主题： Investing

Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

Stock prices will always be far more volatile than cash-equivalent holdings. Over the long term, however, currency-denominated instruments are riskier investments—far riskier investments—than widely-diversified stock portfolios that are bought over time and that are owned in a manner invoking only token fees and commissions.

If you and I buy various cryptocurrency they’re not gonna multiply. They’re not gonna be a bunch of rabbits sitting there in front of us. They’re just gonna sit there. I would have a course on how to value a business, and I would have a course on how to think about markets. And I think if people grasped the basic principles in those two courses that they would be far better off than if they were exposed to a lot of things like modern portfolio theory or option pricing. Who needs option pricing to be in an investment business?

When I was born on August 30 of 1930, that was the high day for the whole year—242. It went straight down to 41. My mother must have felt guilty as hell witnessing what had happened.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks. It’s amusing that commentators regularly hyperventilate at the prospect of the Dow crossing an even number of thousands, such as 14,000 or 15,000. If they keep reacting that way, a 5.3 percent annual gain for the century will mean they experience at least 1,986 seizures during the next 92 years.

In the short run [the market] is a voting machine; in the long run it’s a weighing machine. Today on Wall Street, they say, “Yes, it’s cheap, but it’s not going to go up.” That’s silly. People have been successful investors because they’ve stuck with successful companies. Sooner or later the market mirrors the business.

If somebody really thinks that the stock is more valuable because we’ve split it, they’re in the wrong show. It’s like the guy who went into the pizza parlor and said, “I’d like a pizza.” The guy says, “Shall I cut it into four pieces or eight?” And he says, “Better make it four, I couldn’t eat eight.”

The world’s always uncertain. The world was uncertain on December 6th, 1941, we just didn’t know it. The world was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you know, we just didn’t know it. The world was uncertain on September 10th, 2001, we just didn’t know it. The world—there’s always uncertainty. Now the question is, what do you do with your money? … If you leave it in your pocket, it’ll become worth less—not worthless—worth less over time. That’s certain.

Aesop was not much of a finance major, because he said something like, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” But he doesn’t say when.… Sometimes a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, and sometimes two in the bush are better than one in the hand.

You shouldn’t buy a stock, in my view, for any other reason than the fact that you think it’s selling for less than it’s worth, considering all the factors about the business. Back when I had 10,000 bucks, I put 2,000 of it into a Sinclair service station, which I lost, so my opportunity cost on it’s about 6 billion right now. A fairly big mistake—it makes me feel good when Berkshire goes down, because the cost of my Sinclair station goes down too.