1984-05-17 Warren Buffett.The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville
“Superinvestor” Warren E. Buffett, who got an A+ from Ben Graham at Columbia in 1951, never stopped making the grade. He made his fortune using the principles of Graham and Dodd's Security Analysis. Here, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of that classic text, he tracks the records of investors who stick to the “value approach” and have gotten rich going by the book.
“超级投资人”沃伦·E·巴菲特于1951年在哥伦比亚大学获得本·格雷厄姆的A+评分，他从未停止取得优异成绩。他依靠格雷厄姆和多德的《证券分析》原则积累了财富。在这本经典著作问世50周年之际，他追踪了那些坚持“价值投资法”并凭借教科书致富的投资者的记录。
Is the Graham and Dodd “look for values with a significant margin of safety relative to prices” approach to security analysis out of date? Many of the professors who write textbooks today say yes. They argue that the stock market is efficient; that is, that stock prices reflect everything that is known about a company’s prospects and about the state of the economy. There are no undervalued stocks, these theorists argue, because there are smart security analysts who utilize all available information to ensure unfailingly appropriate prices. Investors who seem to beat the market year after year are just lucky. “If prices fully reflect available information, this sort of investment adeptness is ruled out,” writes one of today’s textbook authors.
格雷厄姆和多德那种“寻找相对于价格具有足够安全边际的价值”式的证券分析方法是否已经过时？许多今天撰写教材的教授都说是。他们认为股票市场是有效的，也就是说，股价已经反映了关于一家公司前景以及经济状况的所有已知信息。这些理论家认为不存在被低估的股票，因为有聪明的证券分析师利用所有可得信息来确保价格始终恰当。那些似乎年复一年跑赢市场的投资者只是运气好。“如果价格充分反映了可得信息，这种投资技巧就不可能存在，”当今的一位教材作者写道。
Well, maybe. But I want to present to you a group of investors who have, year in and year out, beaten the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index. The hypothesis that they do this by pure chance is at least worth examining. Crucial to this examination is the fact that these winners were all well known to me and pre-identified as superior investors, the most recent identification occurring over fifteen years ago. Absent this condition - that is, if I had just recently searched among thousands of records to select a few names for you this morning — I would advise you to stop reading right here. I should add that all of these records have been audited. And I should further add that I have known many of those who have invested with these managers, and the checks received by those participants over the years have matched the stated records.
也许吧。但我想向你们展示一群投资者，他们年复一年地击败了标准普尔500指数。仅凭运气做到这一点的假设至少值得检验。对此检验至关重要的一点是，这些赢家都为我所熟知，并在事先就被认定为优秀投资者，最近的一次认定发生在十五年以上前。如果没有这一前提——也就是说，如果我只是最近在成千上万份记录中挑选出几个名字来给你们——我会建议你们此刻就停止阅读。我还要补充，这些业绩记录都经过审计。并且我还认识许多与这些管理人共同投资的人，他们多年来收到的支票与公布的业绩完全一致。
Before we begin this examination, I would like you to imagine a national coin-flipping contest. Let’s assume we get 225 million Americans up tomorrow morning and we ask them all to wager a dollar. They go out in the morning at sunrise, and they all call the flip of a coin. If they call correctly, they win a dollar from those who called wrong. Each day the losers drop out, and on the subsequent day the stakes build as all previous winnings are put on the line. After ten flips on ten mornings, there will be approximately 220,000 people in the United States who have correctly called ten flips in a row. They each will have won a little over $1,000.
在我们开始这项检验之前，我想请你想象一场全国性的抛硬币比赛。假设我们让2.25亿美国人明天早晨起床并各自押上一美元。他们在日出时抛硬币，并猜测正反面。猜对的人从猜错的人那里赢得一美元。每天失败者退出，第二天进行时，所有之前的赢利都会继续下注。经过连续十个早晨的十次抛掷，大约会有22万人连续十次猜对。他们每人将赢得略高于1000美元。
Now this group will probably start getting a little puffed up about this, human nature being what it is. They may try to be modest, but at cocktail parties they will occasionally admit to attractive members of the opposite sex what their technique is, and what marvelous insights they bring to the field of flipping.
现在，这群人很可能会开始有些自负，人性如此。也许他们会努力保持谦逊，但在鸡尾酒会上，他们偶尔会向异性中的俊男美女透露自己的技巧，以及他们在抛硬币领域所拥有的非凡洞见。
Assuming that the winners are getting the appropriate rewards from the losers, in another ten days we will have 215 people who have successfully called their coin flips 20 times in a row and who, by this exercise, each have turned one dollar into a little over $1 million. $225 million would have been lost, $225 million would have been won.
假设获胜者从失败者那里得到了相称的奖金，再过十天，我们将拥有215个人，他们已经连续20次猜对硬币，并且通过这一活动把1美元变成了略高于100万美元。2.25亿美元将被输掉，2.25亿美元将被赢走。
By then, this group will really lose their heads. They will probably write books on “How I turned a Dollar into a Million in Twenty Days Working Thirty Seconds a Morning.” Worse yet, they’ll probably start jetting around the country attending seminars on efficient coin-flipping and tackling skeptical professors with, “If it can’t be done, why are there 215 of us?”
到那时，这群人真的会冲昏头脑。他们很可能会写书，题为《我如何用每天30秒、20天把1美元变成100万美元》。更糟的是，他们可能会乘喷气式飞机到全国各地参加有关有效抛硬币的研讨会，并对持怀疑态度的教授质问：“如果这事做不到，为什么我们有215个人？”
By then some business school professor will probably be rude enough to bring up the fact that if 225 million orangutans had engaged in a similar exercise, the results would be much the same — 215 egotistical orangutans with 20 straight winning flips.
到那时，某位商学院教授可能会无礼地指出，如果2.25亿只猩猩参与了类似的游戏，结果也差不多——215只自负的猩猩连续抛出20次胜利。
I would argue, however, that there are some important differences in the examples I am going to present. For one thing, if (a) you had taken 225 million orangutans distributed roughly as the U.S. population is; if (b) 215 winners were left after 20 days; and if (c) you found that 40 came from a particular zoo in Omaha, you would be pretty sure you were on to something. So you would probably go out and ask the zookeeper about what he’s feeding them, whether they had special exercises, what books they read, and who knows what else. That is, if you found any really extraordinary concentrations of success, you might want to see if you could identify concentrations of unusual characteristics that might be causal factors.
不过，我认为我将要举的例子与前述情形存在一些重要区别。比如，假设（a）你让2.25亿只猩猩的分布大致与美国人口一致；（b）20天后剩下215个赢家；（c）你发现其中有40只来自奥马哈的某家动物园，那么你几乎可以确定这里面大有文章。于是你很可能去询问饲养员：它们吃的是什么、是否进行了特殊训练、读了哪些书，等等。也就是说，如果你发现成功者高度集中，你就可能想看看能否找出某些不同寻常的共有特征，这些特征或许是因果因素。
Scientific inquiry naturally follows such a pattern. If you were trying to analyze possible causes of a rare type of cancer — with, say, 1,500 cases a year in the United States — and you found that 400 of them occurred in some little mining town in Montana, you would get very interested in the water there, or the occupation of those afflicted, or other variables. You know it’s not random chance that 400 come from a small area. You would not necessarily know the causal factors, but you would know where to search.
科学研究自然而然会遵循这种模式。假如你想分析一种罕见癌症的可能成因——比如美国每年大约有1,500个病例——而你发现其中400例发生在蒙大拿州的某个小矿镇，你就会对当地的水源、患者的职业或其他变量产生浓厚兴趣。你知道400例集中在一个小地域不可能是随机巧合。你未必马上知道病因，但你会知道该到哪里去寻找答案。
I submit to you that there are ways of defining an origin other than geography. In addition to geographical origins, there can be what I call an intellectual origin. I think you will find that a disproportionate number of successful coin-flippers in the investment world came from a very small intellectual village that could be called Graham-and-Doddsville. A concentration of winners that simply cannot be explained by chance can be traced to this particular intellectual village.
我向各位提出，界定“起源”的方式并非只有地理一个维度。除了地理起源之外，还可以存在我称之为“智识起源”的概念。我认为你会发现，投资界中那些成功的“抛硬币者”有相当大比例来自一个极小的“智识村庄”，可以称之为“格雷厄姆-多德村”。这种胜利者的高度集中，显然无法用随机机遇来解释，而是可以追溯到这个特定的智识村庄。
Conditions could exist that would make even that concentration unimportant. Perhaps 100 people were simply imitating the coin-flipping call of some terribly persuasive personality. When he called heads, 100 followers automatically called that coin the same way. If the leader was part of the 215 left at the end, the fact that 100 came from the same intellectual origin would mean nothing. You would simply be identifying one case as a hundred cases. Similarly, let’s assume that you lived in a strongly patriarchal society and every family in the United States conveniently consisted of ten members. Further assume that the patriarchal culture was so strong that, when the 225 million people went out the first day, every member of the family identified with the father’s call. Now, at the end of the 20-day period, you would have 215 winners, and you would find that they came from only 21.5 families. Some naive types might say that this indicates an enormous hereditary factor as an explanation of successful coin-flipping. But, of course, it would have no significance at all because it would simply mean that you didn’t have 215 individual winners, but rather 21.5 randomly distributed families who were winners.
也可能存在某些情形，使得这种集中现象本身并不重要。也许有100个人只是模仿某位极具说服力的人物的抛硬币口令。当那个人喊“正面”时，100名追随者便自动做出同样的喊声。如果这位领袖最终是215名赢家之一，那么那100人来自同一智识起源这一事实就毫无意义，因为你实际上只是把一个案例当成了一百个案例。同样，设想你生活在一个强烈的父权社会里，而且美国的每个家庭都恰好有十名成员。再假设这种父权文化强大到，在第一天抛硬币时，每个家庭成员都跟随父亲的喊声。那么在20天结束时，你将有215名赢家，而他们只来自21.5个家庭。一些天真的人可能会说，这说明成功抛硬币有巨大的遗传因素。但当然，这毫无意义，因为这只意味着你并不拥有215个独立的赢家，而是21.5个随机分布的赢家家庭。
In this group of successful investors that I want to consider, there has been a common intellectual patriarch, Ben Graham. But the children who left the house of this intellectual patriarch have called their "flips" in very different ways. They have gone to different places and bought and sold different stocks and companies, yet they have had a combined record that simply cannot be explained by randon chance. It certainly cannot be explained by the fact that they are all calling flips identically because a leader is signaling the calls for them to make. The patriarch has merely set forth the intellectual theory for making coin-calling decisions, but each student has decided on his own manner of applying the theory.
在我想要探讨的这群成功投资者中，他们共有一位智识族长——本·格雷厄姆。然而，离开这位智识族长“家门”的孩子们，却以截然不同的方式做出各自的“抛硬币”决策。他们去了不同的地方，买卖了不同的股票和公司，但整体业绩却好得无法用随机概率来解释。当然，也绝不能用“所有人都在听从某位领袖的统一口令”来解释。那位族长只不过阐述了进行抛硬币决策的智识理论，而每位学生则自行决定如何应用该理论。
The common intellectual theme of the investors from Graham-and-Doddsville is this: they search for discrepancies between the value of a business and the price of small pieces of that business in the market. Essentially, they exploit those discrepancies without the efficient market theorist’s concern as to whether the stocks are bought on Monday or Thursday, or whether it is January or July, etc. Incidentally, when businessmen buy businesses, which is just what our Graham & Dodd investors are doing through the medium of marketable stocks — I doubt that many are cranking into their purchase decision the day of the week or the month in which the transaction is going to occur. If it doesn’t make any difference whether all of a business is being bought on a Monday or a Friday, I am baffled why academicians invest extensive time and effort to see whether it makes a difference when buying small pieces of those same businesses. Our Graham & Dodd investors, needless to say, do not discuss beta, the capital asset pricing model, or covariance in returns among securities. These are not subjects of any interest to them. In fact, most of them would have difficulty defining those terms. The investors simply focus on two variables: price and value.
来自格雷厄姆-多德村投资者的共同智识主题是：他们寻找企业价值与市场上该企业小份额价格之间的差异。本质上，他们利用这些差异，而不会像有效市场理论家那样去担心股票是周一还是周四买入，或者是一月还是七月。顺带一提，当企业家收购整家公司——这正是我们的格雷厄姆-多德投资者通过可交易股票所做的事情——我怀疑他们会把交易发生在星期几或哪个月纳入决策。如果在星期一还是星期五收购整家公司无关紧要，我就不明白为什么学者们要花大力气研究在购买同一家公司小份额时日期是否重要。毫无疑问，我们的格雷厄姆-多德投资者不会讨论β值、资本资产定价模型或证券收益协方差。这些都不是他们感兴趣的主题。事实上，大多数人甚至很难给这些术语下定义。他们只关注两个变量：价格和价值。
I always find it extraordinary that so many studies are made of price and volume behavior, the stuff of chartists. Can you imagine buying an entire business simply because the price of the business had been marked up substantially last week and the week before? Of course, the reason a lot of studies are made of these price and volume variables is that now, in the age of computers, there are almost endless data available about them. It isn’t necessarily because such studies have any utility; it’s simply that the data are there and academicians have worked hard to learn the mathematical skills needed to manipulate them. Once these skills are acquired, it seems sinful not to use them, even if the usage has no utility or negative utility. As a friend said, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
我总觉得奇怪，为什么会有这么多研究把焦点放在价格和成交量行为上——这是技术图表派的素材。你能想象仅仅因为一家企业的价格在上周和前一周被大幅抬高，就去收购整家公司吗？当然，之所以对这些价格和成交量变量进行了大量研究，是因为在计算机时代，关于它们的海量数据俯拾即是。并不一定因为这些研究有何实际用处；只是数据摆在那里，而学者们辛苦学会了处理这些数据所需的数学技巧。一旦拥有了这些技能，如果不用似乎就成了罪过，即便这种使用毫无益处甚至有负效用。正如朋友所说，对手握铁锤的人而言，任何东西看起来都像钉子。
I think the group that we have identified by a common intellectual home is worthy of study. Incidentally, despite all the academic studies of the influence of such variables as price, volume, seasonality, capitalization size, etc., upon stock performance, no interest has been evidenced in studying the methods of this unusual concentration of value-oriented winners.
我认为，通过共同智识家园识别出的这批人值得研究。顺便说一下，尽管学术界对价格、成交量、季节性、公司规模等变量对股票表现的影响做了大量研究，却无人对这群罕见而集中的价值导向赢家的方法表示兴趣。
本分、向内收敛是普通人都讨厌的思维方式。
I begin this study of results by going back to a group of four of us who worked at Graham-Newman Corporation from 1954 through 1956. There were only four — I have not selected these names from among thousands. I offered to go to work at Graham-Newman for nothing after I took Ben Graham’s class, but he turned me down as overvalued. He took this value stuff very seriously! After much pestering he finally hired me. There were three partners and four of us at the "peasant" level. All four left between 1955 and 1957 when the firm was wound up, and it’s possible to trace the record of three.
在研究这些业绩时，我先回到1954至1956年间在格雷厄姆-纽曼公司共事的我们四个人。当时就只有我们四个——这些名字可不是从成千上万人中挑出来的。我上完本·格雷厄姆的课程后，提出愿意无薪为格雷厄姆-纽曼工作，但他觉得我“被高估”而拒绝了我。他对价值这套东西可是当真！在我多次纠缠下，他终于雇用了我。公司有三位合伙人，我们四个则处于“农民工”层级。1955至1957年间公司清算，我们四人全都离开，而其中三人的投资记录可以追溯。
The first example (see Table 1) is that of Walter Schloss. Walter never went to college, but took a course from Ben Graham at night at the New York Institute of Finance. Walter left Graham-Newman in 1955 and achieved the record shown here over 28 years. Here is what ‘Adam Smith’ — after I told him about Walter — wrote about him in Supermoney (1972):
第一个例子（见表1）是沃尔特·施洛斯。沃尔特没上过大学，却在纽约金融学院夜校上过本·格雷厄姆的课程。沃尔特于1955年离开格雷厄姆-纽曼，在接下来的28年里取得了这里所示的业绩。以下是《超级金钱》(1972)作者“亚当·斯密”在我向他介绍沃尔特后写下的话：
He has no connections or access to useful information. Practically no one in Wall Street knows him and he is not fed any ideas. He looks up the numbers in the manuals and sends for the annual reports, and that’s about it.
“他没有人脉，也接触不到任何有用信息。华尔街几乎没人认识他，也没人给他提供主意。他只是查手册里的数字，索取年报，仅此而已。”
In introducing me to (Schloss) Warren had also, to my mind, described himself. ‘He never forgets that he is handling other people’s money, and this reinforces his normal strong aversion to loss.’ He has total integrity and a realistic picture of himself. Money is real to him and stocks are real — and from this flows an attraction to the ‘margin of safety’ principle.
在向我介绍（施洛斯）时，沃伦在我看来也描述了自己：“他从不忘记自己在管理别人的钱，这强化了他对亏损的天生强烈厌恶。”他完全正直，对自己有清醒认知。钱对他是真实的，股票也是真实的——由此产生了对“安全边际”原则的吸引力。
Walter has diversified enormously, owning well over 100 stocks currently. He knows how to identify securities that sell at considerably less than their value to a private owner. And that’s all he does. He doesn’t worry about whether it it’s January, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s Monday, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s an election year. He simply says, if a business is worth a dollar and I can buy it for 40 cents, something good may happen to me. And he does it over and over and over again. He owns many more stocks than I do — and is far less interested in the underlying nature of the business; I don’t seem to have very much influence on Walter. That’s one of his strengths; no one has much influence on him.
沃尔特极度分散投资，目前持有一百多只股票。他知道如何识别那些以远低于私人买家价值的价格交易的证券，而这就是他的全部工作。他不担心现在是不是一月，也不担心今天是不是周一，更不担心是不是选举年。他只会说：如果一项业务值一美元，而我能以四十美分买到，也许会有好事发生。然后他一次又一次地这么做。他持有的股票比我多得多，对企业的内在性质则远不如我感兴趣；我似乎对沃尔特影响不大。这也是他的优势之一：没人能对他产生太大影响。
| TABLE 1 - Walter J. Schloss | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | S&P Overall Gain, Including Dividends (%) | WJS Partners Overall Gain per year (%) | WJS Partnership Overall Gain per year (%) |
| 1956 | 7.5 | 5.1 | 6.8 |
| 1957 | -10.5 | -4.7 | -4.7 |
| 1958 | 42.1 | 42.1 | 54.6 |
| 1959 | 12.7 | 17.5 | 23.3 |
| 1960 | -1.6 | 7.0 | 9.3 |
| 1961 | 26.4 | 21.6 | 28.8 |
| 1962 | -10.2 | 8.3 | 11.1 |
| 1963 | 23.3 | 15.1 | 20.1 |
| 1964 | 16.5 | 17.1 | 22.8 |
| 1965 | 13.1 | 26.8 | 35.7 |
| 1966 | -10.4 | 0.5 | 0.7 |
| 1967 | 26.8 | 25.8 | 34.4 |
| 1968 | 10.6 | 26.6 | 35.5 |
| 1969 | -7.5 | -9.0 | -9.0 |
| 1970 | 2.4 | -8.2 | -8.2 |
| 1971 | 14.9 | 25.5 | 28.3 |
| 1972 | 19.8 | 11.6 | 15.5 |
| 1973 | -14.8 | -8.0 | -8.0 |
| 1974 | -26.6 | -6.2 | -6.2 |
| 1975 | 36.9 | 42.7 | 52.2 |
| 1976 | 22.4 | 29.4 | 39.2 |
| 1977 | -8.6 | 25.8 | 34.4 |
| 1978 | 7.0 | 36.6 | 48.8 |
| 1979 | 17.6 | 29.8 | 39.7 |
| 1980 | 32.1 | 23.3 | 31.1 |
| 1981 | -6.7 | 18.4 | 24.5 |
| 1982 | 20.2 | 24.1 | 32.1 |
| 1983 | 22.8 | 38.4 | 51.2 |
| 1984 1st Qtr. | -2.3 | 0.8 | 1.1 |
| Standard & Poor’s 28¼ year compounded gain | 887.2% |
| WJS Limited Partners 28¼ year compounded gain | 6,678.8% |
| WJS Partnership 28¼ year compounded gain | 23,104.7% |
| Standard & Poor’s 28¼ year annual compounded rate | 8.4% |
| WJS Limited Partners 28¼ year annual compounded rate | 16.1% |
| WJS Partnership 28¼ year annual compounded rate | 21.3% |
| During the history of the Partnership it has owned over 800 issues and, at most times, has had at least 100 positions. Present assets under management approximate $45 million. The difference between returns of the partnership and returns of the limited partners is due to allocations to the general partner for management. 在合伙企业的发展历程中，它曾持有超过800只证券，并且在大多数时候至少拥有100个持仓。当前管理的资产规模约为4500万美元。合伙企业整体回报与有限合伙人回报之间的差额来自分配给普通合伙人的管理费用。 | |
The second case is Tom Knapp who also worked at Graham-Newman with me. Tom was a chemistry major at Princeton before the war; when he came back from the war, he was a beach bum. And then one day he read that Dave Dodd was giving a night course in investments at Columbia. Tom took it on a noncredit basis, and he got so interested in the subject from taking that course that he came up and enrolled at Columbia Business School, where he got the MBA degree. He took Dodd’s course again, and took Ben Graham’s course. Incidentally, 35 years later I called Tom to ascertain some of the facts involved here and I found him on the beach again. The only difference is that now he owns the beach!
第二个案例是汤姆·纳普，他也曾与我一起在格雷厄姆–纽曼公司工作。汤姆在战前是普林斯顿大学化学专业的学生；战争结束返乡后，他成了海滩浪子。后来有一天，他读到戴夫·多德将在哥伦比亚大学开设一门夜间投资课程。汤姆以旁听生身份参加了课程，并因此深受启发，于是上纽约报名入读哥伦比亚商学院并获得MBA学位。他再次选修了多德的课程，也选修了本·格雷厄姆的课程。顺便提一句，35年后我给汤姆打电话核实这里涉及的一些事实，结果又在海滩上找到了他——唯一的区别是，现在那片海滩归他所有！
In 1968, Tom Knapp and Ed Anderson, also a Graham disciple, along with one or two other fellows of similar persuasion, formed Tweedy, Browne Partners, and their investment results appear in Table 2. Tweedy, Browne built that record with very wide diversification. They occasionally bought control of businesses, but the record of the passive investments is equal to the record of the control investments.
1968年，汤姆·纳普与同样是格雷厄姆门徒的埃德·安德森，以及其他一两位持相似理念的同伴共同创立了特威迪·布朗合伙公司，他们的投资业绩列于表2。特威迪·布朗通过极为分散的投资组合建立了这份业绩。他们偶尔也收购企业的控股权，但被动投资的业绩与控股投资的业绩相当。
| TABLE 2 - Tweedy, Browne Inc. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Period Ended (September 30) | Dow Jones* (%) | S & P 500* (%) | TBK Overall (%) | TBK Limited Partners (%) |
| 1968 (9 mos.) | 6.0 | 8.8 | 27.6 | 22.0 |
| 1969 | -9.5 | -6.2 | 12.7 | 10.0 |
| 1970 | -2.5 | -6.1 | -1.3 | -1.9 |
| 1971 | 20.7 | 20.4 | 20.9 | 16.1 |
| 1972 | 11.0 | 15.5 | 14.6 | 11.8 |
| 1973 | 2.9 | 1.0 | 8.3 | 7.5 |
| 1974 | -31.8 | -38.1 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| 1975 | 36.9 | 37.8 | 28.8 | 22.0 |
| 1976 | 29.6 | 30.1 | 40.2 | 32.8 |
| 1977 | -9.9 | -4.0 | 23.4 | 18.7 |
| 1978 | 8.3 | 11.9 | 41.0 | 32.1 |
| 1979 | 7.9 | 12.7 | 25.5 | 20.5 |
| 1980 | 13.0 | 21.1 | 21.4 | 17.3 |
| 1981 | -3.3 | -2.7 | 14.4 | 11.6 |
| 1982 | 12.5 | 10.1 | 10.2 | 8.2 |
| 1983 | 44.5 | 44.3 | 35.0 | 28.2 |
| Total Return 15 years | 191.8% | 238.5% | 1,661.2% | 936.4% |
| Standard & Poor’s 15¾ year annual compounded rate | 7.0% | |||
| TBK Limited Partners 15¾ year annual compounded rate | 16.0% | |||
| TBK Overall 15¾ year annual compounded rate | 20.0% | |||
| * Includes dividends paid for both Standard & Poor’s 500 Composite Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average. | ||||
Table 3 describes the third member of the group who formed Buffett Partnership in 1957. The best thing he did was to quit in 1969. Since then, in a sense, Berkshire Hathaway has been a continuation of the partnership in some respects. There is no single index I can give you that I would feel would be a fair test of investment management at Berkshire. But I think that any way you figure it, it has been satisfactory.
表3介绍了1957年与我共同创建巴菲特合伙公司的第三位成员。他做得最明智的一件事就是在1969年退出。从那以后，在某种意义上，伯克希尔·哈撒韦在某些方面一直可以看作是该合伙企业的延续。我无法给出一个我认为能够公平衡量伯克希尔投资管理表现的单一指数。但无论你怎么衡量，其表现都是令人满意的。
| TABLE 3 - Buffett Partnership, Ltd. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Overall Results from Dow (%) | Partnership Results (%) | Limited Partners’ Results (%) |
| 1957 | -8.4 | 10.4 | 9.3 |
| 1958 | 38.5 | 40.9 | 32.2 |
| 1959 | 20.0 | 25.9 | 20.9 |
| 1960 | -6.2 | 22.8 | 18.6 |
| 1961 | 22.4 | 45.9 | 35.9 |
| 1962 | -7.6 | 13.9 | 11.9 |
| 1963 | 20.6 | 38.7 | 30.5 |
| 1964 | 18.7 | 27.8 | 22.3 |
| 1965 | 14.2 | 47.2 | 36.9 |
| 1966 | -15.6 | 20.4 | 16.8 |
| 1967 | 19.0 | 35.9 | 28.4 |
| 1968 | 7.7 | 58.8 | 45.6 |
| 1969 | -11.6 | 6.8 | 6.6 |
| On a cumulative or compound basis, the results are: | |||
| 1957 | -8.4 | 10.4 | 9.3 |
| 1957-58 | 26.9 | 55.6 | 44.5 |
| 1957-59 | 52.3 | 95.9 | 74.7 |
| 1957-60 | 42.9 | 140.6 | 107.2 |
| 1957-61 | 74.9 | 251.0 | 181.6 |
| 1957-62 | 61.6 | 299.8 | 215.1 |
| 1957-63 | 94.9 | 454.5 | 311.2 |
| 1957-64 | 131.3 | 608.7 | 402.9 |
| 1957-65 | 164.1 | 943.2 | 588.5 |
| 1957-66 | 122.9 | 1156.0 | 704.2 |
| 1957-67 | 165.3 | 1606.9 | 932.6 |
| 1957-68 | 185.7 | 2610.6 | 1403.5 |
| 1957-69 | 152.6 | 2794.9 | 1502.7 |
| Annual Compounded Rate | 7.4 | 29.5 | 23.8 |
Table 4 shows the record of the Sequoia Fund, which is managed by a man whom I met in 1951 in Ben Graham’s class, Bill Ruane. After getting out of Harvard Business School, he went to Wall Street. Then he realized that he needed to get a real business education so he came up to take Ben’s course at Columbia, where we met in early 1951. Bill’s record from 1951 to 1970, working with relatively small sums, was far better than average. When I wound up Buffett Partnership I asked Bill if he would set up a fund to handle all of our partners, so he set up the Sequoia Fund. He set it up at a terrible time, just when I was quitting. He went right into the two-tier market and all the difficulties that made for comparative performance for value-oriented investors. I am happy to say that my partners, to an amazing degree, not only stayed with him but added money, with the happy result shown here.
表4展示了红杉基金的业绩，该基金由我于1951年在本·格雷厄姆课堂上结识的比尔·鲁安管理。他从哈佛商学院毕业后进入华尔街工作，随后意识到自己需要接受真正的商业教育，于是来到哥伦比亚大学选修本的课程，我们于1951年初在此相识。1951年至1970年间，比尔以相对较小的资金规模取得的业绩远超平均水平。当我清算巴菲特合伙公司时，我请比尔成立一支基金来为所有合伙人管理资金，于是他创立了红杉基金。不巧的是，他在我退出之际成立基金，正值“两层市场”行情以及令价值型投资者相对表现受挫的种种困难。令人欣慰的是，我的合伙人们在极大程度上不仅继续留在基金中，还追加了投资，从而带来了这里展示的可喜结果。
这里有点问题，不符合“以角色互换的方式对待他人”。
| TABLE 4 - Sequoia Fund, Inc. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Annual Percentage Change** | ||
| Year | Sequoia Fund (%) | S&P 500 Index * (%) |
| 1970 (from July 15) | 12.1 | 20.6 |
| 1971 | 13.5 | 14.3 |
| 1972 | 3.7 | 18.9 |
| 1973 | -24.0 | -14.8 |
| 1974 | -15.7 | -26.4 |
| 1975 | 60.5 | 37.2 |
| 1976 | 72.3 | 23.6 |
| 1977 | 19.9 | -7.4 |
| 1978 | 23.9 | 6.4 |
| 1979 | 12.1 | 18.2 |
| 1980 | 12.6 | 32.3 |
| 1981 | 21.5 | -5.0 |
| 1982 | 31.2 | 21.4 |
| 1983 | 27.3 | 22.4 |
| 1984 (first quarter) | -1.6 | -2.4 |
| Entire Period | 775.3% | 270.0% |
| Compound Annual Return | 17.2% | 10.0% |
| Plus 1% Management Fee | 1.0% | |
| Gross Investment Return | 18.2% | 10.0% |
| * Includes dividends (and capital gains distributions in the case of Sequoia Fund) treated as though reinvested. | ||
| ** These figures differ slightly from the S&P figures in Table 1 because of a difference in calculation of reinvested dividends. | ||
There’s no hindsight involved here. Bill was the only person I recommended to my partners, and I said at the time that if he achieved a four-point-per-annum advantage over the Standard & Poor’s, that would be solid performance. Bill has achieved well over that, working with progressively larger sums of money. That makes things much more difficult. Size is the anchor of performance. There is no question about it. It doesn’t mean you can’t do better than average when you get larger, but the margin shrinks. And if you ever get so you’re managing two trillion dollars, and that happens to be the amount of the total equity valuation in the economy, don’t think that you’ll do better than average!
这里没有事后诸葛亮的成分。比尔是我唯一向合伙人推荐的人，当时我说过，如果他每年能比标普指数多出4个百分点，那就算是很扎实的表现。事实证明，比尔不仅做到了，而且在管理资金规模不断扩大的情况下做得更好。而资金规模越大，投资就越困难——规模是绩效的锚定物，这一点毋庸置疑。规模变大并不意味着一定做不到超越平均水平，但超额收益的幅度会收窄。如果有一天你管理的资金达到两万亿美元，而那正好相当于整个股市的总市值，可千万别指望还能继续跑赢平均水平！
I should add that, in the records we’ve looked at so far, throughout this whole period there was practically no duplication in these portfolios. These are men who select securities based on discrepancies between price and value, but they make their selections very differently. Walter’s largest holdings have been such stalwarts as Hudson Pulp & Paper and Jeddo Highland Coal and New York Trap Rock Company and all those other names that come instantly to mind to even a casual reader of the business pages. Tweedy Browne’s selections have sunk even well below that level in terms of name recognition. On the other hand, Bill has worked with big companies. The overlap among these portfolios has been very, very low. These records do not reflect one guy calling the flip and fifty people yelling out the same thing after him.
我还要补充一点：在我们迄今为止所看到的所有业绩记录中，各个投资组合之间几乎没有重叠。这些人都依据“价格与价值之间的差异”来选股，但他们的具体做法迥然不同。沃尔特的最大持仓包括哈德逊纸浆造纸、杰多高地煤炭、纽约碎石公司等——随便翻翻商业版就能看到的那些名字；特威迪·布朗的标的在知名度上还要再低几个档次；而比尔则主要投资大型公司。总体来看，这些投资组合之间的重叠度非常非常低。它们并不是一个人掷硬币、其他五十个人跟着齐声喊同一面的结果。
Table 5 is the record of a friend of mine who is a Harvard Law graduate, who set up a major law firm. I ran into him in about 1960 and told him that law was fine as a hobby but he could do better. He set up a partnership quite the opposite of Walter’s. His portfolio was concentrated in very few securities and therefore, his record was much more volatile but it was based on the same discount-from-value approach. He was willing to accept greater peaks and valleys of performance, and he happens to be a fellow whose whole psyche goes toward concentration, with the results shown. Incidentally, this record belongs to Charlie Munger, my partner for a long time in the operation of Berkshire Hathaway. When he ran his partnership, however, his portfolio holdings were almost completely different from mine and the other fellows mentioned earlier.
表5展示的是我另一位朋友的投资记录。他毕业于哈佛法学院，并创办了一家大型律师事务所。我在大约1960年遇到他，告诉他“把法律当业余爱好就行，你可以做得更好”。于是他设立了一只与沃尔特风格截然相反的合伙基金——组合极度集中，只持有寥寥几只股票，因此业绩波动更大，但同样基于“价值折扣”原则。他愿意承受更大的涨跌幅，而且他的性格天生就倾向于集中投资，于是取得了表中的结果。顺便说一句，这份记录的主人是查理·芒格——他与我长期搭档经营伯克希尔·哈撒韦。不过，当他经营自己的合伙基金时，其持仓几乎与我和前面提到的其他几位完全不同。
芒格的性格特征，有些极端。
| TABLE 5 - Charles Munger | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Mass. Inv. Trust (%) | Investors Stock (%) | Lehman (%) | Tri-Cont. (%) | Dow (%) | Overall Partnership (%) | Limited Partners (%) |
| Yearly Results (1) | |||||||
| 1962 | -9.8 | -13.4 | -14.4 | -12.2 | -7.6 | 30.1 | 20.1 |
| 1963 | 20.0 | 16.5 | 23.8 | 20.3 | 20.6 | 71.1 | 47.8 |
| 1964 | 15.9 | 14.3 | 13.6 | 13.3 | 18.7 | 49.7 | 33.1 |
| 1965 | 10.2 | 9.8 | 19.0 | 10.7 | 14.2 | 8.4 | 6.0 |
| 1966 | -7.7 | -9.9 | -2.6 | -6.9 | -15.7 | 12.4 | 8.3 |
| 1967 | 20.0 | 22.8 | 28.0 | 25.4 | 19.0 | 56.2 | 37.5 |
| 1968 | 10.3 | 8.1 | 6.7 | 6.8 | 7.7 | 40.4 | 27.0 |
| 1969 | -4.8 | -7.9 | -1.9 | 0.1 | -11.6 | 28.3 | 21.3 |
| 1970 | 0.6 | -4.1 | -7.2 | -1.0 | 8.7 | -0.1 | -0.1 |
| 1971 | 9.0 | 16.8 | 26.6 | 22.4 | 9.8 | 25.4 | 20.6 |
| 1972 | 11.0 | 15.2 | 23.7 | 21.4 | 18.2 | 8.3 | 7.3 |
| 1973 | -12.5 | -17.6 | -14.3 | -21.3 | -13.1 | -31.9 | -31.9 |
| 1974 | -25.5 | -25.6 | -30.3 | -27.6 | -23.1 | -31.5 | -31.5 |
| 1975 | 32.9 | 33.3 | 30.8 | 35.4 | 44.4 | 73.2 | 73.2 |
| Compound Results (2) | |||||||
| 1962 | -9.8 | -13.4 | -14.4 | -12.2 | -7.6 | 30.1 | 20.1 |
| 1962-3 | 8.2 | 0.9 | 6.0 | 5.6 | 11.5 | 123.4 | 77.5 |
| 1962-4 | 25.4 | 15.3 | 20.4 | 19.6 | 32.4 | 234.4 | 136.3 |
| 1962-5 | 38.2 | 26.6 | 43.3 | 32.4 | 51.2 | 262.5 | 150.5 |
| 1962-6 | 27.5 | 14.1 | 39.5 | 23.2 | 27.5 | 307.5 | 171.3 |
| 1962-7 | 53.0 | 40.1 | 78.5 | 54.5 | 51.8 | 536.5 | 273.0 |
| 1962-8 | 68.8 | 51.4 | 90.5 | 65.0 | 63.5 | 793.6 | 373.7 |
| 1962-9 | 60.7 | 39.4 | 86.9 | 65.2 | 44.5 | 1046.5 | 474.6 |
| 1962-70 | 61.7 | 33.7 | 73.4 | 63.5 | 57.1 | 1045.4 | 474.0 |
| 1962-71 | 76.3 | 56.2 | 119.5 | 100.1 | 72.5 | 1336.3 | 592.2 |
| 1962-72 | 95.7 | 79.9 | 171.5 | 142.9 | 103.9 | 1455.5 | 642.7 |
| 1962-73 | 71.2 | 48.2 | 132.7 | 91.2 | 77.2 | 959.3 | 405.8 |
| 1962-74 | 27.5 | 10.3 | 62.2 | 38.4 | 36.3 | 625.6 | 246.5 |
| 1962-75 | 69.4 | 47.0 | 112.2 | 87.4 | 96.8 | 1156.7 | 500.1 |
Average Annual | 3.8 | 2.8 | 5.5 | 4.6 | 5.0 | 19.8 | 13.7 |
Table 6 is the record of a fellow who was a pal of Charlie Munger’s—another non-business-school type—who was a math major at USC. He went to work for IBM after graduation and was an IBM salesman for a while. After I got to Charlie, Charlie got to him. This happens to be the record of Rick Guerin. Rick, from 1965 to 1983, against a compounded gain of 316 percent for the S&P, came off with 22,200 percent, which probably because he lacks a business-school education, he regards as statistically significant.
表6展示的是查理·芒格的一位朋友的投资业绩——他同样不是商学院出身，而是在南加州大学主修数学。毕业后，他先到 IBM 工作，当过一阵子 IBM 的销售员。在我认识了查理之后，查理又把他介绍给了我。这份记录的主人叫里克·格林。1965 年至 1983 年期间，标普指数的复合涨幅为 316%，而里克的回报却达到了 22,200%。或许正因为他没受过商学院训练，他才会觉得这种差距在统计学上相当显著。
这个人后来失败了，和芒格在性格上相互吸引的风险，参考：《To Get Rich, Don’t Be a Rick》。
So, when Mohnish asked Warren during the lunch, “Whatever happened to Rick Guerin?” the latter replied something on these lines –
所以，当 Mohnish 在午餐时问 Warren：“Rick Guerin 后来怎么样了？”Warren 的回答大致是这样的——
Charlie and I always knew that we would become incredibly wealthy. But we were not in a hurry to get wealthy; we knew it would happen. Rick was just as smart as us, but he was in a hurry. And so actually what happened was that in the 1973-74 downturn, Rick was levered with margin loans. And the stock market went down almost 70% in those two years, and so he got margin calls, and he sold his Berkshire stock to me. I bought Rick’s Berkshire stock at under $40 apiece, and so Rick was forced to sell shares at … $40 apiece because he was levered.
Charlie 和我一直知道我们会变得非常富有。但我们并不急于致富；我们知道这迟早会发生。Rick 和我们一样聪明，但他很急躁。实际上，1973-74 年的经济下滑期间，Rick 使用了保证金贷款进行杠杆操作。那两年股市下跌了近 70%，他收到了追加保证金的通知，不得不把他的 Berkshire 股票卖给了我。我以每股不到 40 美元的价格买下了 Rick 的 Berkshire 股票，所以 Rick 被迫以每股 40 美元的价格卖出股票，因为他使用了杠杆。
| TABLE 6 - Pacific Partners, Ltd. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | S & P 500 Index (%) | Limited Partnership Results (%) | Overall Partnership Results (%) |
| 1965 | 12.4 | 21.2 | 32.0 |
| 1966 | -10.1 | 24.5 | 36.7 |
| 1967 | 23.9 | 120.1 | 180.1 |
| 1968 | 11.0 | 114.6 | 171.9 |
| 1969 | -8.4 | 64.7 | 97.1 |
| 1970 | 3.9 | -7.2 | -7.2 |
| 1971 | 14.6 | 10.9 | 16.4 |
| 1972 | 18.9 | 12.8 | 17.1 |
| 1973 | -14.8 | -42.1 | -42.1 |
| 1974 | -26.4 | -34.4 | -34.4 |
| 1975 | 37.2 | 23.4 | 31.2 |
| 1976 | 23.6 | 127.8 | 127.8 |
| 1977 | -7.4 | 20.3 | 27.1 |
| 1978 | 6.4 | 28.4 | 37.9 |
| 1979 | 18.2 | 36.1 | 48.2 |
| 1980 | 32.3 | 18.1 | 24.1 |
| 1981 | -5.0 | 6.0 | 8.0 |
| 1982 | 21.4 | 24.0 | 32.0 |
| 1983 | 22.4 | 18.6 | 24.8 |
| Standard & Poor’s 19 year compounded gain | 316.4% | ||
| Ltd. Partnership 19 year compounded gain | 5,530.2% | ||
| Overall Partnership 19 year compounded gain | 22,200.0% | ||
| Standard & Poor’s 19 year compounded rate | 7.8% | ||
| Ltd. Partnership 19 year annual compounded rate | 23.6% | ||
| Overall Partnership 19 year annual compounded rate | 32.9% | ||
One sidelight here: it is extraordinary to me that the idea of buying dollar bills for 40 cents takes immediately to people or it doesn’t take at all. It’s like an inoculation. If it doesn’t grab a person right away, I find that you can talk to him for years and show him records, and it doesn’t make any difference. They just don’t seem able to grasp the concept, simple as it is. A fellow like Rick Guerin, who had no formal education in business, understands immediately the value approach to investing and he’s applying it five minutes later. I’ve never seen anyone who became a gradual convert over a ten-year period to this approach. It doesn’t seem to be a matter of IQ or academic training. It’s instant recognition, or it is nothing.
一点旁注：让我感到惊奇的是，“用40美分买1美元”的理念对某些人是立刻奏效，对另一些人则毫无作用。这就像接种疫苗：如果第一下没有触动他，你可以花多年时间向他解释、拿出各种业绩记录，也完全无济于事——他们就是无法领会这个再简单不过的概念。像里克·格林这样没有接受过正式商学教育的人，却能立刻理解并在五分钟后付诸实践。我从未见过谁是历经十年才逐渐皈依这种方法的。这与智商或学术训练似乎无关；要么瞬间领悟，要么永远不会。
Table 7 is the record of Stan Perlmeter. Stan was a liberal-arts major at the University of Michigan who was a partner in the advertising agency of Bozell & Jacobs. We happened to be in the same building in Omaha. In 1965 he figured out I had a better business than he did, so he left advertising. Again, it took five minutes for Stan to embrace the value approach.
表7展示的是斯坦·珀尔梅特的投资记录。斯坦在密歇根大学读的是文科，后来成为广告公司 Bozell & Jacobs 的合伙人。巧的是，我们当时都在奥马哈同一栋楼里。1965 年，他意识到我干的买卖比广告业更好，于是离开广告圈。和前面几位一样，他只用了五分钟就完全接受了价值投资理念。
| TABLE 7 - Perlmeter Investments | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | PIL Overall (%) | Limited Partner (%) |
| 8/1-12/31/65 | 40.6 | 32.5 |
| 1966 | 6.4 | 5.1 |
| 1967 | 73.5 | 58.8 |
| 1968 | 65.0 | 52.0 |
| 1969 | -13.8 | -13.8 |
| 1970 | -6.0 | -6.0 |
| 1971 | 55.7 | 49.3 |
| 1972 | 23.6 | 18.9 |
| 1973 | -28.1 | -28.1 |
| 1974 | -12.0 | -12.0 |
| 1975 | 38.5 | 38.5 |
| 1/1-10/31/76 | 38.2 | 34.5 |
| 11/1/76-10/31/77 | 30.3 | 25.5 |
| 11/1/77-10/31/78 | 31.8 | 26.6 |
| 11/1/78-10/31/79 | 34.7 | 28.9 |
| 11/1/79-10/31/80 | 41.8 | 34.7 |
| 11/1/80-10/31/81 | 4.0 | 3.3 |
| 11/1/81-10/31/82 | 29.8 | 25.4 |
| 11/1/82-10/31/83 | 22.2 | 18.4 |
| Total Partnership Percentage Gain 8/1/65 through 10/31/83 | 4277.2% | |
| Limited Partners Percentage Gain 8/1/65 through 10/31/83 | 2309.5% | |
| Annual Compound Rate of Gain Overall Partnership | 23.0% | |
| Annual Compound Rate of Gain Limited Partners | 19.0% | |
| Dow Jones Industrial Average 7/31/65 (Approximate) | 882 | |
| Dow Jones Industrial Average 10/31/83 (Approximate) | 1225 | |
| Approximate Compound Rate of Gain of DJI including dividends | 7% | |
Perlmeter does not own what Walter Schloss owns. He does not own what Bill Ruane owns. These are records made independently. But every time Perlmeter buys a stock it’s because he’s getting more for his money than he’s paying. That’s the only thing he’s thinking about. He’s not looking at quarterly earnings projections, he’s not looking at next year’s earnings, he’s not thinking about what day of the week it is, he doesn’t care what investment research from any place says, he’s not interested in price momentum, volume, or anything. He’s simply asking: What is the business worth?
斯坦·珀尔梅特的持仓与沃尔特·施洛斯、比尔·鲁安截然不同。他们各自独立做出投资决策。但珀尔梅特每次买股票只有一个理由：他确信自己“用六毛钱买进一块钱”。这就是他全部的思考内容——不看季度盈利预测，不看来年利润，不关心今天是星期几，也不理睬任何研究报告；价格动量、成交量之类更是毫无兴趣。他只问一句：这家公司本身值多少钱？
Table 8 and Table 9 are the records of two pension funds I’ve been involved in. They are not selected from dozens of pension funds with which I have had involvement; they are the only two I have influenced. In both cases I have steered them toward value-oriented managers. Very, very few pension funds are managed from a value standpoint. Table 8 is the Washington Post Company’s Pension Fund. It was with a large bank some years ago, and I suggested that they would do well to select managers who had a value orientation.
表8和表9则记录了我参与管理的两只企业年金计划。并不是从几十个案子里挑好看的两个，而是我唯一真正产生过影响的两只。两者都在我的建议下转向了“价值型”经理来打理资金——要知道，极少有养老金采用价值投资方法。表8是《华盛顿邮报》公司养老金账户的业绩。多年前这笔钱原先交由一家大型银行托管，我提出：如果改聘具有价值取向的经理，他们的结果会好得多。
| TABLE 8 - The Washington Post Company, Master Trust, December 31, 1983 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current Quarter | Year Ended | 2 Years Ended* | 3 Years Ended* | 5 Years Ended* | ||||||
% | Rank | % Ret. | Rank | % Ret. | Rank | % Ret. | Rank | % Ret. | Rank | |
| All Investments | ||||||||||
| Manager | 4.1 | 2 | 22.5 | 10 | 20.6 | 40 | 18.0 | 10 | 20.2 | 3 |
| Manager | 3.2 | 4 | 34.1 | 1 | 33.0 | 1 | 28.2 | 1 | 22.6 | 1 |
| Manager | 5.4 | 1 | 22.2 | 11 | 28.4 | 3 | 24.5 | 1 | - | - |
| Master Trust | 3.9 | 1 | 28.1 | 1 | 28.2 | 1 | 24.3 | 1 | 21.8 | 1 |
| Common Stock | ||||||||||
| Manager | 5.2 | 1 | 32.1 | 9 | 26.1 | 27 | 21.2 | 11 | 26.5 | 7 |
| Manager | 3.6 | 5 | 52.9 | 1 | 46.2 | 1 | 37.8 | 1 | 29.3 | 3 |
| Manager | 6.2 | 1 | 29.3 | 14 | 30.8 | 10 | 29.3 | 3 | - | - |
| Master Trust | 4.7 | 1 | 41.2 | 1 | 37.0 | 1 | 30.4 | 1 | 27.6 | 1 |
| Bonds | ||||||||||
| Manager | 2.7 | 8 | 17.0 | 1 | 26.6 | 1 | 19.0 | 1 | 12.2 | 2 |
| Manager | 1.6 | 46 | 7.6 | 48 | 18.3 | 53 | 12.7 | 84 | 7.4 | 86 |
| Manager | 3.2 | 4 | 10.4 | 9 | 24.0 | 3 | 18.9 | 1 | - | - |
| Master Trust | 2.2 | 11 | 9.7 | 14 | 21.1 | 14 | 15.2 | 24 | 9.3 | 30 |
| Bonds & Cash Equivalents | ||||||||||
| Manager A | 2.5 | 15 | 12.0 | 5 | 16.1 | 64 | 15.5 | 21 | 12.9 | 9 |
| Manager B | 2.1 | 28 | 9.2 | 29 | 17.1 | 47 | 14.7 | 41 | 10.8 | 44 |
| Manager C | 3.1 | 6 | 10.2 | 17 | 22.0 | 2 | 21.6 | 1 | - | - |
| Master Trust (All Managers) | 2.4 | 14 | 10.2 | 17 | 17.8 | 20 | 16.2 | 2 | 12.5 | 9 |
| * Annualized | ||||||||||
| Rank indicates the fund’s performance against the A.C. Becker universe. | ||||||||||
| Rank is stated as a percentile: 1 = best performance, 100 = worst. | ||||||||||
As you can see, overall they have been in the top percentile ever since they made the change. The Post told the managers to keep at least 25 percent of these funds in bonds, which would not have been necessarily the choice of these managers. So, I’ve included the bond performance simply to illustrate that this group has no particular expertise about bonds. They wouldn’t have said they did. Even with this drag of 25 percent of their fund in an area that was not their game, they were in the top percentile of fund management. The Washington Post experience does not cover a terribly long period but it does represent many investment decisions by three managers who were not identified retroactively.
正如你们所见，自从《华盛顿邮报》养老金改聘价值型经理以来，他们整体业绩一直处于同类的最顶尖百分位。公司要求至少 25% 的资产必须配置债券——这并非那些经理的首选领域。为了说明他们在债券上并无特殊长处，我把债券回报也列了进去；他们自己也不会声称擅长债券。但即便有 25% 的资金被“拖”到一个并非拿手的品种，他们的综合成绩依旧稳居顶尖。虽然这段历史并不算特别长，却包含了三位经理做出的无数独立投资决策，而且这些经理并非事后挑选出来的“幸存者”。
Table 9 is the record of the FMC Corporation fund. I don’t manage a dime of it myself but I did, in 1974, influence their decision to select value-oriented managers. Prior to that time they had selected managers much the same way as most larger companies. They now rank number one in the Becker survey of pension funds for their size over the period of time subsequent to this “conversion” to the value approach. Last year they had eight equity managers of any duration beyond a year. Seven of them had a cumulative record better than the S&P. All eight had a better record last year than the S&P. The net difference now between a median performance and the actual performance of the FMC fund over this period is $243 million. FMC attributes this to the mindset given to them about the selection of managers. Those managers are not the managers I would necessarily select but they have the common denominators of selecting securities based on value.
表9呈现的是 FMC 公司养老金的记录。我本人一分钱都没有直接管理，但在 1974 年我影响他们改用价值取向的经理。在此之前，他们像大多数大型企业那样选择经理。自“皈依”价值投资后，他们在贝克尔（Becker）针对同规模养老金的长期评比中高居第一。去年他们有 8 位任职超过一年的股票经理，其中 7 位的累计业绩超过标普 500，8 位全部在去年单年跑赢标普。把这段时期的实际收益与行业中位水平相比，目前的差额已达到 2.43 亿美元。FMC 将此归功于当初选择经理时所树立的“价值思维”。这些经理不一定是我本人会挑的那几位，但他们有一个共同点——买股票只看价值。
| TABLE 9 - FMC Corporation Pension Fund, Annual Rate of Return (Percent) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Period Ending | 1 Year | 2 Years | 3 Years | 4 Years | 5 Years | 6 Years | 7 Years | 8 Years | 9 Years |
| FMC | |||||||||
| 1983 | 23.0 | *17.1 | |||||||
| 1982 | 22.8 | 13.6 | 16.0 | 16.6 | 15.5 | 12.3 | 13.9 | 16.3 | |
| 1981 | 5.4 | 13.0 | 15.3 | 13.8 | 10.5 | 12.6 | 15.4 | ||
| 1980 | 21.0 | 19.7 | 16.8 | 11.7 | 14.0 | 17.3 | |||
| 1979 | 18.4 | 14.7 | 8.7 | 12.3 | 16.5 | ||||
| 1978 | 11.2 | 4.2 | 10.4 | 16.1 | |||||
| 1977 | -2.3 | 9.8 | 17.8 | ||||||
| 1976 | 23.8 | 29.3 | |||||||
| 1975 | 35.0 | * 18.5 from equities only | |||||||
| Becker large plan median | |||||||||
| 1983 | 15.6 | 12.6 | |||||||
| 1982 | 21.4 | 11.2 | 13.9 | 13.9 | 12.5 | 9.7 | 10.9 | 12.3 | |
| 1981 | 1.2 | 10.8 | 11.9 | 10.3 | 7.7 | 8.9 | 10.9 | ||
| 1980 | 20.9 | NA | NA | NA | 10.8 | NA | |||
| 1979 | 13.7 | NA | NA | NA | 11.1 | ||||
| 1978 | 6.5 | NA | NA | NA | |||||
| 1977 | -3.3 | NA | NA | ||||||
| 1976 | 17.0 | NA | |||||||
| 1975 | 24.1 | ||||||||
| S&P 500 | |||||||||
| 1983 | 22.8 | 15.6 | |||||||
| 1982 | 21.5 | 7.3 | 15.1 | 16.0 | 14.0 | 10.2 | 12.0 | 14.9 | |
| 1981 | -5.0 | 12.0 | 14.2 | 12.2 | 8.1 | 10.5 | 14.0 | ||
| 1980 | 32.5 | 25.3 | 18.7 | 11.7 | 14.0 | 17.5 | |||
| 1979 | 18.6 | 12.4 | 5.5 | 9.8 | 14.8 | ||||
| 1978 | 6.6 | -0.8 | 6.8 | 13.7 | |||||
| 1977 | -7.7 | 6.9 | 16.1 | ||||||
| 1976 | 23.7 | 30.3 | |||||||
| 1975 | 37.2 | ||||||||
So these are nine records of “coin-flippers” from Graham-and-Doddsville. I haven’t selected them with hindsight from among thousands. It’s not like I am reciting to you the names of a bunch of lottery winners — people I had never heard of before they won the lottery. I selected these men years ago based upon their framework for investment decision-making. I knew what they had been taught and additionally I had some personal knowledge of their intellect, character, and temperament. It’s very important to understand that this group has assumed far less risk than average; note their record in years when the general market was weak. While they differ greatly in style, these investors are, mentally, always buying the business, not buying the stock. A few of them sometimes buy whole businesses; far more often they simply buy small pieces of businesses. Their attitude, whether buying all or a tiny piece of a business, is the same. Some of them hold portfolios with dozens of stocks; others concentrate on a handful. But all exploit the difference between the market price of a business and its intrinsic value.
由此可见，这九份成绩单可视为“格雷厄姆-多德村里掷硬币的人”的实证。我并不是事后从成千上万名投资者中挑出幸运儿；这可不是念一串中了大奖的陌生名字。我多年前就凭他们的投资决策框架选中了他们。我既了解他们受过的训练，也了解他们的才智、品性和气质。务必要明白，这个群体承担的风险远低于平均水平；看看他们在大盘疲弱年份的表现就知道了。虽然操作风格各异，但他们在心理上始终是“买企业”而非“买股票”。少数时候他们会整包买下企业；更多时候只买企业的一小块股份。不论买全部还是买一小份，其心态完全一致。有些人持有数十只股票的组合；另一些人集中于寥寥数只。但他们都在利用“市场价格”与“内在价值”之间的差距。
I’m convinced that there is much inefficiency in the market. These Graham-and-Doddsville investors have successfully exploited gaps between price and value. When the price of a stock can be influenced by a “herd” on Wall Street with prices set at the margin by the most emotional person, or the greediest person, or the most depressed person, it is hard to argue that the market always prices rationally. In fact, market prices are frequently nonsensical.
我深信市场中存在大量无效率。上述投资者正是成功利用了“价格与价值的鸿沟”。当股票价格可以被华尔街“羊群”左右，而边际定价往往出自最情绪化、最贪婪或最沮丧的人时，要说市场始终理性定价就很难站得住脚。事实上，市场价格经常荒诞不经。
I would like to say one important thing about risk and reward. Sometimes risk and reward are correlated in a positive fashion. If someone were to say to me, “I have here a six-shooter and I have slipped one cartridge into it. Why don’t you just spin it and pull it once? If you survive, I will give you $1 million.” I would decline — perhaps stating that $1 million is not enough. Then he might offer me $5 million to pull the trigger twice — now that would be a positive correlation between risk and reward!
关于风险与报酬，我想强调一点：两者有时确实呈正相关。假如有人对我说：“我手里有把左轮手枪，只装了一颗子弹。你旋转弹巢后扣一次扳机，若没事我给你一百万美元。”我会拒绝——也许还会说一百万不够。他若进一步提出“扣两次扳机给你五百万”，这就成了风险-报酬正相关的典型。
完全不一样的道路。
The exact opposite is true with value investing. If you buy a dollar bill for 60 cents, it’s riskier than if you buy a dollar bill for 40 cents, but the expectation of reward is greater in the latter case. The greater the potential for reward in the value portfolio, the less risk there is.
而价值投资恰恰相反。用60美分买1美元要比用40美分买1美元风险更高，而后者的期望收益却更大。也就是说，在价值型组合里，潜在回报越高，风险越低。
One quick example: The Washington Post Company in 1973 was selling for $80 million in the market. At the time, that day, you could have sold the assets to any one of ten buyers for not less than $400 million, probably appreciably more. The company owned the Post, Newsweek, plus several television stations in major markets. Those same properties are worth $2 billion now, so the person who would have paid $400 million would not have been crazy.
举个例子：1973 年，《华盛顿邮报》公司的市值仅 8,000 万美元。但当天你完全可以把其资产卖给十个买家中的任何一个，价格不会低于 4 亿美元，很可能更高。公司拥有《邮报》、 《新闻周刊》以及若干大城市的电视台。如今这些资产价值 20 亿美元，所以当年愿出 4 亿的人并不疯狂。
Now, if the stock had declined even further to a price that made the valuation $40 million instead of $80 million, its beta would have been greater. And to people that think beta measures risk, the cheaper price would have made it look riskier. This is truly Alice in Wonderland. I have never been able to figure out why it’s riskier to buy $400 million worth of properties for $40 million than $80 million. And, as a matter of fact, if you buy a group of such securities and you know anything at all about business valuation, there is essentially no risk in buying $400 million for $80 million, particularly if you do it by buying ten $40 million piles of $8 million each. Since you don’t have your hands on the $400 million, you want to be sure you are in with honest and reasonably competent people, but that’s not a difficult job.
假如股价进一步跌到让公司估值只剩 4,000 万，β 系数就会更高。对于把 β 当风险指标的人来说，价格越低反而“看起来”越危险，这简直是《爱丽丝梦游仙境》。我始终想不通：为什么用 4,000 万买价值 4 亿的资产会比用 8,000 万买同样资产更危险？事实上，只要你懂点企业估值，甚至把这 4 亿拆成十份、每份 8 百万去买，几乎没有风险。当然，因为你并未真正掌控那 4 亿资产，所以最好确保管理层诚实且能力尚可——这并非难事。
You also have to have the knowledge to enable you to make a very general estimate about the value of the underlying businesses. But you do not cut it close. That is what Ben Graham meant by having a margin of safety. You don’t try and buy businesses worth $83 million for $80 million. You leave yourself an enormous margin. When you build a bridge, you insist it can carry 30,000 pounds, but you only drive 10,000-pound trucks across it. And that same principle works in investing.
你当然需要具备粗略评估企业价值的知识，但不用精确到分毫——这正是格雷厄姆所说的“安全边际”。你不会花 8,000 万去买价值 8,300 万的公司；你会留出巨大余量。造桥时要求能承重 3 万磅，却只让 1 万磅的卡车通过；投资亦然。
In conclusion, some of the more commercially minded among you may wonder why I am writing this article. Adding many converts to the value approach will perforce narrow the spreads between price and value. I can only tell you that the secret has been out for 50 years, ever since Ben Graham and Dave Dodd wrote Security Analysis, yet I have seen no trend toward value investing in the 35 years that I’ve practiced it. There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult. The academic world, if anything, has actually backed away from the teaching of value investing over the last 30 years. It’s likely to continue that way. Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace, and those who read their Graham & Dodd will continue to prosper.
最后，小伙伴里头商业头脑更重的也许会问：既然分享这套方法会缩小价格与价值的差距，我为何还写此文？我只能说，自从格雷厄姆与多德 50 年前写下《证券分析》，秘密早已公开。可在我从业的 35 年里，从未见到市场转向价值投资。人类似乎有种怪癖，喜欢把简单的事弄复杂。过去 30 年里，学术界反而逐渐远离价值投资教学，这趋势恐怕还会继续。船只终究环游世界，可“地平说协会”依旧欣欣向荣。市场上价格与价值的巨大落差会一直存在，而研读格雷厄姆-多德者将继续受益。
© 1984 by The Trustees of Columbia University. All rights reserved.
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