Today is Warren Buffett's 91st birthday. With a net worth of over $100 billion dollars, he is undoubtedly the greatest investor of all time. To celebrate, here's a thread of 91 life lessons from the investing genius:
1. You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out
2. It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it
3. For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases
4. Price is what you pay, value is what you get
5. Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No.1
6. Hire people who do not have to work
7. In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield
8. Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful
9. Complex financial instruments are dangerous liabilities
10. Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing
11. Never invest in a business you cannot understand
12. You don’t have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital
13. The best holding period is forever
14. Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years
15. Calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic
16. Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future
17. Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing
18. The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth
19. Don’t invest only because you expect a company to grow
20. Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre
21. The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything
22. Sell losing stocks when the market is up; buy winning stocks during a crash
23. Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble
24. Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future
25. A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse—not a remarkable mathematician
26. I’ve seen more people fail because of liquor and leverage
27. Don’t treat the stock market like a casino
28. If you’ve been playing poker for half an hour and you still don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy
29. Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it
30. I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them because sooner or later, one will.
31. It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price
32. Too much of diversification is not good
33. Keep all your eggs in one basket, but watch that basket closely
34. Do not save what is left after spending; instead spend what is left after saving
35. If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need
36. Conglomerates earned their terrible reputation
37. The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble…We want to buy them when they’re on the operating table
38. Never use borrowed money to buy stocks
39. You really don’t need leverage in this world much. If you’re smart, you’re going to make a lot of money without borrowing.
40. Borrow money when it’s cheap
41. 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
42. The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging
43. If past history was all that is needed to play the game of money, the richest people would be librarians
44. Beware of geeks bearing formulas
45. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money
46. The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect
47. There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult
48. Business schools reward difficult, complex behaviour more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective
49. Don’t look to jump over seven-foot bars; look around for one-foot bars to step over instead
50. Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction
51. If you’ve been playing poker for half an hour and you still don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy
52. In the world of business, the people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love
53. Games are won by players who focus on the playing field –- not by those whose eyes are glued to the scoreboard
54. Only when you combine sound intellect with emotional discipline; do you get rational behaviour
55. It's not what you look at that matters. It's what you see
56. Measure things so you can improve them
57. Admit your mistakes, to yourself and everyone
58. I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them because sooner or later, one will
59. What we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history
60. It's not like the Olympics. You don't get any extra points for the fact that something's very hard to do.
61. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money
62. Never invest because you think a company is a bargain
63. Overcome your fear of risk
64. Never use your own stock to make acquisitions.
65. What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end
66. It's easier to stay out of trouble than it is to get out of trouble
67. Don't let your assets rest in a locker
68. Wall Street — a community in which quality control is not prized — will sell investors anything they will buy
69. Aim for consistent profit over the long term
70. Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill
71. Successful investing takes time, discipline and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant
72. Embrace the virtue of a sloth.
73. Honesty is a very expensive gift, don’t expect it from cheap people
74. Enjoy the process more than the proceeds
75. People always ask me where they should go to work, and I always tell them to go to work for whom they admire the most
76. Give your kids enough so they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing.
77. Writing a check separates a commitment from a conversation.
78. Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway
79. Culture, more than rule books, determines how an organization behaves
80. I learned to go into business only with people whom I like, trust, and admire
81. It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction
82. Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken
83. Think about how you want to be remembered. Act accordingly
84. It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results
85. You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong
86. Never give up searching for the job that you are passionate about
87. The most important investment you can make is in yourself
88. If you’re in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%
89. Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago
90. We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.
91. You don't need a CFA. You just need to buy the f*cking dip - Warren Buffett (probably)
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This week, in <5 minutes, we’ll cover The Retail Revolution:
A Brief History of Market Access 👉 Exclusivity & Old ‘Boys’ Clubs
The Information Age 👉 Electronic Trading
Entry of ETFs 👉 Jack Bogle, Passive Investing
That is: 60% of your portfolio in Equities and 40% in Bonds.
But what happens when the risk-reward profile changes?
It gets replaced with 60/20/20 with the introduction of Alternatives!
Today, in <5 minutes, we’ll cover:
Why “digital alternatives” came to exist 👉 change of the old guard, technological advancements
Crypto 👉 Market update and increased adoption
NFTs 👉 What the heck are these things?
“After a year of the global pandemic, with its supply chain disruptions, race for PPE, testing kits and vaccines, the critical importance of securing sufficient raw materials in combating society's problems has never been more in focus.” - Goldman Sachs
1.2/ DECARBONISATION
This doesn’t stop with the pandemic, though…
It extends to the next biggest challenge of our time: climate change.