价，如果它能够产生我期待的租金收入我也很开心。但是人们买股票，然后第二天起来看着价格，然后判断他们的选择是否是合理或者不合理。这很疯狂。因为买股票意味着买入公司的一部分。这是格雷厄姆教给我最基本的概念。你在买股票，你在买公司的一部分所有权。如果公司业绩良好你也会有很好的收益，只要你不要在买入的时候支付了一个高得愚蠢的价格。这就是全部了。你应该买你能懂得公司。就像你买农场的时候，你也买你能明白的农场。这不复杂。叫它“格雷厄姆巴菲特投资法”？这其实就是格雷厄姆的投资方法。

So I want a simple business, easy to understand, great economics now, honest and able management. Then I can see about, about in a general way, where they are going to be 10 years from now. If I can’t see where they are going to be ten years from now? I don’t want to buy it. Basically, I don’t want to buy any stock were they close the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow for 5 years I won’t be happy owning it. I buy a farm and I don’t get a quote on it for 5 years I’m happy if the farm does OK. You know, I buy an apartment house, don’t get a quote on it for 5 years, I’m happy if the apartment house produces the returns that I expect. But people buy a stock and they look at the price next morning and they decide whether they are doing well or not doing well. It’s crazy. Because they are buying a piece of business. That’s what Graham…most fundamental part what he had taught me. You are not buying a stock, you are buying a part ownership of the business. You will do well if the business does well if you didn’t pay a totally silly price. That’s what it all about. You ought to buy businesses you understand. Just like if you are buying a farm, you are going to buy a farm you understand. It’s not complicated. Call it just Graham Buffet? I mean, it’s just pure Graham.

我当时非常幸运，在我19岁时打开了一本书（《聪明的投资者》，作者是格雷厄姆）。在我6,7岁时我对股票产生了兴趣。在我11岁时我买了第一支股票。我当时摆弄着各种东西。你懂的，我有图表信息，交易量信息，然后我做着各类的技术计算，还有别的一切。然后我打开了一本简单的书，里面说了你并不是在买一个每天跳来跳去的股票代号，你买的是公司的一部分。从那以后我都是用这个方式思考，剩下的一切都自然而然的发生了。非常简单。我们应该买入我们看的懂的公司。在座的没有人能不能明白可口可乐公司。我可以说在座的人没有一个能看懂某些新兴互联网公司。（演讲发生时巴菲特已经意识到了互联网泡沫，虽然当时大部分人并不知情）我在今年的股东大会上说：“如果我在一个商学院里面教书。在期中考试，我会给学生发放一些互联网公司的信息，然后让每个学生去估值。谁能给我一个答案我就让谁挂科。”（学生大笑）

I was very fortunate cuz I picked up a book when I was 19. I got interested in stock when I was 6 or 7. I bought my first stock when I was 11. I was playing around with all the stuff. You know, I had charts and volumes and I’m making all kinds of technical calculation or everything. And I then picked up a little book and it just said that you are not buying some little ticker symbol that bounces around every day. You are buying a part of a business. Since I started thinking about it in that wiring, everything else followed. Very simple. So we buy businesses we think we can understand. There is no one here who can’t understand the Coca-Cola company. I can say there is no one here who can understand some new internet companies. I said at the annual meeting this year: “If I were teaching a class in a business school. On a final exam, I will pass out the information on new internet companies and ask each student to evaluate them. Anyone who can give me an answer I will flunk.”

我不知道怎么估值，然而人们每天都在做这样的事情。如果你把这当做是一种竞赛或者什么，这倒是挺让人兴奋的。那这就是另一回事了。但是你是在投资。投资时在投入资本以后确认能在未来以合适的速率获得更多的钱。做到这样需要明白你在做着什么。你必须要了解你的公司。你可以了解一部分公司但不会了解每一个公司的。

I don’t know how to do that. But people do it every day. It’s more exciting, if you look at it as if it’s going to race or something. That’s a different thing. But you are in investing. Investing is putting out money to be sure getting more money back later at an appropriate rate. To do that you have to understand what you are doing at it. You have to understand the business. You can understand some businesses but not all businesses.

投资的估值很难：重点是寻找有定价能力的公司（28:35 – 35:00）

（巴菲特让下一个学生提问）

(Buffett lets one of student audience to ask a question)

学生：沃伦，你已经讲了其中的一半，也就是尝试了解公司并且找到适合投资的公司。但是你也暗示了以投资者的方式从投入公司的资本中获得回报。这就回到了你付出的投资成本（的问题上）了。你是如何确定你付给公司的价格是合理的？

Student: Warren, you have covered half of it, which is trying to understand the businesses and find businesses. But you had also alluded to getting a return on the amount of capital you invested in the businesses as an investor. That comes back to what you are paying for the businesses. How do you determine what you think it is the fair price to pay for the business?

巴菲特：这是一个难以下决定的事情但…任何公司如果我没有非常了解的话我是不会买的。但是即使我非常了解一个公司它也可能不会有很好的回报。我的意思是如果一个我看懂了的公司，公司经营的生意很容易做好，怎么又会提供一年40%或者类似的回报呢？所以我们不会把超高回报放在心上。但是我们在意的是别有任何损失。我的意思是，我们在1972年买下了喜诗糖果。喜诗糖果在那时每年以1.95美金的单价卖出1600万磅的糖果。它在当时在每磅赚两比特（相当于0.25美元，1比特 = 0.125），或者说一共400万美元的税前利润。我们当时支付了2500万美元。没有考虑运营资本的问题。当时我们看待这个公司的时候，基本上我的合伙人查理和我实际在考虑公司是否存在一些不受限的要价能力。换句话说，如果这糖果是以2美金或者2.25美金卖，是否也能像1.95美金每盒卖得一样好。因为如果你能以2.25美金就意味着30美分每磅的额外收入。在1600万磅的总销量看来就是480万美元。如果是这样的话，2500万的投资额挺好。我们没有做任何市场调研。我们这辈子从来没有请过顾问。我的意思是，我们对顾问的理解就是出门，买盒糖果，然后尝尝（学生大笑）。

Buffett: it’s a tough thing to decide but it…I don’t want to buy anything if I’m not terribly sure of. If I’m terribly sure of it probably doesn’t offer incredible returns. I mean, why should something is essentially a cinch to do well, offering you 40% a year or something like that. So we don’t have huge returns in mind. But we do have in mind never lose anything. I mean, we bought Cee’s Candy in 1972. Cee’s Candy was then selling 16 million pounds of candy at $1.95 a pound. It was making 2 bits of pound or 4 million pre-tax. We paid 25 million dollars for it. It took no capital to speak of. When we look at that business, basically my partner Charlie and I really decide whether there is a little uncapped pricing power there. In other words, whether that $1.95 box of candy could just as easily sell for $2 or $2.25. Because if you sell at $2.25 it adds another 30 cents a pound. It was $4.8 million on 16 million pounds. Which on a 25 million purchase price was fine. We didn’t do any marketing. We never hired a consultant in our lives. I mean, our idea of consulting is going out and buy a box of candy and eat it.

我们当时知道的是，喜诗糖果在加利福利亚州的人们心中占据了一定的分量。这里有一些特点之处：在每一个加利福利亚州的人心里，喜诗糖果都意味着些什么的。绝大多数情况下，这种印象都是美好的。他们会在情人节拿着这么一盒，然后递给女孩子。她就亲吻他。如果她扇了他一耳光，你知道的，我们就没生意做了（学生大笑）。但是只要她亲了他，这就是我们想在加利福利亚的人们心中留下的印象：喜诗糖果，被亲吻。如果我们能够在他们心里留下这个想法，我们就能抬高价格了（学生大笑）。我在1972年买下喜诗糖果，每年的12月26号，圣诞节后的一天，我们就会涨价。我们在圣诞节能卖很多。今年我们将会赚6000万美金。我们会卖3000万磅糖果，每磅赚2美金。还是原来的公司，原来的配方，原来的一切，6000万美金，额外的都是不花费额外的资本的。我们在未来10年会赚更多的钱。这6000万美元中大概5500万来自圣诞节前3周。我们公司的歌曲是：“耶稣是多么好的朋友！”（学生大笑）

What we did know was that they had share of mind in California. There is something special: every person in California have something in their mind about Cee’s Candy. Overwhelmingly it was favorable. They had taken a box on Valentine’s day and gave it some girl and she kisses him. If she slapped him, you know, we have no business. But as long as she kisses him, you know, that’s what we want in their mind: Cee’s Candy, getting kissed. If we can get that in the minds of people we can raise prices. I bought in 1972, every year we raise the price on December 26, I raise the day after Christmas. So everybody… we could sell a lot on Christmas. We’ll make 60 million dollars this year. We will sell 30 million pounds make $2 a pound. Same business, same formula, same everything, 60 million bucks, still doesn’t take any capital. And we’ll make more money 10 years from now. But that 60 million we make about 55 million in the three weeks before Christmas. Our company song is “what a friend we have in Jesus!”

我的意思是，这是个好公司。关于这个公司重要的事是，想一想，人们不会买…大部分人不会买盒装巧克力自己吃。他们把它当做礼物买下来，你知道的，某些人的生日，或者更多的，节日。情人节是全年销量最高的一天。圣诞节是目前全年最大的旺季。女人为圣诞节买喜诗糖果，他们会提前规划好然后在圣诞节之前的两到三周购买。男人在情人节当天买。当他们正在开车在回家的路上，我们在收音机里播放广告，你懂的。罪恶感！罪恶感！罪恶感！罪恶感！你懂的，他们会拐出主干道（然后急着去买糖果）。（学生大笑）在我们的广告的影响下，他们是不敢在手中没有一盒糖果的情况下就回家的。（学生大笑）情人节是销量最高的日子。你能想象这么一个场景，在情人节回家的时候，我们的喜诗糖果因为我的聪明已经涨到了每磅11块了。（学生大笑）假如说现在有糖果是卖6美元每磅的。但你真的想在情人节的那天回家，递给 —— 我的意思是，这么多年我们都在心中对喜诗糖果有美好印象，当她看到你的时候，这也是她会在剩下的一整年记住你的方式，我的意思是我们已经把这个想法深入人心了 —— 然后你回到家中，然后说： “亲爱的，今年，我买了一个便宜的…”然后将糖果递给她？（学生大笑）我的意思是，这行不通的。从某种意义上说，它是一个…这里有一个不受限的要价能力…基本上是不受价格的影响的。

I mean, it is a good business. The important thing about that business is that, think about it a little, people don’t buy…most people don’t buy box of chocolate to consume themselves. They buy them as gifts, you know, somebody’s birthday, or more likely, it’s a holiday. Valentine’s day is the single biggest day of the year. Christmas is the biggest season by far. Women buy for Christmas and they plan ahead and buy over a two or three-week period. Men buy on Valentine’s day. They are driving home, we run ads on the radio, you know. Guilt! Guilt! Guilt! Guilt! You know the guys are steering off the freeway the freeway right and left. They won’t dare to go home without a box of candy when we get through with him on our radio ads. Valentine’s day is the biggest day. Can you imagine going home on Valentine’s day and our Cee’s Candy is now 11 bucks a pound thanks to my brilliance. Let’s say there is candy available at $6 a pound. But you really want to walk in on Valentine’s day and hand – I mean we have got all this favorable image of Cee’s Candy over the years and she sees you and that’s the way she thinks of you during the rest of year, I mean we have really got it badly – and you walk in and say: “honey, this year, I took the low bid…” and hand her a box of candy? I mean, it just doesn’t work. In a sense, it is a…there is an uncapped price…it’s not price dependent basically.

想想迪士尼。我的意思是，迪士尼在卖，比如说，家庭影片…以…我不知道…16.95或者18.95或者别的价格出售。全世界来看，人们，或者我们说，在这种情况下特别指母亲们，在他们心中对迪士尼意味着些什么的。我的意思是，在座的每一个人，当你说迪士尼，在他们心中都意味着些什么。如果我说环球影业，你不会有（独特的）联想。如果我说二十世纪福克斯，你不会有独特的联想。但我说迪士尼，你会想到些什么。这在全世界范围内都是这样。现在想象一下你在和几个小孩子，你懂的，那些你愿意在晚年每天花几个小时去获得心灵的平静的那些小孩子。你知道如果你给他们一个影片他们会看上20次的。所以你去你买影片的影片店。你会在那里用上一个半小时，试看10个不同的影片，然后再决定哪个适合孩子们观看？不会的。我的意思是，如果这里有一个影片价格是16.95美元，然后迪士尼的影片是17.95美元。你知道如果你选了迪士尼的影片，你的选择不会错的！所以你买了。你不需要你不想花时间的事情上做一个高质量的选择。所以如果你是迪士尼，你可以赚更多的钱，而且你可以卖出更多的影片。这也是为什么迪士尼是一个优秀的公司。这让其他人来说（竞争）非常困难。你要如何创造一个能和迪士尼竞争的品牌 —— 梦工厂正在尝试 —— 但你如何能够创作出一个能和迪士尼竞争并且以别的品牌，比如说环球影业，替代原本迪士尼在人们心中处在的位置？所以这样一来母亲们将走进店里并选择环球影业而不是迪士尼？这不会发生的。

Think of Disney, I mean, Disney is selling, will say, home video on…I don’t know…whatever… $ 16.95, $18.95 or whatever. All over the world, people, and we will say particularly, mothers in this case, have something in their mind about Disney. I mean, every person in this room, when you say Disney, have something in their mind about it. If I say Universal Pictures you don’t have anything (special) in your mind, you know. If I say 20th Century Fox, you don’t have anything special in your mind. But if I say Disney, you got something in your mind. That’s true around the world. Now picture yourself with a couple of young kids, you know, who you want to put away a couple of hours every day, when you get old, to get peace of mind. you know if you get them one video they will watch it 20 times. So you go to the video store where you buy the videos. Are you gonna sit there and premier, you know, 10 different videos and watch each for an hour and half after to decide which one your kids should watch? No. I mean, let’s say there is one there for $16.95 and in the Disney there it’s $17.95. You know if you take the Disney video, you gonna be OK! So you buy it. You don’t have to make a quality decision on something that you don’t want to spend the time to do. So you can get a little bit more money if you’re Disney, and you will sell a lot more videos. It makes it a wonderful business. It makes it very tough for the other guys. How would you try to create a brand – Dreamworks is trying – but how would you try to create a brand that competes with Disney around the world and to replace the concept that people have in their minds about Disney with something, say, Universal Pictures? So the mother’s gonna walk in and pick up the Universal Pictures video and preference to Disney? It’s not gonna happen.

可口可乐和在令人们开心的场合时人们开心的状态联系在了一起。迪士尼世界，迪士尼乐园，世界杯都可以，或者奥林匹克，那些能让人们开心的场合。欢乐和可口可乐成为了一体。现在如果你给我，我不管多少钱，然后让我去用RC可乐这个品牌在世界范围内做到这样的影响力，然后让50亿人对RC可乐有着美好的印象？我做不到。你知道，你可以乱来…你可以做任何你想做的。你可以在周末做特价销售，一切。但是你一点都办不到可口可乐那样。这就是你希望在一个公司中找到的。这就是护城河。你希望这个护城河变宽。如果你是喜诗糖果，你希望做一切事情，能这礼物和人们的美好反应联系在一起。这就是这个盒子装着的东西。这就是卖给你糖果的人卖给你的东西。因为我们总是在我们极为忙碌的时候做我们的生意。我的意思是人们在圣诞节之前的那几周或者情人节那一天来光顾。店里会排成长队。下午五点，女员工正在将最后一盒糖果卖给最后一个客户。那个人已经等了前面20个或者30个客户了。如果销售员对最后一个顾客微笑，我们的护城河变宽了。如果她对他怒目，我们的护城河变窄了。我们肉眼看不到这个变化。但是这每天都在发生。这就是关键之处。我的意思是说，这个产品的递交过程就是让每一个部分都能将美好事物和喜诗糖果联系在一起。这就是商业的全部。

Coca-Cola is associated with people being happy around the world where every place they are happy. Disney World, or Disneyland, or the World Cup will be it, or the Olympics, where people are happy. Happiness and Coke go together. Now you give me, I don’t care how much money, and tell me I’m gonna do that with RC Cola around the world and have 5 billion people to have a favorable image in their mind about RC Cola? I can’t get done. You know, you can fool around…you can do anything you wanted to. You can have price discounts on weekends, anything. But you are not gonna touch it. That’s what you want to have in a business. That’s the moat. You want that moat to widen. If you are Cee’s Candy, you want to do everything in the world to make sure that the experience, basically, of giving that gift leads to a favorable reaction. That means that what’s in the box. It means the person that sells it to you. Because all our business is done when we are terribly busy. I mean people come in those weeks before Christmas or on Valentine’s day. There are long lines. Five o’clock in the afternoon, some woman is selling the last person the last box of candy. That person has been waiting in line for maybe 20 or 30 customers. If the salesperson smiles at the last customer, our moat is widened. If she snarls at him, our moat is narrowed. We can’t see it. It’s going on every day. But that’s the key to it. I mean, the total part of product delivery is having everything associated with the Cee’s Candy and something pleasant happening. That’s what business is all about.

定性分析比定量分析重要：找到你的能力圈（35:00 – 39:25）

巴菲特：好的!（巴菲特点名让学生提问） Warren: Yeah! (Buffett lets one of student audience to ask a question).

学生：从你个人的经验来说，你会考虑多少量化上的分析和定性上的分析？你有没有遇到在数据告诉你不应该买的时候依然还是投资的时候？

Student: On a personal account, how much quantitative analysis you would consider versus qualitative analysis? Have you ever bought a business when the numbers told you not to?

巴菲特：那些都是最佳的投资…问题问的是“我是否曾经在数据让我别买的时候买下一家公司，还有量化分析和定性分析的比重各是多少”。最好的投资时那些数据几乎告诉你别买的。我的意思是，因为，这样你就对公司的产品足够看好，而不是因为你已经习惯了“烟蒂一般的便宜”。（购买烟蒂股的）诱惑很大。我曾经拥有过一家风车公司。你知道吗，风车是烟蒂，相信我。（学生大笑）我买下的时候非常便宜，我用他三分之一的运营资本买下的。我们赚了钱。但是从这里赚不到持续的现金。这差不多是一个一次性的收益。这不是我应该做的事情。我经历过那个阶段。我买过有轨电车公司，各种的。至于定性分析，我大概能在接到电话那一刻了解到公司的性质。几乎全部的公司的购买都是在5分钟或者10分钟内完成的。我的意思是，关于分析。今年我们买了两个公司。通用保险是，你知道吗，180亿或者类似的，的交易。我从来没有去过他们的总部。我希望总部确实存在。（学生大笑）那里可能只是几个人，说：“好吧，这个月的数据发给巴菲特的数据应该写些什么呢？”他们每周或者每个月会过来告诉我：“我们这个月银行里面有200亿而不是180亿”等等的。但是我从未去过。

Buffett: Those are the best buy…the question is “have I ever bought a company where the numbers told me not to and how much is qualitative and how much is quantitative” The best buy has been the numbers almost tell you not to. I mean, because, then you feel so strongly about the product and not just the fact you are getting used to the “cigar butt cheap.” It’s compelling. I owned a windmill company at one time. You know, windmills are cigar butt, believe me. I bought it very cheap, I bought it a third working capital. We made money out of it. But there is no repetitive money to be in there. It’s a one-time profit, or something like that. It’s not the thing to be doing. I went through that phrase. I brought streetcar companies, all kinds of things. In terms of the qualitative, I probably understand the qualitative the moment I get the phone call. Almost every business we bought, it has taken 5 or 10 minutes. I mean, in terms of analysis. We bought two businesses this year. General Re is, you know, 18 billion, or something, deal. I’ve never been to their home office. I hope it’s there. There could be just a few guys and say: “Well, what numbers should we send Buffett this month?” I can see them coming here once a week or month (and they may say) “We’ve got 20 billion in the bank this month instead of 18 billion” or something. I have never been there.

在我买下商务机公司之前，也就是飞机的部分所有权。在买下之前，我从来没去过（他们的公司）。三年前我为我家买下那个项目的四分之一所有权。我见过他们的服务，看起来发展的挺好。我有数据。如果你不能够拥有能在一瞬间就能下决定的了解，那你不会在一个月或者两个月内明白一个公司。我的意思是，你必须有一些背景知识，而且知道哪些你是明白的而哪些是不明白的。这是关键。这是我所说的定义你的能力圈。每个人都有不同的能力圈。重要的不是圈的大小，重要的是待在圈内。如果那个圈里只有30家公司，而总体是上千家公司。只要你明白那30家公司是哪些，那就可以了！你应该对这些公司足够了解，所以你不需要做很多阅读和分析工作。我在早些年做过很多工作，单纯是了解各种公司。

Before I bought Executive Jet, which is fractional ownership of jets. Before I bought it, I had never been there. I bought my family a quarter interest in the program 3 years earlier and I had seen the service and seemed developed well. I got the numbers. If you don’t know enough to know about the business instantly, you won’t know enough in a month or two months. I mean, you have to have some sort of the background of understanding and knowing what you do understand and don’t understand. That’s key. It’s what I call defining your circle of competence. Everyone got a different circle of competence. The important thing is not how big the circle is. The important thing is staying inside the circle. If that circles only got 30 companies in it out of thousands on the big board. As long as you know which 30 they are, you are OK! You should know those businesses well enough so that you don’t need to read or do lots of works. I did a lot of works in the earlier years, just to get familiar with businesses.

我的方法是我会出门然后用菲利普・费雪说的“闲聊法”。我会出门，和顾客聊，和…某些时候和前员工聊，和供应商聊，所有人。每一次我见到一个产业的人，比如说，我当时对可乐行业感兴趣。我会四处拜访可乐公司，并且问每一个CEO：“如果你只能买除了自己公司的一家可乐公司的股票，你会选哪家，为什么？”你把信息收集起来，然后不久你就会学到很多。而且，搞笑的是，你会得到非常类似的答案，如果你问的是关于竞争者。我会问：“如果你有一颗银弹（在西方文化，银弹有极强驱魔能力，在这里指能让竞争者立刻破产的方法），你可以打进任何一个竞争者的脑袋里，你会选谁，为什么？”你会意识到谁是行业里面最强的人，那个让大家出乎意料的人。所以有很多你能从公司中学习的东西。我过去做了这种事情，在那些我认为我能理解的行业中。我现在不需要再做这样的事情了。投资的好处就是你不是所有知识都是全新的。我的意思是，你可以依然这么做（将自己沉浸在新信息里），但是如果你在40年前对箭牌口香糖有了解，你现在还是能看懂箭牌口香糖的。这并没有很多需要洞察的或者类似的。你会（在脑内）建立起一个数据库的。

The way I would do that is I would go out and use what Phil Fisher called the “Scuttlebutt approach.” I would go out, I talked to customers, I talked to…maybe ex-employees in some cases, I talked to suppliers, everybody. Every time I see somebody in an industry, let’s say, I was interested in the Cola industry. I would go around to see every Cola company and I would ask every CEO: “If you can only buy stock in one Coke company which was not your own, which one would it be, and why?” You piece those things together and you will learn a lot about the business after a while. And, it’s funny, you will get very similar answers as long as you ask about competitors. I would say it: “If you got a silver bullet, you can put it through the head of one competitor. Which competitor and why?” You will find out who the best guy in the industry in that case…the one that is coming up. So there is a lot of thing you can learn about a business. I have done that in the past, on the business I feel I could understand. I don’t have to do much of that anymore. The nice thing about investing is that you don’t have to learn everything very new. I mean, you can do If you want to, but If you know about Wrigley’s chewing gum 40 years ago, you still understand Wrigley’s chewing gum. It’s not a lot of great insights to get or anything of the sort. You do get a database in there.

我有一个伙计，弗兰克・鲁尼，在梅尔维尔工作很多年了。他的岳父去世了，岳父的公司叫H.H.布朗，一个鞋业公司。他当时在咨询高盛是否有兴趣买入。那会儿他在和我的一个朋友在佛罗里达打高尔夫，并且和我朋友提到这个事情。我朋友说： “你怎么不和沃伦打个电话？” 他在打完高尔夫之后和我打了电话，5分钟之后，我基本上就决定要买下来了。

I have a guy, Frank Rooney, who ran Melville for many years. His father-in-law died and had owned H.H. Brown, a shoe company. He put it up with Goldman Sachs. But he was playing golf with a friend of mine here in Florida and mentioned it to this friend. The guy said: “why don’t you call Warren?” He called me after the golf match and in 5 minutes I basically had a deal.

但我了解弗兰克，而且我明白这个行业。我大致了解鞋业的基本经济情况，所以我可以买这个公司。量化的层面的话，我还需要分析一下价格是应该是如何。但是，你知道的，答案无非是买或者不买。我的意思是，当我在做谈判的时候，我不打算在量化的事情上闲耗。如果他们的价格对我来说合理，我就买。如果不合理，那我还是和之前一样开心的，即使没有这公司，我未来也是同样开心的。

But I knew Frank, and I know the kind of business. I sort of knew the basic economics of the shoe business, so I could buy it. Quantitatively, I got to decide what the price is. But, you know, that is either yes or no. I mean, I don’t fool around a lot when I got into negotiations. If they name a price that makes sense to me, I buy it. If they don’t, you know, I was happy the day before, so I will be happy the day after without owning it.

投资可口可乐：重点是选股而不是时机（39:25 - 45:20）

巴菲特：好的!（巴菲特点名让学生提问） Warren: Yeah (Buffett lets one of student audience to ask a question)!

学生：可口可乐发布了他们的下个季度的利润预期，回报，还有未来收益。考虑到可口可乐有大量的利润来自于美国海外，你认为亚洲金融危机什么的会怎样影响可乐的全球商业？

Student: Coca-Cola has announced their profit expectation, return, and future earnings in the following quarters earnings. In light of the fact that Coke have lots of their profits coming in from the outside of United States, how do you think of the Asian crisis so as to speak is going to affect Coke regarding its business around the world?

巴菲特：问题是“亚洲金融危机以及它会如何影响类似于可乐，可乐最近发布了他们的收益，这样的公司“。实际上，他们在几周前刚发布了第三季度的收益。这些数据给人们暗示了第四季度的收益会更低。

Buffett: The question is about the Asian crisis and how does it affect companies like Coke that recently announced the earnings. Actually, they just announced their third-quarter earnings a few weeks ago. They tipped people off: there will be lower in the fourth quarter also.

好吧，我基本上还是喜欢它的，因为国际（严格来说是海外）上，可口可乐的产品的市场在未来的20年增长会超过美国。国际上人均使用的增长率也会超过美国。事实是未来 —— 谁知道呢，3个月，或者3年 —— 将会是困难的阶段，但这个利空情况不会持续20年。我的意思是人们依然会，你知道的，努力工作。他们会发现这是一个每天买上一瓶，或者更好的，像我一样五瓶，相对于他们的工资收入来说会是超值的产品。

Well, basically I love it because the market for Coca-Cola’s products is going to grow far faster over the next 20 years internationally than it will in the United States. It will go over the United States on a per capita basis because they will grow faster elsewhere. The fact that it’s going to be a tough period for – who knows – 3 months or 3 years, but it won’t be tough for 20 years. I mean people are still going to, you know, work productively around the world. They are going to find that this is a bargain product in terms of the potion of their working day that they have to give up in order to have one of these, or better yet, 5 of them in a day like I do.

这是一个，你知道的，这样的产品，在1936我第一次用25美分买了6瓶装的这些然后按每个5美分的价格卖出。当时它们是单价5美分的6.5盎司（约192毫升）瓶子，其中2美分是瓶子的押金。也就是说在那时，6.5盎司的单价是5美分。现在在周末买组合装的话是每瓶12盎司（约354毫升）的罐子…因为包装并不怎么花钱。你本质上是用不比20美分多多少的价格卖12盎司。你支付的价格并不比1936年高多少。相对于人们的工资来说这是一个变的越来越来越便宜的的产品，而且大家都很喜欢这个产品。你有一个，在200个国家， 100多年历史，在市场上占据大量份额，人均使用每年都在上升的产品。我的意思是，这不可思议。人们不理解的一点的是，也是让这个产品价值百亿的一点，是关于旧可乐的一个简单事实 —— 让我们叫它可口可乐，我喜欢这个名字。

It’s a, you know, this is a product, in 1936 when I first brought six of those for a quarter and sold them for a nickel each. It was in a 6.5-ounce bottle and you pay the 2 cent deposit on the bottle. That was a 6.5-ounce bottle for a nickel at that time. It’s now a 12-ounce can which you can buy it on weekends if you are buy in bigger quantity because…so much money doesn’t go into the packaging. You essentially can buy the 12 ounces for not much more than 20 cents. You are paying not much more than twice the per ounce price in 1936. It’s a product that has gotten cheaper and cheaper and cheaper relative to people’s earning power over the years, and which people love. In 200 countries, you have a per capita use going up every year for a product of over 100 years old and dominates the market. I mean, that’s unbelievable. One thing that people don’t understand, that is one thing that makes this product, that worth tens and tens of billions of dollars, is one simple fact about – really, old Cola – but we will call it Coca-Cola for the moment, the name I like.

可乐没有味觉记忆。你可以在9点，11点，3点，5点喝上其中一瓶。5点喝的那一瓶和早上喝的那瓶味道一样好。你在奶油汽水，根汁汽水，橙汁味汽水，葡萄味汽水，任何一个你想得到的，复制不到这一点。这些都会在你身上累积。大部分果汁和饮品都会在你身上累积。过一段时间你就会腻。如果你吃…我的意思是，我们想鼓励人们来喜诗糖果上班。我和他们说： “你们可以吃你想要的全部糖果。” 他们在第一天都开心疯了。（学生大笑）但是一周以后他们吃的量和让他们付钱时吃的一样多。巧克力在你身上累积。（除了可乐）一切都会在你身上累积。可乐没有味觉记忆。这意味着你在全世界，有着那些重度可乐消费者，每天会喝五瓶，或者健怡可乐，或者每天7,8瓶什么的。人们对于其他产品不会做这样的事情。你有一个难以置信的人均消耗。在这里的人们，可能在这里的（佛罗里达）北面，每天喝大约64盎司（约1.89升）的水分。你可以让着64盎司喝的都是可乐。至少如果你原来就喜欢，你不会腻的。但是如果你试着在其他的产品做类似的事情，让你只是有一个产品，没过多久你就会腻。

Cola has no taste memory. You can drink one of these at 9 o’clock, 11 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 5 o’clock. The one that you drink at 5 o’clock will taste just as good to you as the one drank early in the morning. You can’t do that with Cream Soda, Root Beer, Orange, Grape, you name it. All of those things accumulate on you. Most juices and beverages accumulate on you. You get sick of them after a while. If you eat… I mean, we get these people go to work for Cee’s Candy. We told them: “you all get the candy you want.” The first day they all go crazy. But after a week they are eating about the same amount they are eating as if they are buying it. Chocolate accumulates on you. Everything accumulates on you. There is no taste memory to Cola. That means you get people around the world, there are heavy users that will drink five a day or diet coke or maybe 7, 8 a day or something of the sort. They will never do that with other products. You get this incredible per capita consumption. The average person in this part of the world, may be a little north of here, drinks about 64 ounces of liquids a day. You can have all 64 ounces of that be Coke. You will not get fed up with coke, if you like it, to start with, in the least. But if you get with almost anything else, you will just eat one product all day you tend…you will get a little sick of that after a while.

这是一个巨大的要素。今天，超过10亿的8盎司（237毫升）装的可乐产品将在全球出售。这个数字每年都会增加。这个数字几乎在每个国家都会增加。在人均使用量上也会增加。20年后国际上的增长率会超过美国。我真的更喜欢这种市场因为增长会随着时间越来越快。但是，那（最近的亚洲金融危机）会伤害他们的商业，这正在伤害他们的商业。但这不代表什么。

It’s a huge factor. Today, over one billion eight-ounce servings of Coca-Cola’s products will be sold in the world. That will grow year by year. That will grow in every country virtually. It will grow on a per capita basis. 20 years from now it will grow a lot faster internationally than in the US. I really like that market better because there is more growth there over time. But, it will hurt them in… it is hurting them in the short term right now. But that doesn’t mean anything.

可口可乐在，我相信是1919年，上市。股份按每股40美金出售。在这之前是钱德勒家族（拥有的）。他们之前…他们用2000块买下了整个公司。在20世纪80年代时是钱德勒家族，还有一系列的购入。然后在1919年可口可乐上市了，每股40美金。一年以后售价是19美金一股，在一年内损失了50%。你可能认为这是某种灾难。你可能会认为糖的价格上涨了然后瓶装公司并不是很友好，等等一系列事情。你总是能找到一些你不买可口可乐公司股票的原因。几年后你遇到了大萧条。然后你遇到了第二次世界大战。然后你遇到了糖的定量配给限制。然后你遇到了核武器的出现。全部事情…总有一个原因（让你决定不买）。但是如果你买下了40元的一股然后将所有股息再投资，现在你有的是价值50亿的股票了。这个因素远超过了其他的一切，我的意思是，如果你选对了公司，你会赚很多的钱。时机的选择是一个非常难的事情。我不会担心某些特定事件，如果我选对了公司，在第二年会造成什么影响，或者类似的。你知道的，这个国家在很多时期出现过价格管制。即使是最好的那些公司都受到了影响。你知道的，如果有价格管制，我是没办法在12月26号为喜诗糖果涨价的。我们曾经遇到过，但是这不代表喜诗糖果不是好公司，因为价格管制不会永远存在。在70年代的早期价格管制确实存在。

Coca-Cola went public in, I think it is 1919. Stocks sold for $40 a share. Went back before that is the Chandler family. They went back…they bought it for 2,000 bucks for the business. It is the Chandler back in the late 1880s and a couple of purchases. Then it went public in 1919, $40 a share. One year later it was selling for $19 dollars, going down 50% in 1 year. You might think it was some kinds of disaster. You might think that sugar prices increased and the bottlers were rebellious, and all bunch of things. You could always find a few reasons why that wasn’t the ideal moment to buy it. Years later you have seen the Great Depression. Then You have seen the World War II. Then you have seen sugar rationing. Then you have seen thermonuclear weapons. The whole thing…there is always a reason. But in the end if you bought 1 share for 40 bucks and reinvested the dividends it would be worth about 5 billion now. That factor so overrides anything else, I mean, if you are right about the business, you will make a lot of money. The time part of it is a very tricky thing. I don’t worry about any given event, if I have got a wonderful business, whether what it does the next year, something of the sort. You know, price controls had been in this country various times. That fouled up even the best of businesses. I mean, I wouldn’t able to raise the prices on December 26 of the Cee’s Candy, if we have price control. We had them in this country but that doesn’t make it a lousy business if that happens because you not going to have price controls forever. We had them in the early 70s.

优秀的公司，你知道的，你可以明白什么会发生，但你不知道会何时会发生。你不会想把太多精力集中在时机上，你需要集中选择公司上。如果你选对哪个公司，你不需要考虑太多时机的问题。

The wonderful business, you know, you can figure out what will happen, you can’t figure out when they will happen. You don’t want to focus too much on when, you want to focus on what. If you are right about what, you don’t have to worry about when very much.

曾经的错误：生活需要向前看（45:20 – 49:55）

巴菲特：有没有哪一个区域我没有注意到（译者注：巴菲特扫视了一下观众席）？任意一处？因为我想确认我没有将注意力集中在一处。这里有个男士（巴菲特点名让对方提问）。

Buffett: Is there an area I’m missing back there? Any place? Because only I want to make sure I’m not focusing all at one place. I mean, we got this gentleman over here (Buffett lets one of student audience to ask a question).

学生问：大部分成功的…（听不清楚）…哪些…（听不清楚）…错误你曾犯过…愿意去…（听不清楚）

Student: Most successful…(unclear)…what…(unclear)…mistakes have you made…willing to make…(unclear)

巴菲特：所以你的问题是问我“曾经工作上犯下的错误”？那要看你能听多久（学生大笑）？有意思的是，在投资中 —— 至少对于查理芒格还有我来说 —— 最大的错误来自于不作为而并非作为，在我们对于投资机遇已经知道足够多能够有所作为的时候。但是因为这样那样的原因我们坐在那里像孩子一样吮吸着大拇指什么都没做。我们错过了无数价值10亿的投资机遇。就不谈那些我们看不懂的。我可能可以从微软那里赚几十亿，但那并不意味着什么，因为我从来不明白（怎么分析）微软。但是我可以从健康保障股中获得几十亿的，我们可以做到的。我并没有行动。当时克林顿的健康保障计划被提出并被智囊团接受，我们本可以从这赚巨额的金钱，因为我明白这是什么。我并没有行动。在80年代的时候（译者注：演讲发生在1998，还是20世纪）我可以从房利美中获得几十亿的。我明白它是什么，但是我没有行动。这些都是美国GAAP会计准则捕捉不到的十亿级的错误，数十亿级的错误（学生大笑）。

Buffett: The question is about my business mistakes or how much time do you have. The interesting thing about business is this: in investments – at least for me and for my partner Charlie Munger – the biggest mistakes have not been mistakes of commission but they’ve been mistakes of omission where we knew enough about the business to do something. For one reason or another, we sat there sucking our thumbs instead of doing something. We’ve passed up things where could have made billions and billions of dollars from things we understood. Forget about things we don’t understand. The fact that I can make billions from Microsoft but it doesn’t mean anything because I never understand Microsoft. But I can make billions out of healthcare stocks and we should have made it. I didn’t. When the Clinton healthcare program was proposed and they all went in the tank, we should’ve made a ton of money out of that because I can understand it. I didn’t make it. I should have made a ton of money out of Fannie Mae back in the mid-eighties. I understood it and I didn’t do it. Those are billion-dollar mistakes – or multibillion dollars mistakes – that the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles don’t pick up.

你们能（从财务报表上）看到的…我们犯下的错误…那不是“我们”…几年前我曾错误的买下的了全美航空公司的优先股。我意思是我那是有很多的闲钱，每当我有钱我就会犯错，查理告诉我：“去酒吧，别待在办公室。”但是我当时在办公室里，口袋里又有钱。我随后就做了一个蠢事。这种蠢事总是发生。我买了这玩意（全美航空公司），没人劝我买。如今我有一个800的号码，每当我想买航空公司的股票的时候我就会呼叫，另一端的人就会让我冷静下来。我会说：“我是沃伦，我迷恋航空公司。”然后另一头的伙计会说：“接着说吧，别挂电话，别做冲动的事情！”最后我会冷静下来的。但我…我当时是买了你们知道的。当时看起来我们将要把我们投入的所有钱都赔光。我们当时几乎要赔光了。你可以说损失全部投入对我们的报应。

The mistakes you see…we made a…it isn’t “we” …I made a mistake buying US Air preferred some years ago. I mean I had a lot of money around. I make mistakes when I get cash. Charlie tells me: “to go to a bar instead, do not hang around the office.” But I hanged around the office and I got money in my pocket. I just did something dumb. It happens every time. I bought this thing, nobody made my buy it. I now have an 800 number I call every time I think about buying stocks in the airline and they will talk me down. I will say: “I’m Warren and I’m air-aholic.” Then the guy will say: “keep talking, don’t hang up, don’t do anything rash!“ Finally I will get over. But…I…I bought it you know. It looked like we were gonna lose all our money in that. We came very close to losing all our money. You can say we deserve to lose our money.

我买下它（全美航空的优先股）的原因只是因为它看起来是不错的证券，但是公司本身并不吸引人。我在所罗门上的投资也做了一样的事情。我买了我不会买他们的权益的这么一个公司的优良的证券（所罗门的可转换优先债权）。你可以说这是一种错误的类型：买了某个东西只是因为你觉得条款不错，但你并不喜欢这个公司。这是我曾经犯过的错误，将来可能还会。

We brought it because it was an attractive security, but not an attractive business. I did the same thing with Solomon. I brought an attractive security in a business I wouldn’t have bought the equity in. So you can say that’s one form of mistake: buying something because you like the terms when you don’t like the business that well. I have done that in the past, probably will do it again.

但更显著的错误来自于自于不行动。

The bigger mistakes are the ones from omission.

我曾做 —— 当我有了1万块的时候 —— 我将其中的2000投资了辛克莱服务中心，而这笔投资我全赔掉了。所以如今我的机会成本大概是60亿（学生大笑）。挺大的错误。伯克希尔的股价下跌的话我心情反而会好一些，因为这样我的辛克莱服务中心的成本也会变小（学生大笑） —— 因为我那20%的机会成本。

I did – back then I had 10,000 bucks – I put 2,000 dollars of them in the Sinclair service station, which I’ve lost. So my opportunity cost is about 6 billion right now. Fairly big mistake. It makes me feel better when Berkshire goes down because the cost of my Sinclair service station goes down too. My 20% opportunity cost.

但是我会说，你说到从错误中学习。我得说从别人的错误中学习比从自己的错误中学习要好不少（学生大笑）。但是在伯克希尔我们从来不花时间后悔。我有个伙伴，查理芒格，40年的伙计了，从来没吵过架。我们常常有不同意的观点，但我们从来不为这些争论。但我们都不花时间后悔。我们意识到有太多值得期待的事情，以至于思考过去如果做了什么毫无意义。这什么也改变不了。我的意思是，你的生活必须向前看。

But I will say this. You talked about learning from mistakes. I really believe it’s better to learn from other people’s mistakes as much as possible. But we don’t spend any time looking back at Berkshire. I got a partner, Charlie Munger, who has been pals for 40 years, never had an argument. We disagree on things a lot, but we don’t have argument about them. We never look back. We just figured there is so much to look forward to, there is just no sense thinking about what we might have done. It just doesn’t make any difference. I mean you can only live your life forward.

你可以能从错误中…学到一些…重要的事是你应该和你了解的公司待在一起。所以这里有一个跳出了你的能力圈外的 一般性的错误。你知道的，在某个你其实没有认真思考过的领域，因为有人秘密告诉你了一些信息或者类似的事而做出投资…你应该从中学习。你应该和你能理解的事物待在一起。你应该要让你的决策像…看着镜子。对自己说：“我在55一股的价格买100股通用汽车因为…”如果买它，这是你的责任。这应该是有一个原因的。如果你不能说明原因，你不应该买。因为有人在鸡尾酒派对和你提到的？不够好。应该要有某些…你懂吗…不能因为交易量，图表看起来不错，或者任何类似的。这应该是有一个你买这公司的原因的。那个原则…我们非常谨慎的遵守着。那是本格雷厄姆教会我的其中一个东西。

You can learn something, perhaps from the mistakes… the big thing you should do is to stick with businesses you understand. So there is a generic mistake of getting outside of your circle of competence. You know, buying something because somebody tips you off or something of the sort in an area you don’t really think about…you should learn something from that. You should stay with what you can figure out yourself. You really want your decision-making to be…by looking in a mirror. Saying to yourself: “I’m buying 100 shares of General Motors at 55 because…” it’s your responsibility if you are buying it. It’s gotta be a reason. If you can’t state the reason, you shouldn’t buy it. Because somebody told you at a cocktail party? Not good enough. It’s gotta be something…you know…it can’t be because the volume, the chart looks good, or anything like that. It’s gotta be a reason you buy the business. That…we stick to it very carefully. That’s one of the things Ben Graham had taught me.

宏观经济难以预测：别在意宏观（49:55 – 51:45）

巴菲特：好的！（巴菲特点名让对方提问）

Buffett: Yep!

学生：将来的大致的全球经济会是怎么样的？还是说我们的经济依然处于挣扎的阶段？我们正在往哪个方向发展？未来的利率会怎么变化？

Student: What will be current general economic situation around the world? Or our economy is simply still not jiggering along quite well, where are we going? When could happen on interest rate?

巴菲特：问题是关于利率将出现什么以及在这世界我们正在往哪个方向发展。我不考虑这些宏观的东西。我只是…重要的…在你的投资里你应该要做的是明白什么是重要的和可知的。如果某事并不重要也不可知，你就忘了吧。你刚刚说的是重要的，但是在我看来并不可知。明白可口可乐是可知的，或者箭牌，或者伊士曼柯达。你可以看懂这些公司。这些是可知的。重要的是你的估值，公司的价格，所有的那些。但是我们从来没有因为对于宏观上的任何一种感受去买入或者卖出一个公司。我们不读那些经济，公司，或者类似的预测因为这改变不了什么。

Buffett: the question is about what is going to happen on interesting rates and where we are going now in the world. I don’t think about the macro stuff. I just…important…what you really want to do in your investment is to figure out what’s important and knowable. If it is unimportant and unknowable, you forget about it. What you talked about is important but in my view it’s not knowable. Understanding Coca Cola is knowable, or Wrigley’s, or Eastman Kodak. You can understand those businesses. That’s knowable. What it turns out to be important depends on what you evaluation be, the firm price, all of that. But we have never either bought a business or not bought a business because of any macro feeling of any kind. We don’t read things about predictions about interesting rates or business or anything like that because it doesn’t make any difference.

我的意思是，比如说1972年我们买入喜诗糖果的时候。好像尼克松没多久就颁布了价格管制。如果说我们预测到了（并从此没有买）。那怎样？我们会因此错过了用2500万买下一个每年税前赚6000万的公司。我们不想因为让一些我们其实并做不好的预测，导致我们错过那些聪明的买入机会。所以我们不读，不听，不做任何有关宏观因素的东西。从不。典型的投资咨询组织会出来，给你…他们带来他们的经济学家，他们把（宏观信息）画出表格，给你一个宏观的大图，然后并从这开始…往下…做工作。在我们看来没什么道理。如果艾伦・格林斯潘在我的一侧，罗伯特・鲁宾在我的另一侧，他们一起和我耳语接下来12个月他们要做的一切，这并不会让我任何改变任何我将支付公务机航空公司或者通用再保险的价格，或者别的我做的事。

I mean, let’s say in 1972 when we bought Cee’s Candy. I think maybe Nixon put on the price controls a little bit later. Let’s say we had seen that. So what? We’ve had missed the chance to buy something for 25 million that is earning 60 million pre-tax now. We don’t want to pass up the chance to do something intelligent because of some predictions about something that we were no good at it anyway. So we don’t read, or listen to or do anything in relation to the macro factors at all. Zero. The typical investment counseling organization goes out and they give you…they bring out their economists, they chart them out, give you the macro picture and then they start to working from there on and…down. In our view that’s non-sense. If Alan Greenspan was on one side of me and Robert Rubin on the other side and they both were whispering in my ear exactly what they were going to do the next twelve months, it wouldn’t make any difference to me what I would pay for Executive Jet or General Reinsurance or anything else I do.

不在华尔街的好处：投资需要一个人独自思考（51:45 – 54:15）

巴菲特：好的！（巴菲特点名让对方提问）

Warren Buffett: Yep!

学生：相对于待在华尔街里，作为一个在城外的人有什么好处？

Student: what’s the benefit of being an out-of-towner as oppose to being in Wall Street… …(unclear)…

巴菲特：好吧，相对在华尔街里，做一个在城外的人的好处是什么呢？我在华尔街工作过一段时间。我在美国的东岸西岸都有好友。我喜欢去见他们。当我有什么想法时，我会去见他们。但进行投资决策的最好方式在一个没有其他人的房间里面思考。如果这样都行不通，那么没有什么方法能行得通了。身处任何一种市场型的环境里的缺点是，华尔街是一个极端的例子，就是你会被过度刺激。你会认为你每天必须得做点什么。

Buffett: Well, what’s the benefit of being an out-of-towner as opposed to being in the Wall Street? I worked in the Wall Street for a couple of years. I like…I got my best friends are, actually, on both coasts. I like seeing them. When I got I ideas, I will go there. The best way to think about investment is to be in a room with no one else and just think. If that doesn’t work, nothing else is gonna work. The disadvantage of being in any kinds of market-type environment, the Wall Street will be the extreme, is you will get overstimulated. You will think you have to do something every day.

我的意思是，钱德勒家族为这个公司支付了2000美金（巴菲特举起身旁的可乐）。然后你并不需要做其他的事情了，不是吗？你持有几个股票就够了。投资的技巧在于别做其他事情。甚至在1919年都别卖，实际上钱德勒家族后来是抛售了股份了。你要寻找的是一个能让你每年获得一个投资想法的方式，并且将这个想法发挥大最大值。这在一个人们每5分钟就互相叫嚷着价格，不停地将研究报告塞到你面前，之类的环境里非常难办到。华尔街通过交易赚钱。你通过不交易来赚钱，你明白吗？我的意思是，如果在座的每一个人都开始每天互相交易各自的投资组合，你们最后都会破产的。然而证券中介会拿到所有的钱。另一方面，如果你们都选了一组具有代表性的公司，然后坐着等个50年。你最终会有不少的财富，而你的证券中介会破产。他们就像薪酬和病人改变药物品种的频率挂钩的医生。如果这个医生给你一片药，治好你余生所有的病，他只能做到一次销售，一笔交易。就是如此。但是如果他能说服你，每天换药能够让你非常健康，那对于他这个开处方的人来说棒极了，你会花不少钱，但你并不会变的更健康。从财务上，你的生活会越来越差。

I mean, the Chandler family paid 2,000 bucks for this company (Buffett shows his bottle of Coke). You don’t have to do much else, do you? Just pick one of those. The trick is to not do anything else. Even not to sell it in 1919， which the family did later on. What you are looking for is a way to get one good idea a year and then ride it to its full potential. That’s very hard to do with an environment where people are shouting prices back and forth every 5 minutes and shoving reports under your nose and all that. Wall Street makes its money on activity. You make your money on inactivity, you know. I mean, everybody in this room trade their portfolio around every day with every other person, you know, you all are gonna end up broke. The intermediaries will end up with all the money. On the other hand, if you all on a group of average businesses and just sit there for the next 50 years. You will end up with a fair amount of money and your broker will be broke. His activity is…he is like a doctor get paid on how often you get to change pills, I mean, basically. If he gives you one pill and cures you for the rest of your life, he has got one sale, one transaction. That’s it. But if he can convince you that changing pills every day is the way to great health, it will be great for him to be a prescriptionist and you will be out of a lot of money and you won’t be any healthier. You will be a lot worse off financially.

你应该避开任何会刺激交易的环境。华尔街有这样的影响力。当我不得不去华尔街，我大概每6个月去一次，去之前会写好一个待办事项和公司访问的清单。我会让我在往返途中花费的路费花的值得的，然后我会回到奥马哈，继续思考投资。

You want to stay away from any environment that stimulates activities. Wall Street will have the effect of doing that. I would…I use…when I have go, I go back about once every 6 months. I will go back with a whole list of things I want to check out or companies I want to see. I will get my money’s worth out of those trips but then I will go back to Omaha and think about it.

伯克希尔哈撒韦不发股息（54:15 – 56:20）

巴菲特：好的！（巴菲特点名让对方提问）

Warren Buffett: Yep!

学生：如何向那些不向股东派发股息的公司估值，比如微软和伯克希尔哈撒韦？

Student: How should investors evaluate ownership of Berkshire Hathaway or Microsoft, if they don’t pay dividends to their investors?

巴菲特：好的，问题是关于伯克希尔哈撒韦，问题是如何给伯克希尔哈撒韦估值，而它本身不发股息。它将来也不会发股息的。这是我的承诺。（学生大笑）你在伯克希尔能做的，就是你会得到一个保险箱。每年你能爱抚一番。你可以把钱拿出来然后放回去。这里有极大的心里上的满足，你不可忽略。（学生大笑）

Warren Buffett: Well…the question with Berkshire Hathaway, the question is about evaluating Berkshire when it doesn’t pay any dividends. It won’t pay any dividends either. It’s a promise I can keep. All you get with Berkshire, you still get your safe-deposit box. Every year you can fondle it, you know. You take it out and put it back. I mean, there is an enormous psychic reward in that. You don’t underestimate it.

真正的问题是，我们是否能将留下来的每一张一元钞票以合理的速度变成更多的一元钞票。这是我们努力在做的。为此查理芒格和我甚至都把自己的钱投进去了。这是我们能获得报酬的唯一方式。我们没有股权，我们没有薪水。我们不从中拿任何东西。我们共用那架私人飞机。这是我们努力在做的。随着时间，这越来越难了。我们管理的钱越多，增长越难。我们会做的远比现在好，如果伯克希尔只有现在的1/100。伯克希尔是完全为股东服务的，但不会派发股息。因为，目前为止，我们留下的本可能会派发的每一美元，我们都将它变成了更多的美元。把钱留下价值会更高。派发股息不是一件聪明事，即使每个人都不需要为此交税。这将会是个错误，如果我们派发了股息，因为目前留下的每一美元都在产生复利。没有办法保证未来会发生。某一刻这会走到尽头。但是这是目标。我的意思是，这是这公司的存在意义。除了提供收益，这公司没有别的事情需要做，我们不会因为总部的大小或者，你懂的，在总部工作的人数多寡不是我们的目的。我们总部有12个人，我们有4万5千雇员。那12个人，3500平方英尺（325平方米）的总部未来也不会变得。我们的目标是公司的业绩。这是我们唯一能获得收入的方式。但是相信我，现在增长比以前难得多了。

The real question is whether we can keep retaining dollar bills and turning them into more than a dollar at a decent rate. That’s we try to do. Charlie Munger and I all have our money in to do that. That’s all we will get paid for doing it. We won’t take any options. We won’t take any salaries. We don’t pick up anything. We ride around the plane. That’s what we are trying to do. It gets harder all the time. The more money we manage the harder it is to do that. We would do way better percentage wise with Berkshire if it is 1/100 the present size. It is run for its owners. But it isn’t run to give them dividend. Because, so far, every dollar that we’ve earned and could have paid out, we have turned into more than a dollar. It worth more than a dollar to keep it. It would be silly to pay out, even if everybody is tax-free to own it. It would have been a mistake to pay dividends of Berkshire because so far the dollar bills retained have turned into more than a dollar. There is no guarantee that that will happen in the future. At some point the game runs out on that. But it’s the goal. I mean, that’s what the business is about. We are not…nothing else about the business do we judge ourselves by. We don’t judge by the size of the home office building or, you know, anything of the number of people working around it. We got 12 people at headquarters, we got 45,000 employees at Berkshire. 12 people at headquarter, 3,500 square feet and we won’t change it. We will judge ourselves by the performance of the company. That’s the only way we will get paid. But, believe me, it is a lot harder than it used to be.

卖出的时机：最好的持有时间是永远（56:20 – 58:50）

巴菲特：坐在最后方有没有需要提问的？因为我想知道我没有漏掉最后面的那些问题。好的我们将…最远方的那个…怎么样？

Warren Buffett: Anything way in the back because I want to make sure then I’m not missing people back there that haven’t called. Ok, then we will go to the…how about way over there, on the…

学生：你是如何决定投资已经获得足够的收益？

Student: What makes you decided that investment reaches its full potential?

巴菲特：我没听见…我是如何决定投资的什么？

Warren Buffett: I missed the…what makes me decide to invest what?

学生：投资。你的投资在什么时候会达到完全的收益？在你之前说的，你讲…

Student: Investment. When will your investment have reached its full potential? As you said earlier that you will…

巴菲特：我没听见最后一部分…

Warren Buffett: I missed the last part…

另一个人帮着重复了问题：你是如何决定投资已经获得足够的收益？

Someone else helped repeat the question: What makes you decided that investment reaches its full potential?

巴菲特：噢，达到完全收益。好吧…理想情况下你在买下公司的时候你的想法是它永远不会…我的意思是，我从不考虑…在我买可乐的时候我不会想10年，15年后他的生意会走到尽头。它，我的意思是，它有可能发生这样的情况，但是我认为这样的可能性几乎为零。我们真的想做的是买下我们愿意永久持有的公司。这在我看待那些买伯克希尔股票的人是一样的想法。我想人们买下伯克希尔并永久持有。可能因为这样或者那样的原因中途放弃。但是我希望他们，至少在买入的那个时刻，他们的想法是将其持有到永远。我不是说这是买股票的唯一方式。我只是希望愿意和我作伴的人是这样的。因为我不想有一个不停变化的股东群体。我考量伯克希尔的表现是通过观察流动性是能有多么低。如果我有一个教堂，我是那个传教士，每个周日，一半的人都会被换掉，我不会说：“噢这棒极了，我的成员流动性真大啊！这美好的流动！”（学生大笑）你知道的，我会…我会宁愿有一个每个周日所有座位都是坐着一样的人的教堂。好吧，这就是我们看待我们要买的公司的方式。我们想买那些我们愿意永远持有的公司。我们找不到很多这样的公司。

Warren Buffett: Oh, reaches its full potential. Well…ideally you are buying businesses when you feel that it will never happen in terms of… I mean, I don’t think…I don’t buy Coke with the idea that it’s going to out of gas in 10 years, you know, or 15 years. It, I mean, it could be something happen but I would think the chances of that are almost null. What we really want to do is buy businesses that we would be happy to own forever. It’s the same way I feel about people buying Berkshire. I want people to buy Berkshire then plan to hold forever. They may not, for one reason or another. But I want them, at the time they buy it, to think they are buying a business that they are gonna hold forever. I don’t say that’s the only way to buy things. It’s just that that’s the group I want to have joined me. Because I don’t want to have a changing group all the time. I measure Berkshire by how little activities there is in it. If I have a church and I was the preacher, half the congregation left every Sunday, I wouldn’t say: “Oh this is marvelous, I gonna have all this liquidity among my members! This terrific turnover!” You know, I would…I would rather get a church where all the seats are filled with, you know, every Sunday, by the same people. Well, that’s the way we look at the businesses we buy. We want to buy something that we are really happy to own virtually forever. We can’t find a lot of those.

当我开始的时候，我的想法远比我的钱多。我只能不断地卖出那个最不那么好的股票，然后买入那个账目价值更便宜的。但是这在现在不会是问题了。所以我们希望我们在买公司的时候，5年后我们依然能像今天那样喜欢。如果我们真是遇到了特大的并购机会，你懂的，我们可能得卖出一些股票了。但这是一个听起来不错的麻烦。在我们买入什么的时候我们不会考虑应该买入的价格。我们不会在我们能以30美金每股买入的时候考虑“如果有人提出40我们就会卖给他”，或者50,60,100。我们只是不那么做了。在我们买入非上市公司比如，2千5百万购入喜诗糖果的时候，我们不会对自己说，如果我们遇到有人愿意出5千万我们就卖了。这真不是我们思考投资的方式。我们分析公司的时候我们会想：“这个公司是否会随着时间持续的提供更多更多更多的现金？”如果答案是“是”，那么我们不需要问别的问题了。

When I started, I had way more ideas than money. I was just constantly having to sell what I thought was the least attractive stock in order to buy something that I just discovered the book value even cheaper. But that’s not the problem really now. So we hope we are buying businesses that we are just as happy with it five years from now as now. If we ever find some huge acquisition, you know, we have to sell something, maybe, to make that acquisition. But that would be a very pleasant problem to have. We never buy something with a price target in mind. We never buy something at 30, saying “If it goes to 40 we will sell it”, or 50, or 60, or 100. We just don’t do it that way any more than… when we buy a private business like Cee’s Candy for 25 million, we don’t say to ourselves if we ever…if we ever get an offer 50 million for this business we will sell it. That’s just not the way we look at the business. We look at the businesses, “Is this going to keep producing more and more and more money over time?” If the answer to that is “Yes,” you don’t need to ask any more questions.

为什么当初投资了像所罗门和长期资本管理这样的公司（58:50 – 1:02:00）

巴菲特：这里有一个…是的，在最后面

Warren Buffett: There is…yeah, way back there.

学生：用刚刚提到的原则，你为什么会，比如说所罗门，或者相似的，长期资本管理公司，你是如何对他们估值…

Student: With this same principle in mind, what would it be for, take the case of Salomon, and similarly, for Long Term Capital…how do you quote the evaluation…

巴菲特：好吧，所罗门，像我之前说的。我当时买入是因为它的证券在1987年提供了9%的回报率，1987年9月的时候。我们当时卖掉了很多股票，然后我有很多现金我没…当时看起来像是我们找不到机会做点什么投资了。所以我选择了一个挺诱人的证券，尽管相应的公司是我永远不会买它的股票的。我买的原因如此。我认为这是一个错误。当时还算不错。但是那不应该是我要做的。我应该，在当时，等个一年然后买可口可乐的股票或者类似的。我们本应该在那时的价格买入可口可乐。尽管那不是很便宜的价格。那是我的错误。对于长期资本管理公司，那是一个…我们在此之前了解很多这类和证券有关的投资模式。其中之一就是套利。我的意思是，我在过去的45年我一直都有做过套利。格雷厄姆大概在这之前的30年也做过。这是一种投资方式。但是不幸的是，我得待在电话旁边，因为我得…我得离开我得办公室了。因为那需要更多的关注市场动态。我不再想做这种事情了，除非真的有一个很好的机会摆在眼前，然后我清楚了解这是什么。我将来不会做很多这样的事了。但我们…在我一生大概做过300场不同的套利，或者更多吧。这是一个很好的投资方式，非常不错的投资。

Warren Buffett: Well, Salomon, like I said, I went into that because it was 9% security in 1987, September 1987, the Dow was up 35% that year. We had sold a lot of stuff, and I had a lot of money around I don’t…it looked like to me that we are never getting any chance to do anything. So I took an attractive security form in a business I would never buy the common stock of it. I went in because of that. I think that’s generally a mistake. It worked out OK finally on that. But it…it’s not what I should have been doing. I should have…we should have waited, in which case, I could have bought more Coca-Cola a year later or thereabout. We should have bought Coke at the prices they were selling at. Even though it wasn’t selling at a pretty price at the time. That was a mistake. At Long Term Capital, that’s…we have learned other businesses that are associated with securities over the years. One of them is arbitrage. I have done arbitrage for 45 years. Graham did it probably 30 years before that. That’s a business. Unfortunately, I have to be near a phone, for I have to…I have to really run out of the office myself. Because it requires being more sort of market-attuned. I don’t want to do that anymore so I…unless a really big arbitrage situation came along and I understood. I won’t be doing much of that. But we… I have probably been in 300 arbitrage situations at least in my life, or maybe more. It’s a good business. Perfectly good business.

长期资本管理做着一系列的投资。他们的投资种类繁多，但是最大的那10笔投资，大概其中90%的钱是在冒险的。我对这10笔投资有所了解。从大层面来看，他们公司我不是每一方面都懂。但是我在能看懂，并且我觉得还可，买入价格实惠，并且我们能接受损失的时候我会参与。我们可能会在其中遇到损失。但是我们处于有利位置。这是一个我能懂的游戏。还有些别的我们只是简单的买了一些，没买太多因为不能买太多。但他们涉及到了…他们可以涉及到利率曲线关系，新发行旧发行的国债等等。那些都是你如果在证券行业停留足够长一段时间会明白的东西。但是这不是我们公司的主营。这些交易大概占据了我们每年0.5%的收益，或者0.75%的年收益。他们是一点小小的附赠，如果你只要在证券行业呆一段时间就会学到的那一点儿知识的奖励。

Long Term Capital has a bunch of positions. They had got tons of positions but the top 10 are probably 90% of the money that’s at risk. I know something about those ten position. I don’t know everything about them by a long shot. But I know enough where I would feel OK at a big discount going in and we would have the staying power to hold it out. We might lose money on something like that. But the odds are with us. That’s a game that I understand. There are a few other positions we have that aren’t that big because they can’t get that big. But they involve… they could involve yield curve relationships…or on-the-run, off-the-run government, or things like that. They are just things you have learned over time if you are around securities market. They are not the base of our business. Probably on average, they have accounted for 0.5% our return a year…or 0.75% a year of our return. They are little pluses that you will get for…for actually having just been around a long time and learning a little bit about them.

我的第一个套利…不算是第一笔…算是最早的那几笔套利，是和咖啡豆有关的。有个公司愿意用咖啡豆购回他们的股票。那是1955年。我从市场上购入股票，换成库存的咖啡豆，然后开一份仓库的储存票据。因为在咖啡豆交易所，他们想要的另一种形式的票据。当时有0.01%套利利润。我最爱了！我最后终于咖啡豆都卖了。我的意思是，这些都是一些如果你在这个行业待一段时间就会学会的东西。但是我从此就没在遇到过这样的咖啡豆生意了。40多年了我一直在等第二笔。（学生大笑）但还是没等到。但是我还是记得很清楚。长期资本管理公司吧，就是在大规模做着这样的事。

The first arbitrage…not the first arbitrage…but one of the first arbitrage I did involved the company where you…they were offering cocoa beans in exchange for their stocks. That was in 1955. I bought this stock, turned into the stock, got warehouse certificates for cocoa beans. They had to be a different type that were trading in the cocoa exchange. But there was a basis differential. My favorite! I sold them. I mean, that’s just something that I was around at the time so I learned about it. It haven’t been a cocoa bean deal ever since. 40 odd years I have been waiting for another cocoa bean deal. I haven’t seen it. But it’s there in my memory whenever it comes along. And that…Long Term Capital is that on a big scale.

想要非常高的回报：同时投资6个公司足矣（1:02:00 – 1:04:05）

巴菲特：好的!（巴菲特点名让学生提问）

Warren: Yeah! (Buffett lets one of student audience to ask a question)

学生：你说过投资需要… （听不清）… 涉及… （听不清）… 分散化… （听不清）…

Student: You basically build an investment… (unclear)… know… (unclear)… involve… (unclear)… diversification… (unclear)…

巴菲特：问题是关于分散化。我有两个答案。如果你不是专业的投资者，你的目标不是远比这个世界的其他人做的好，那我觉得应该做到极度分散化。我的意思是，我相信98%，99%，或者比99%更多的投资者应该大量分散化并且别频繁交易。这样就意味着低花费的投资指数类投资。因为这些指数做的就是拥有着美国的一部分，这样的想法是合理的。我不会否定。这是他们应该做的，除非他们想要更投入的进行投资，开始进行公司的分析。一旦你开始进行公司的分析，并且决定将投入努力，强度，时间将其做好，那么我觉得任何程度的分散化投资都是糟糕的错误。

Warren Buffett: The question is about diversification. I have got a dual answer to that. If you are not a professional investor, if you goal is not to manage money in such a way to get significantly better return than the world, then I believe in extreme diversification. I mean, I believe 98% or 99%, maybe more than 99% of people who invest should extensively diversify and not trade. That leads to them an index fund type of a decision with very low cost. Because all they are going to do is to own a part of America and they have made a decision that owning a part of America is worthwhile. I don’t quarrel with that at all. That the way they should approach it unless they want to bring in intensity to the game, to make a decision and start evaluating businesses. But once you are in the businesses of evaluating businesses and you decided that you are going to bring the effort, intensity, time involved to get that job done, then I think that diversification is a terrible mistake at any degree.

前些日子我在太阳信托银行的时候也有人问我这样的问题。如果你真的要做到了解公司，你大概不会看懂超过6家公司。我的意思是，如果你能找到那6家优秀的公司，这是你全部的分散化。你会因此赚很多的钱，而且我保证你，当你开始投资第7家，你还不如将钱投在第一家你喜欢的公司。此时分散化投资是一个糟糕的错误。极少人能在第七好的点子上致富。但是很多人在他最好的点子上致富。我会说任何一个有一定量的资金的投资人，如果确切明白投资是什么样的事情，懂6家公司很多了。我大概真正喜欢的公司只有3家。

I got asked the question when I was at the SunTrust the other day. If you really know businesses, you probably shouldn’t know more than 6 of them. I mean, if you can identify 6 wonderful businesses, that is all the diversification you need. You can make a lot of money and I will guarantee you that going into a 7th one is going to…you rather putting more money in your first one. It’s gotta be a terrible mistake. Very few people have gotten rich on their 7th best idea. But, a hell lot of people got rich on their best idea. I would say that for anybody working with normal capital who really knows the businesses that they have gone into, a 6 is plenty. I probably have half of it what I like the best.

我个人不分散化投资。我知道的优秀的投资者都不分散化 —— 除了我之前提到的沃尔特·施洛斯（价值投资者，巴菲特的朋友，沃尔特·施洛斯有限合伙公司的创始人）。沃尔特·施洛斯做到了相当的分散化。他所有行业都会持有一点。我称这是诺亚（圣经中的人物，曾建造一艘巨船，为了让动物免于洪水之灾而灭绝，各种动物都装载了几个。）你知道的，就是每个行业都挑两个公司持有。（学生大笑）

I don’t diversify, personally. All the people I know that have done well – with the exception we have mentioned Walter Schloss earlier. Walter Schloss diversifies a lot. He owns a little of everything. I call it Noah. You know, you have got two of everything.

保洁公司和可口可乐：我喜欢保洁，但更喜欢可口可乐的可预测性（1:04:05 – 1:05:45）

巴菲特：好的!（巴菲特点名让学生提问）

Warren: Yeah! (Buffett lets one of student audience to ask a question)

学生：你是如何区分可口可乐这样的公司以及保洁这样的公司？

Student: How to do differentiate the Coca-Cola of the world and Procter & Gamble of the world?

巴菲特：好吧，保洁是一个非常好的公司。强大的分销能力，许多名牌，和各种其他的。但是如果你问我，如果现在需要将我全家人的净值投资一个公司，并且从此以后必须离开股市20年，我会选保洁还是可口可乐？实际上，保洁的产品线更加分散化。但是我对可乐比保洁更有信心。但如果有人告诉我我必须持有保洁的股票20年，我并不会不满意。它在我的备选名单里排在前5%，因为这个公司很难被击败。

Warren: Well, Procter & Gamble is good… a very very good business. Strong distribution capability, lots of brand name, and everything. But if you ask me, if I’m going to be away for 20 years, put all my family’s net worth in one business. Whatever Procter & Gamble or Coke? Actually, Procter & Gamble are a little more…be more diversified among product lines. But I would feel sure of Coke than Procter & Gamble. I wouldn’t be unhappy if somebody told me I have to own Procter & Gamble during a 20-year period. That would be in my top 5% because they are not going to get killed.

但是相比保洁，我对可乐未来20,30年的单位增长率更有信心。

But, I would feel better about the unit growth and pricing power of Coke over a 20 or 30 years than I would about Procter & Gamble. Right now the pricing power might be tough. But if you think about a billion serving a day, an extra penny means $10 million a day, you know. We own 8% of it, that’s $800,000 a day for Berkshire Hathaway, if you get another penny out of this stuff. Doesn’t seem impossible, does it? I mean, it worth another penny with it. Right now it would be a mistake to try to get it in most market. But overtime, Coke will make more per serving than it does now. 20 years from now I will guarantee you it will more per serving. It will be selling a whole lot more serving. I don’t know how many of them or how much more, but I know that.

P&G’s main products, I don’t think they have the kind of dominance and they don’t have the kind of unit growth. But they are good businesses, you know. I wouldn’t be unhappy if you told me that I have to put my family’s net worth in P&G and that was the only stock I can own. I would, you know…I might prefer other names but there are a hundred other names I would prefer.

如何评价麦当劳（1:05:45 – 1:08:20）

Warren Buffett: Yeah! (Buffett lets one of student audience to ask a question)

学生：你会买麦当劳的股票吗？假设你在买下麦当劳以后的20年不能卖出

Student: What are you going to say about McDonald’s if you’re going away 20 years from now?

巴菲特：麦当劳…问题是关于如果我必须持有麦当劳20年。麦当劳有许多能让你买它股票的理由。尤其的它海外的市场。我的意思是，他们在海外的地位比美国还好。但是这是一个越来越难做的生意了。人们并不会每天吃麦当劳。对于那些喝可乐的人来说，如果他们今天喝5盎司，明天还可能喝5盎司。快餐生意比这个更难做。但是如果你必须要在快餐业中选一个，这在全球范围内将是一个巨大的市场，那你会选麦当劳。我的意思是，他们有着最好的商业地位。在成年人中，它没办法赢得美味竞赛。在儿童顾客之中它的表现非常不错，成人来说也还行。但是，这并太可能意味着他是必然的胜者。它在近些年进入了一个折扣促销的游戏模式。你们应该还记得大概一年前麦当劳做过的尝试吧。麦当劳越来越依赖这种模式，而不仅仅只是靠产品本身了。我喜欢那些产品因为其自身特点的而受人喜欢的。如果人们买锋速3的原因是他们喜欢锋速3本身，而不是因为买了锋速3会送豆豆公仔，我对于吉利的感觉会更好。你懂的，我认为这样的产品在本质上是更强势的。应该是这样的。

Warren Buffett: McDonald’s…the question is about McDonald’s if I’m going away for 20 years. McDonald’s has got a lot of things going for it. Particularly, abroad, again. I mean their position in abroad and in many countries is stronger relatively than in here. It’s a tougher business over time. People do not want to eat, except for the kids when they are giving away beanie babies or something. People do not want to eat at McDonald’s every day. For people are drinking Coke today, if they drink 5 ounce today, they probably drink 5 tomorrow. The fast food business is tougher than that. But if you have to pick one hand to have in the fast-food industry, which is gonna be a huge business worldwide, you pick McDonald’s. I mean it…they have the strongest position. It doesn’t win taste test, you know, with adults. I mean, it does very well with children, and does fine with adults. But it does… I mean…it is not…it is not like it is a clear winner. It has got into the game in recent years of being more price promotional and, you know, you remember the experiment a year ago or so. And that…so it has got more dependent on that rather than just selling the product by itself. I like product by itself sells. I feel better about Gillette if people buy the Mach 3 because they like the Mach 3 than if they get a beanie baby with it. You know, I mean…so I just think it’s fundamentally a stronger product if that’s the case. You know, it probably is.

我们持有吉利许多股份。你知道吗，想到几十亿人脸上的胡须不停的在生长，你在晚上能睡的很好。即使是你在睡觉的时候，胡须也在生长。女人们有两条腿，这更棒了。（学生大笑）所以这比数绵羊还容易入睡。这是就是那类我前面提到的商机。但是如果你需要考虑的是：“下个月我需要推出什么促销项目击败汉堡王”，“如果他们和迪士尼签了合约而我们没有签怎么办” 我希望产品自身能站得住脚，即便是没有促销的帮忙。虽然通过促销你能建立一个很好的公司。麦当劳是一个美妙的公司。但它没有可乐那么好。但是这本身很难做到…这已经是很好的公司了。如果需要在这个行业里面押注某一个公司，除了冰雪皇后——我离题了——你大概会选麦当劳。前不久我们买下了冰雪皇后，这也是为什么我刚刚不知廉耻的广告植入了（学生大笑）。

We own a lot of Gillette. You can sleep pretty well at nights if you think of a couple of billion men with their hair growing on their faces, you know. It is growing all night while you are asleep, you know. Woman have to legs, it’s even better. So it beats counting sheep. Those are the kind of business…but if you are gonna think: “what promotion am I going to put out there to gets Burger King next month”, “what if they sign up with Disney and I don’t get Disney.” I mean…that is…I’m…I like the products that are standalone, in absence of promotional pricing appeals. Although you can build a very good business based on that. McDonald’s is a terrific business. It is not as good businesses as Coke. But that…you know, there are really hard…hardly any…it’s a very good business. If you bet on one company in that field, aside from Dairy Queen – I’m off the question – you might pick McDonald’s. We bought Dairy Queen here awhile back, that’s why I’m plugging it shamelessly here.

对电力和公共事业公司的看法：不知道谁会是赢家（1:08:20 - 1:09:45）

Warren Buffett: Yeah, way back there.

Student: What do you think of the electric and utility industry?

Warren Buffett: What do I think of what?

Student: Electric and utility industry.

Warren Buffett: Electric and utility industry? Well…I thought about that a lot. Because you can put big money in it. And I’ve even thought of buying entire businesses. There is a fellow in Omaha actually has done a little of that though CalEnergy. But I don’t quite understand the game in terms of how it is going to develop with the regulations. I mean…it’s…it’s gotta… I can see how it destroys a lot of value for the high-cost producer, once they are not protected by a monopoly territory. And I don’t, quite for sure, see how…who benefits and how much. I mean, obviously, the guy with the very low cost power, some guys got the hydropower you know, 2 cents a kilowatt or something like that. He’s got huge advantage. But how much of that is getting kept or everything? How extensively he can send that outside this natural territory? I haven’t able to figure that out with certainty.

So I really think I need to know what the industry is going to look like in 10 years. But it is something that I think about. If I have ever developed any insights call for action, you know, I will act on it. Because I think I can understand the attractiveness of the products and it’s…all of that. All the aspects of certainty of user need and the fact that there is a bargain, all of that. I understand. I just don’t understand who is going to make money in it 10 years from now. That keeps me away.

小市值公司似乎比大市值公司表现好：我其实并不在乎市值大小（1:09:45 - 1:11:55）

Warren Buffett: Yep!

Student: What do you think that the market is favoring the large-cap, blue-chip stocks over small-cap stocks? And what helps you view…(unclear)

Warren Buffett: The question is “large cap vs small cap”. And why “large-cap over-perform”. I don’t know the answer to that. We don’t think…we don’t care whether a company is large cap, “gigantic-cap”, middle-cap, small-cap, micro-cap. Doesn’t make any difference. The only question we care about is “can we understand the business”, “do we like the people running it”, “is the business itself and price are attractive.” From my personal stand point running Berkshire now, because we got Pual Former for Gen Re. I don’t know what we have, maybe 75 or 80 billion dollars to invest. And I only want to invest in about 5 things. So I’m really very limited to very big companies. But if I were to invest in 100,000 dollars, I wouldn’t care whether something is large cap or small cap or anything. I would just look for businesses I understood. Now… I think, on balance, large cap companies as businesses have done extraordinary well in the last 10 years and way better than people anticipated they would do. I mean you really have American businesses earning close to something 20% on equity. That’s something that nobody had dreamt about. That’s being produced by very large companies in aggregate. So you have this huge evaluation upward of in… because of lower interest rate and much higher return on capital. You know, if American businesses are really bonds, disguised bonds that earn 20% – have 20% coupon – much better than the bonds that earn 13% coupon. That’s happening with big companies in recent years. Whether it is permanent or not is another question. I’m skeptical of that. But I don’t… I wouldn’t even think about… except for the question “how much money we run” … I wouldn’t even think about the size of businesses.

A good one, Cee’s Candy was a 25 million dollars’ business when we bought it. I mean if I can find one that is just like it now, if it is the biggest we’ve found, you know, I got to buy it. It is the certainty of it that counts.

关于房地产：能找到的投资机会并不多（1:11:55 - 1:16:05）

Warren Buffett: Yeah, way over there!

Student: I mentioned earlier that buying stocks in service companies or policy companies. Once a while, until the last five years, the real estate has been primarily private. …(unclear)…securitization of real estate. I wonder what is your insight into the industry.

Warren Buffett: Yeah… you talk about the real estate… I mean securitization. Normally securitization of … of … the debt too … the real estate. That is one of the items right now that is really clogging up the capital market. I mean, the mortgage-backed securities are… they are just not moving in commercial mortgage-back, not residential mortgage-back. So that… but I think that you are directing you question at equity probably.

The equities… if you leave out… the corporate form has been a lousy way to own equities, I mean. You interject the corporate income tax. That isn’t something when people individually have been able to own with a single tax. By having the normal corporate form, you get to have a double taxation. You really don’t need it with real estate. It takes away too much rate of return. REITs have in effect created a conduit so you don’t get the double taxation. But they also generally have fairly high operating expenses. If you get real estate, let’s just say you can buy fairly simple type of real estate at an 8% yield thereabouts. And you take away maybe close to 1 or maybe 1.5% by the time you count stock options and everything. It’s not a terribly attractive way to own. Maybe the only way a guy with a thousand bucks or 5 thousand bucks can own it. But if you have a million dollars, or 10 million dollars, you are better off owning a real estate property yourself. You are saving some intermediaries in-between, who will get a sizable piece of return for themselves.

We have found very little in that field. You will see an announcement in the next couple in the next couple weeks that I may belie what I’m telling you. I don’t want you to think … I don’t want you to think I was double-crossing up here (Buffett giggled). But generally speaking, we have seemed very very little in that field that gets us excited. People sometimes get very confused about… they will look at some huge land companies. I will take one that you won’t get emotional reaction on the parts of it. Texas Pacific Land Trust, which has been around for over 100 years. They have got a couple acres of Taxes. They will take the… they sold 1% of their land every year. They will take that as a plying and everything and come up with some huge value compared to the market value. But that’s nonsense if you really own the property. You can’t move 50% of the property or 20% of the property. It is way worse than owing liquid stocks. So you get these… I think you get these silly evaluation placed on a lot of real estate companies by people who really don’t understand what is it like to own one and try to move large quantity of property.

REITs behave terribly in the market this year as you know. And it is not all unconceivable that they will become a class… they will get so unpopular that they will sell at significant discounts from which you can sell the properties for. They can get interesting as a class but then the question is “would the management will fight you in the process”. Because they will be giving up their income stream for managing things. Their interests may run counter to the show or some of that. I always wonder about the REITs that say, you know, “our assets are so wonderful, they are so cheap.” And they go out and sell stocks. There is a contradiction to that. They say “a stock at 28 is very cheap” and they sell a lot of stocks at 28 less underwriting commission. There is, you know, they either… there is a disconnect there.

But it’s a field we look at. I mean, Charlie and I can understand real estate. And we will be open for very big transactions periodically. If there is a “Long Term Capital Management” situation translated to real estate, we will be open to that. The trouble is many other people will be too. They will be unlikely to go to a price that would really get us excited.

股市不在乎你的想法（1:16:05 – 1:18:45）

Warren Buffett: Way back there.

Student: My understanding of your theory is that, sort of, down market is terrific for net savers. Can you sort of get into your thought about whether the market is going upward or downward or stagnant, long term profits and short term profits … (unclear)?

Warren Buffett: Well, yeah, I have got… I have got no idea where the market is gonna go. I prefer it is going down. I haven’t… my preferences have nothing to do with it. The market knows nothing about my feelings. That is one of the first thing you have to learn with the stocks. If you buy 100 shares of General Motors, all out of the sudden you have this feeling about General Motors. I mean, if it goes down you may be mad at it, you may say “well, if it just goes to what I had paid for, my life will be wonderful again.” Or if it goes up you may say how smart you were, how you and General Motors have this love affair. I mean, you got all these feeling. Stock doesn’t know you own it. Stock just sits there, it doesn’t care what you paid, doesn’t care if you own it, or anything. So any feelings I have about the market is not reciprocated. It is the ultimate… it is a very cold shoulder we are talking about here.

Anybody in this room, let’s say, practically everybody in this room is more likely to be a net buyer of the stocks over the next 10 years than a net seller. So everyone of you should prefer lower prices. I mean if you are going to be a net eater of hamburger the next 10 years, you want hamburger to go down unless you are cattle producer. If you are going to be a buyer of Coca-Cola and you don’t own Coke stock, you hope the price of Coke goes down. You are looking for it to be on sale this weekend when you are in the supermarket, you want it go down in the weekends not up in the weekends when you gonna tend the supermarket.

纽约证券交易所是一个公司的百货商场。如果你想去这里买股票，你会期待什么？你希望这些股票的价格都打折，越便宜越好。这样一来你能买很多股票。再后来，20年以后，30年以后，你处在一个开始利用起你的这些储蓄，或者你的后代开始使用你的储蓄的阶段（学生大笑），然后你会考虑更高的股价。这是在本格雷厄姆的《聪明的投资者》的第八章提到的，关于对股市波动的态度。这一章还有第20章“安全边际”，在我看来，是投资领域有史以来最好的两篇文章。因为当我在18岁读到第8章时，我就懂了，显而易懂，但是我没办法自己领悟。这是那一章解释给我的道理。我如果未曾读到那篇文章，我大概还需要花100年去明白这个道理。我依然会认为，股票上涨就是一个好事。

New York Stock Exchange is a big supermarket of companies. You are going to buying stocks. What do you want it to happen? You want those stocks to go down, way down. And you will make better buys then. Later on, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, you are in the period when you dis-saving, or lairs dis-saving for you then you got… I mean, then you may care about higher prices. But I find people… that was one of the… that’s chapter 8 in Ben Graham’s “intelligent investor” about the attitude toward stock market fluctuations. That and chapter 20 on the “margin of safety” are the two most important essays ever written on investing as far as I concern. Because when I read chapter 8 when I was 18, I figured, you know, I just figured out what I just said but… it is obvious, but I didn’t figure out myself though. It was explained to me. I probably would have gone another 100 years if I hadn’t read it. I would still thought it was good when my stocks were going up.

我们都希望股市能下跌一些，但是我对未来股市的动向并不了解。我一直以来都没有答案，未来也不会。如果股市下跌了，我买股的时候会更仔细些，因为我知道更有机会出现投资机会。我花的钱会更加值。

We want things to go down but I have no idea about what the stock market is gonna do. I never do. I will never will. It is not something that I think about at all. When it goes down I feel… I look harder when I might buy that day because I know there is more likely to be some merchandise there. I can use my money effectively.