Reilu viikko sitten Buffett julkaisi hartaasti odotetun vuosittaisen sijoittajakirjeensä. Vaikka kirjeissa periaatteessa käsitellään hänen luotsaamansa sijoitusyhtiön asioita, niissä on paljon yleispätevää sijoitusviisautta. Buffettia kannattaa kuunnella, sillä hänen menestys sijoittajana on ilmiömäinen. Berkshire Hathawayn osakkeen tuotto vuosina 1965-2017 on ollut keskimäärin 20% vuodessa, kun S&P500-indeksi on osingot mukaanlukien tuottanut samassa ajassa noin 10% vuodessa.
Kaikki kirjeet vuodesta 1977 lähtien voi lukea täältä.
Poimin uusimmasta kirjeestä muutamia asioita, joiden pohtiminen on hyödyllistä vaikka ei Berkshire Hathawayta omistaisikaan.
Buffett antaa kritiikkiä yritysjohdon halusta laajentua aggressiivisin yritysostoin:
Once a CEO hungers for a deal, he or she will never lack for forecasts that justify the purchase. Subordinates will be cheering, envisioning enlarged domains and the compensation levels that typically increase with corporate size. Investment bankers, smelling huge fees, will be applauding as well. (Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut.) If the historical performance of the target falls short of validating its acquisition, large “synergies” will be forecast. Spreadsheets never disappoint.
Osakesijoittamisessa pitää keskittyä yrityksiin, ei kursseihin tai tavoitehintoihin:
Charlie and I view the marketable common stocks that Berkshire owns as interests in businesses, not as ticker symbols to be bought or sold based on their “chart” patterns, the “target” prices of analysts or the opinions of media pundits. Instead, we simply believe that if the businesses of the investees are successful (as we believe most will be) our investments will be successful as well. Sometimes the payoffs to us will be modest; occasionally the cash register will ring loudly. And sometimes I will make expensive mistakes. Overall – and over time – we should get decent results. In America, equity investors have the wind at their back.
Pörssikurssien heilunta on arvaamatonta, joten osakkeita ei kannata ostaa velkarahalla:
This table [taulukko, jossa Berkshire Hathawayn pahimmat kurssilaskut] offers the strongest argument I can muster against ever using borrowed money to own stocks. There is simply no telling how far stocks can fall in a short period. Even if your borrowings are small and your positions aren’t immediately threatened by the plunging market, your mind may well become rattled by scary headlines and breathless commentary. And an unsettled mind will not make good decisions.
In the next 53 years our shares (and others) will experience declines resembling those in the table. No one can tell you when these will happen. The light can at any time go from green to red without pausing at yellow. When major declines occur, however, they offer extraordinary opportunities to those who are not handicapped by debt.
Buffett palaa myös vedonlyöntiin, jonka sai alkunsa vuonna 2007. Buffett löi miljoonan dollarin vedon, että passiivinen S&P500-indeksirahasto voittaa seuraavan kymmenen vuoden kuluessa valikoidun ryhmän aktiivisesti hoidettuja hedge-rahastoja. Lopputulos oli murskavoitto indeksisijoittamiselle: S&P500-rahaston kokonaistuotto oli vuosikymmenessä 126%, kun parhaan hedge-rahastoryhmän tuotto oli vain 88% (heikoin tuotti surkeat 3%). Buffett kritisoi voimakkaasti aktiivisia rahastoja, joiden mahdollisesti hyvätkin tuotot katoavat rahastonhoitajien palkkioihin:
I made the bet for two reasons: (1) to leverage my outlay of $318,250 into a disproportionately larger sum that – if things turned out as I expected – would be distributed in early 2018 to Girls Inc. of Omaha; and (2) to publicize my conviction that my pick – a virtually cost-free investment in an unmanaged S&P 500 index fund – would, over time, deliver better results than those achieved by most investment professionals, however well-regarded and incentivized those “helpers” may be.
Addressing this question is of enormous importance. American investors pay staggering sums annually to advisors, often incurring several layers of consequential costs. In the aggregate, do these investors get their money’s worth? Indeed, again in the aggregate, do investors get anything for their outlays?
If a poll of investment “experts” had been asked late in 2007 for a forecast of long-term common-stock returns, their guesses would have likely averaged close to the 8.5% actually delivered by the S&P 500. Making money in that environment should have been easy. Indeed, Wall Street “helpers” earned staggering sums. While this group prospered, however, many of their investors experienced a lost decade. Performance comes, performance goes. Fees never falter.
Jos sijoitushorisontti on pitkä, osakesijoittamisen tuotto/riski-suhde on ylivoimainen korkoihin verrattuna:
I want to quickly acknowledge that in any upcoming day, week or even year, stocks will be riskier – far riskier – than short-term U.S. bonds. As an investor’s investment horizon lengthens, however, a diversified portfolio of U.S. equities becomes progressively less risky than bonds, assuming that the stocks are purchased at a sensible multiple of earnings relative to then-prevailing interest rates. It is a terrible mistake for investors with long-term horizons – among them, pension funds, college endowments and savings-minded individuals – to measure their investment “risk” by their portfolio’s ratio of bonds to stocks. Often, high-grade bonds in an investment portfolio increase its risk.
Buffett haluaa, että pienillä ja suurilla sijoittajilla on sama informaatio käytettävissä:
While I’m on the subject of our owners’ gaining knowledge, let me remind you that Charlie and I believe all shareholders should simultaneously have access to new information that Berkshire releases and, if possible, should also have adequate time to digest and analyze that information before any trading takes place. That’s why we try to issue financial data late on Fridays or early on Saturdays and why our annual meeting is always held on a Saturday (a day that also eases traffic and parking problems).
We do not follow the common practice of talking one-on-one with large institutional investors or analysts, treating them instead as we do all other shareholders. There is no one more important to us than the shareholder of limited means who trusts us with a substantial portion of his or her savings.
Berkshire Hathawayn yhtiökokous pidetään toukokuun 5. päivä ja sitä voi nykyään seurata suorana netin kautta. Kokouksen viihdyttävintä antia on osuus, jossa sijoittajat saavat esittää kysymyksiä Warren Buffetille ja hänen liikekumppanille Charlie Mungerille.
Puhvettia peesaan siinä mielessä että olen laskemassa salkkuni velkaisuusastetta.
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