2001-12-10 Mr. Buffett on the stock market

Refer To：《2001-12-10 Mr. Buffett on the stock market》。

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Two years ago, following a July 1999 speech by Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, on the stock market--a rare subject for him to discuss publicly--FORTUNE ran what he had to say under the title "Mr. Buffett on the Stock Market" (Nov. 22, 1999). His main points then concerned two consecutive and amazing periods that American investors had experienced, and his belief that returns from stocks were due to fall dramatically. Since the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 11194 when he gave his speech and recently was about 9900, no one yet has the goods to argue with him.

（《财富》杂志）——两年前，Berkshire Hathaway 董事长 Warren Buffett 在 1999 年 7 月发表了一次关于股市的演讲——这对他来说是少见的公开话题——《财富》在 1999 年 11 月 22 日以“Mr. Buffett on the Stock Market”为题刊登了他的观点。当时他的重点是美国投资者刚经历的两个连续而惊人的时期，以及他相信股票回报将大幅下降。由于他演讲时道琼斯工业平均指数在 11194 点，而近期约在 9900 点，目前还没有人能有十足把握反驳他。

So where do we stand now--with the stock market seeming to reflect a dismal profit outlook, an unfamiliar war, and rattled consumer confidence? Who better to supply perspective on that question than Buffett?

那么我们现在处于什么位置——股市似乎反映出黯淡的利润前景、一场陌生的战争，以及动摇的消费者信心？还有谁比 Buffett 更适合就此提供视角呢？

The thoughts that follow come from a second Buffett speech, given last July at the site of the first talk, Allen & Co.'s annual Sun Valley bash for corporate executives. There, the renowned stockpicker returned to the themes he'd discussed before, bringing new data and insights to the subject. Working with FORTUNE's Carol Loomis, Buffett distilled that speech into this essay, a fitting opening for this year's Investor's Guide. Here again is Mr. Buffett on the Stock Market.

接下来的观点来自 Buffett 去年 7 月的第二次演讲——地点仍在他首次演讲的会场，即 Allen & Co. 每年在 Sun Valley 举办的企业高管聚会。在那里，这位著名选股人回到他之前讨论的主题，并带来了新的数据与洞见。与《财富》的 Carol Loomis 合作，Buffett 将演讲浓缩为这篇文章，作为本年度《投资者指南》的开篇再合适不过。以下再次呈现“Mr. Buffett on the Stock Market”。

The last time I tackled this subject, in 1999, I broke down the previous 34 years into two 17-year periods, which in the sense of lean years and fat were astonishingly symmetrical. Here's the first period. As you can see, over 17 years the Dow gained exactly one-tenth of one percent.

上一次我讨论这个话题是在 1999 年，我把此前的 34 年分为两个 17 年周期，就“丰年与荒年”的意义而言对称得惊人。先看第一个周期。正如你所见，在这 17 年中，道琼斯指数只上涨了正好万分之一。

Dow Jones Industrial Average

道琼斯工业平均指数

Dec. 31, 1964: 874.12
Dec. 31, 1981: 875.00

And here's the second, marked by an incredible bull market that, as I laid out my thoughts, was about to end (though I didn't know that).

再看第二个周期，其特点是一个不可思议的牛市——当我表达这些观点时，它正要结束（尽管我当时并不知道）。

Dow Jones Industrial Average

道琼斯工业平均指数

Dec. 31, 1981: 875.00
Dec. 31, 1998: 9181.43

Now, you couldn't explain this remarkable divergence in markets by, say, differences in the growth of gross national product. In the first period--that dismal time for the market--GNP actually grew more than twice as fast as it did in the second period.

那么，这种显著的市场分化并不能用国民生产总值增速的差异来解释。在第一个周期——对市场而言的黯淡时期——GNP 的实际增速超过第二个周期的两倍。

Gain in Gross National Product

国民生产总值增幅

1964-1981: 373%
1981-1988: 177%

So what was the explanation? I concluded that the market's contrasting moves were caused by extraordinary changes in two critical economic variables--and by a related psychological force that eventually came into play.

那么原因是什么？我的结论是，市场的相反走势源于两个关键经济变量发生了非同寻常的变化——以及随后发挥作用的相关心理力量。

Here I need to remind you about the definition of "investing," which though simple is often forgotten. Investing is laying out money today to receive more money tomorrow.

在这里我需要提醒大家“投资”的定义——虽然简单却常被遗忘。投资就是今天投入资金，以便明天获得更多资金。

That gets to the first of the economic variables that affected stock prices in the two periods--interest rates. In economics, interest rates act as gravity behaves in the physical world. At all times, in all markets, in all parts of the world, the tiniest change in rates changes the value of every financial asset. You see that clearly with the fluctuating prices of bonds. But the rule applies as well to farmland, oil reserves, stocks, and every other financial asset. And the effects can be huge on values. If interest rates are, say, 13%, the present value of a dollar that you're going to receive in the future from an investment is not nearly as high as the present value of a dollar if rates are 4%.

这就引出了影响这两个时期股价的首个经济变量——利率。在经济学中，利率的作用就像物理世界里的重力。任何时候、任何市场、世界任何地方，利率的微小变化都会改变每一种金融资产的价值。你在债券价格的波动中能清楚看到这一点。但这一规则同样适用于农田、油气储量、股票以及所有其他金融资产。而对价值的影响可能极其巨大。举例说，如果利率是 13%，那么你未来从一项投资中将收到的一美元的现值，远不如利率为 4% 时那一美元的现值高。

So here's the record on interest rates at key dates in our 34-year span. They moved dramatically up--that was bad for investors--in the first half of that period and dramatically down--a boon for investors--in the second half.

下面是我们这 34 年跨度中若干关键时点的利率记录。在前半段，利率大幅上升——这对投资者不利；在后半段，利率大幅下降——这对投资者有利。

Interest rates, Long-term government bonds

利率，长期政府债券

Dec. 31, 1964: 4.20%
Dec. 31, 1981: 13.65%
Dec. 31, 1998: 5.09%

The other critical variable here is how many dollars investors expected to get from the companies in which they invested. During the first period expectations fell significantly because corporate profits weren't looking good. By the early 1980s Fed Chairman Paul Volcker's economic sledgehammer had, in fact, driven corporate profitability to a level that people hadn't seen since the 1930s.

另一个关键变量是：投资者预期能从其所投公司获得多少美元回报。在第一个时期，这种预期显著下降，因为企业利润表现不佳。到 1980 年代初，时任美联储主席 Paul Volcker 采取的“重锤”式紧缩，实际上把企业盈利水平打到了自 1930 年代以来未曾见过的低点。

The upshot is that investors lost their confidence in the American economy: They were looking at a future they believed would be plagued by two negatives. First, they didn't see much good coming in the way of corporate profits. Second, the sky-high interest rates prevailing caused them to discount those meager profits further. These two factors, working together, caused stagnation in the stock market from 1964 to 1981, even though those years featured huge improvements in GNP. The business of the country grew while investors' valuation of that business shrank!

结果就是投资者对美国经济失去了信心：他们看到的未来被两个负面因素所困扰。第一，他们认为企业利润不会有太多起色。第二，当时高企的利率又使他们进一步折现那本就微薄的利润。这两种因素叠加，导致 1964 至 1981 年间股市停滞不前，尽管那些年 GNP 大幅增长。国家的商业活动在扩张，投资者对这些商业的估值却在收缩！

And then the reversal of those factors created a period during which much lower GNP gains were accompanied by a bonanza for the market. First, you got a major increase in the rate of profitability. Second, you got an enormous drop in interest rates, which made a dollar of future profit that much more valuable. Both phenomena were real and powerful fuels for a major bull market. And in time the psychological factor I mentioned was added to the equation: Speculative trading exploded, simply because of the market action that people had seen. Later, we'll look at the pathology of this dangerous and oft-recurring malady.

而当这些因素反转后，就出现了这样一个时期：尽管 GNP 增幅低得多，市场却迎来盛宴。首先，利润率大幅上升。其次，利率大幅下行，使未来一美元利润的现值更为可观。这两种真实而强劲的现象共同为一轮大牛市提供了燃料。随后，我提到的心理因素也加入进来：纯粹因为人们看到的市场走势，投机交易爆发式增长。稍后我们会讨论这种危险且经常复发的“病理”。

Two years ago I believed the favorable fundamental trends had largely run their course. For the market to go dramatically up from where it was then would have required long-term interest rates to drop much further (which is always possible) or for there to be a major improvement in corporate profitability (which seemed, at the time, considerably less possible). If you take a look at a 50-year chart of after-tax profits as a percent of gross domestic product, you find that the rate normally falls between 4%--that was its neighborhood in the bad year of 1981, for example--and 6.5%. For the rate to go above 6.5% is rare. In the very good profit years of 1999 and 2000, the rate was under 6% and this year it may well fall below 5%.

两年前，我认为那些有利的基本面趋势大体已走到尽头。若要从当时水平再显著上行，市场要么需要长期利率进一步大幅下降（这始终是可能的），要么需要企业利润出现大幅改善（当时看来可能性小得多）。如果你查看“税后利润占国内生产总值比例”的 50 年图表，会发现该比率通常落在 4%（比如 1981 年这种糟糕年份的大致水平）到 6.5% 之间。高于 6.5% 的情况很少见。即便在 1999、2000 这种利润非常好的年份，该比率也低于 6%；而今年它很可能会跌破 5%。

So there you have my explanation of those two wildly different 17-year periods. The question is, How much do those periods of the past for the market say about its future?

以上就是我对那两个截然不同的 17 年时期的解释。问题在于：这些过去时期对市场的未来究竟能说明多少？

To suggest an answer, I'd like to look back over the 20th century. As you know, this was really the American century. We had the advent of autos, we had aircraft, we had radio, TV, and computers. It was an incredible period. Indeed, the per capita growth in U.S. output, measured in real dollars (that is, with no impact from inflation), was a breathtaking 702%.

为给出一个答案，我想回望整个 20 世纪。众所周知，那确实是“美国的世纪”。我们迎来了汽车、飞机、广播、电视和计算机。这是一个令人难以置信的时期。以实际美元（即剔除通胀影响）计，美国人均产出增长高达惊人的 702%。

The century included some very tough years, of course--like the Depression years of 1929 to 1933. But a decade-by-decade look at per capita GNP shows something remarkable: As a nation, we made relatively consistent progress throughout the century. So you might think that the economic value of the U.S.--at least as measured by its securities markets--would have grown at a reasonably consistent pace as well.

当然，这个世纪也包含一些非常艰难的年份——如 1929 至 1933 年的大萧条。但如果逐十年观察人均 GNP，会发现一个显著现象：作为一个国家，我们在整个世纪中总体保持了相对一致的进步。因此，你也许会以为美国的经济价值——至少按证券市场来衡量——会以相当一致的速度增长。

That's not what happened. We know from our earlier examination of the 1964-98 period that parallelism broke down completely in that era. But the whole century makes this point as well. At its beginning, for example, between 1900 and 1920, the country was chugging ahead, explosively expanding its use of electricity, autos, and the telephone. Yet the market barely moved, recording a 0.4% annual increase that was roughly analogous to the slim pickings between 1964 and 1981.

事实并非如此。我们从先前对 1964–1998 年的考察中知道，那一时期这种“并行关系”彻底失效。而纵观整个世纪，这一点同样成立。比如在世纪初的 1900–1920 年间，全国稳步前行，电力、汽车和电话的使用呈爆炸式扩张。但市场几乎纹丝不动，年均仅上涨 0.4%，与 1964–1981 年间那种“收获甚微”的情形大致相仿。

Dow Industrials

Dec. 31, 1899: 66.08
Dec. 31, 1920: 71.95

In the next period, we had the market boom of the '20s, when the Dow jumped 430% to 381 in September 1929. Then we go 19 years--19 years--and there is the Dow at 177, half the level where it began. That's true even though the 1940s displayed by far the largest gain in per capita GDP (50%) of any 20th-century decade. Following that came a 17-year period when stocks finally took off--making a great five-to-one gain. And then the two periods discussed at the start: stagnation until 1981, and the roaring boom that wrapped up this amazing century.

接下来的阶段，我们经历了 1920 年代的市场繁荣，道琼斯在 1929 年 9 月跃升 430%，达到 381。随后我们又走过 19 年——整整 19 年——道琼斯只在 177 点，比起初时的一半。即便如此，1940 年代的人均 GDP 增幅高达 50%，是整个 20 世纪各个十年中最大的。接着是一个 17 年的时期，股票终于起飞——实现了 5 倍的巨大涨幅。然后就是前文讨论的两个阶段：直到 1981 年的停滞，以及为这个非凡世纪画上句号的轰轰烈烈的大牛市。

To break things down another way, we had three huge, secular bull markets that covered about 44 years, during which the Dow gained more than 11,000 points. And we had three periods of stagnation, covering some 56 years. During those 56 years the country made major economic progress and yet the Dow actually lost 292 points.

换一种拆分方式看，我们经历了三轮庞大的长期牛市，共约 44 年，道琼斯上涨逾 11,000 点。与此同时还有三段停滞期，合计约 56 年。在这 56 年里，国家取得了重大的经济进步，但道琼斯实际上却下跌了 292 点。

大家的思考是一样的，我们也刚刚算了100年的账，参考：《1999-11-22 Mr. Buffett on the stock market》。

How could this have happened? In a flourishing country in which people are focused on making money, how could you have had three extended and anguishing periods of stagnation that in aggregate--leaving aside dividends--would have lost you money? The answer lies in the mistake that investors repeatedly make--that psychological force I mentioned above: People are habitually guided by the rear-view mirror and, for the most part, by the vistas immediately behind them.

这怎么可能发生？在一个繁荣、人人都专注于赚钱的国家，怎么会出现三段漫长而令人痛苦的停滞期，而且合起来（不计股息）还会亏钱？答案在于投资者反复犯下的错误——也就是我上面提到的心理力量：人们习惯于透过后视镜来行动，而且多半被刚刚掠过的风景所引导。

修正了上一次演讲的观点，影响股市长期趋势的最重要因素不是基准利率，也不是企业利润占GDP的比重，而是估值，白痴始终占据最大的比例，这些人没有自我意识，根本不关心基准利率是高是低？企业利润有没有改善？他们只会跟着情绪走，并且生理上排斥任何理性的东西。

The first part of the century offers a vivid illustration of that myopia. In the century's first 20 years, stocks normally yielded more than high-grade bonds. That relationship now seems quaint, but it was then almost axiomatic. Stocks were known to be riskier, so why buy them unless you were paid a premium?

世纪初的经历生动地说明了这种近视。在本世纪头 20 年，股票通常提供高于高等级债券的收益率。如今看这关系颇显古怪，但当时几乎是不证自明的规则。股票被认为更风险，除非有溢价补偿，否则为何去买？

And then came along a 1924 book--slim and initially unheralded, but destined to move markets as never before--written by a man named Edgar Lawrence Smith. The book, called Common Stocks as Long Term Investments, chronicled a study Smith had done of security price movements in the 56 years ended in 1922. Smith had started off his study with a hypothesis: Stocks would do better in times of inflation, and bonds would do better in times of deflation. It was a perfectly reasonable hypothesis.

随后在 1924 年出现了一本书——篇幅不长、起初默默无闻，却注定以前所未有的方式撼动市场——作者名叫 Edgar Lawrence Smith。该书名为 Common Stocks as Long Term Investments，记录了 Smith 对 1867–1922 年这 56 年间证券价格变动所做的研究。Smith 的研究始于一个假设：通胀时期股票表现更好，通缩时期债券表现更好。这个假设看上去相当合理。

But consider the first words in the book: "These studies are the record of a failure--the failure of facts to sustain a preconceived theory." Smith went on: "The facts assembled, however, seemed worthy of further examination. If they would not prove what we had hoped to have them prove, it seemed desirable to turn them loose and to follow them to whatever end they might lead."

但请留意书中的开篇之语：“这些研究记录了一次失败——事实未能支撑先入为主的理论。”Smith 接着说：“然而，所汇集的事实似乎值得进一步审视。如果它们无法证明我们希望它们证明的东西，那么就让事实自己说话，追随它们，看看会把我们引向何处。”

Now, there was a smart man, who did just about the hardest thing in the world to do. Charles Darwin used to say that whenever he ran into something that contradicted a conclusion he cherished, he was obliged to write the new finding down within 30 minutes. Otherwise his mind would work to reject the discordant information, much as the body rejects transplants. Man's natural inclination is to cling to his beliefs, particularly if they are reinforced by recent experience--a flaw in our makeup that bears on what happens during secular bull markets and extended periods of stagnation.

这真是位聪明人，做了世上最难的事之一。Charles Darwin 常说，每当他遇到与自己珍视结论相矛盾的事实，必须在 30 分钟内把新发现记录下来，否则大脑就会像身体排斥移植那样排斥不协调的信息。人的天性是固守自己的信念，尤其当这些信念被近期经验所强化时——而这种缺陷深刻影响了长期牛市与长期停滞期中的种种现象。

刚刚在ChatGPT的对话中发现了同样的现象，巴菲特确实有平常人没有素质，普通人看见了不会看到。

To report what Edgar Lawrence Smith discovered, I will quote a legendary thinker--John Maynard Keynes, who in 1925 reviewed the book, thereby putting it on the map. In his review, Keynes described "perhaps Mr. Smith's most important point ... and certainly his most novel point. Well-managed industrial companies do not, as a rule, distribute to the shareholders the whole of their earned profits. In good years, if not in all years, they retain a part of their profits and put them back in the business. Thus there is an element of compound interest (Keynes' italics) operating in favor of a sound industrial investment."

为了呈现 Edgar Lawrence Smith 的发现，我引用一位传奇思想家——John Maynard Keynes——他在 1925 年评论了这本书，从而使其声名鹊起。Keynes 在书评中指出：“也许这是 Smith 先生最重要的观点……而且无疑是他最新颖的观点。管理良好的工业公司通常不会把其赚得的全部利润都分配给股东。在景气年份（如果不是每一年），它们会保留一部分利润并再投入业务。因此，在健全的工业投资中，有一个复利（Keynes 原文斜体）在发挥作用。”

It was that simple. It wasn't even news. People certainly knew that companies were not paying out 100% of their earnings. But investors hadn't thought through the implications of the point. Here, though, was this guy Smith saying, "Why do stocks typically outperform bonds? A major reason is that businesses retain earnings, with these going on to generate still more earnings--and dividends, too."

道理就这么简单，甚至算不上新闻。人们当然知道公司不会把 100% 的盈利都派发出去。但投资者并没有把这一点的含义想透。而 Smith 的意思是：“为什么股票通常跑赢债券？一个重要原因是企业会留存收益，而这些留存收益会继续创造更多收益——也包括更多股息。”

That finding ignited an unprecedented bull market. Galvanized by Smith's insight, investors piled into stocks, anticipating a double dip: their higher initial yield over bonds, and growth to boot. For the American public, this new understanding was like the discovery of fire.

这一发现点燃了前所未有的牛市。在 Smith 见解的鼓舞下，投资者一拥而入股票市场，期待“双重收益”：相较债券更高的初始收益率，外加后续增长。对美国公众而言，这种新认识宛如发现了火。

But before long that same public was burned. Stocks were driven to prices that first pushed down their yield to that on bonds and ultimately drove their yield far lower. What happened then should strike readers as eerily familiar: The mere fact that share prices were rising so quickly became the main impetus for people to rush into stocks. What the few bought for the right reason in 1925, the many bought for the wrong reason in 1929.

但没过多久，同一批公众就被狠狠“烫”到了。股票被推到这样的价格：其收益率先被压低到与债券相当，最终远低于债券。随之而来的情形读者应当会感到熟悉得瘆人：仅仅因为股价上涨太快这一事实，便成了人们蜂拥入市的主要驱动力。1925 年少数人因正确理由买入的东西，到了 1929 年却被多数人因错误理由买入。

Astutely, Keynes anticipated a perversity of this kind in his 1925 review. He wrote: "It is dangerous...to apply to the future inductive arguments based on past experience, unless one can distinguish the broad reasons why past experience was what it was." If you can't do that, he said, you may fall into the trap of expecting results in the future that will materialize only if conditions are exactly the same as they were in the past. The special conditions he had in mind, of course, stemmed from the fact that Smith's study covered a half century during which stocks generally yielded more than high-grade bonds.

Keynes 在 1925 年的书评中敏锐地预见了这种悖论。他写道：“基于既往经验做出归纳并套用于未来是危险的……除非你能分辨过去之所以成为过去的那些广泛原因。”他说，如果做不到这一点，你就可能落入这样的陷阱：指望只有在未来条件与过去完全相同的情况下才会出现的结果。当然，他心中所指的“特殊条件”，源于 Smith 的研究所覆盖的那半个世纪里，股票的收益率通常高于高等级债券。

The colossal miscalculation that investors made in the 1920s has recurred in one form or another several times since. The public's monumental hangover from its stock binge of the 1920s lasted, as we have seen, through 1948. The country was then intrinsically far more valuable than it had been 20 years before; dividend yields were more than double the yield on bonds; and yet stock prices were at less than half their 1929 peak. The conditions that had produced Smith's wondrous results had reappeared--in spades. But rather than seeing what was in plain sight in the late 1940s, investors were transfixed by the frightening market of the early 1930s and were avoiding re-exposure to pain.

投资者在 1920 年代犯下的巨大误算，此后以各种形式多次重演。正如我们所见，公众在 1920 年代“股票狂欢”后的巨大宿醉一直持续到 1948 年。当时，这个国家的内在价值较 20 年前高出许多；股息率是债券收益率的两倍多；然而股价却不到 1929 年峰值的一半。促成 Smith 奇妙结论的那些条件已经“加倍”重现。但在 1940 年代末的明摆着的事实面前，投资者却被 1930 年代初那可怕的市场所迷住，竭力回避再次受伤。

Don't think for a moment that small investors are the only ones guilty of too much attention to the rear-view mirror. Let's look at the behavior of professionally managed pension funds in recent decades. In 1971--this was Nifty Fifty time--pension managers, feeling great about the market, put more than 90% of their net cash flow into stocks, a record commitment at the time. And then, in a couple of years, the roof fell in and stocks got way cheaper. So what did the pension fund managers do? They quit buying because stocks got cheaper!

别以为只有小散才沉迷“后视镜”。看看近几十年专业管理的养老金的行为。1971 年——Nifty Fifty 的年代——养老金经理们对市场感觉良好，把超过 90% 的净现金流投进了股票，这是当时的纪录。随后不过几年，天塌了，股票便宜多了。那么养老金经理做了什么？他们因为股票变便宜而停止了买入！

Private Pension Funds % of cash flow put into equities

私人养老基金投入股票的现金流占比

1971: 91% (record high)
1974: 13%

This is the one thing I can never understand. To refer to a personal taste of mine, I'm going to buy hamburgers the rest of my life. When hamburgers go down in price, we sing the "Hallelujah Chorus" in the Buffett household. When hamburgers go up, we weep. For most people, it's the same way with everything in life they will be buying--except stocks. When stocks go down and you can get more for your money, people don't like them anymore.

这是我永远无法理解的一点。打个我个人口味的比方，我这辈子都会买汉堡。汉堡降价时，Buffett 家会唱 “Hallelujah Chorus”；汉堡涨价时，我们会哭。对大多数人来说，生活中要买的几乎所有东西都是这样——除了股票。股票下跌、同样的钱能买到更多时，人们反而不喜欢了。

That sort of behavior is especially puzzling when engaged in by pension fund managers, who by all rights should have the longest time horizon of any investors. These managers are not going to need the money in their funds tomorrow, not next year, nor even next decade. So they have total freedom to sit back and relax. Since they are not operating with their own funds, moreover, raw greed should not distort their decisions. They should simply think about what makes the most sense. Yet they behave just like rank amateurs (getting paid, though, as if they had special expertise).

当这种行为出现在养老金经理身上时就更令人费解了——按理说他们应当拥有所有投资者中最长的时间视角。这些经理不需要明天用到基金里的钱，不需要明年，甚至不需要下个十年用到。因此他们完全可以从容不迫。此外，他们并非操盘自己的钱，赤裸裸的贪婪不该扭曲决策。他们只需考虑最合乎理性的做法。然而他们的行为却像业余选手（尽管拿着仿佛拥有特殊专长的报酬）。

In 1979, when I felt stocks were a screaming buy, I wrote in an article, "Pension fund managers continue to make investment decisions with their eyes firmly fixed on the rear-view mirror. This generals-fighting-the-last-war approach has proved costly in the past and will likely prove equally costly this time around." That's true, I said, because "stocks now sell at levels that should produce long-term returns far superior to bonds."

1979 年，当我认为股票已便宜到“尖叫价”时，我在一篇文章中写道：“养老金经理仍然把眼睛死死盯在后视镜上做投资决策。将军们打上一场仗的做法过去已经证明代价高昂，这一次大概率仍会代价高昂。”我之所以这么说，是因为“现在的股票价格所对应的长期回报应远高于债券。”

Consider the circumstances in 1972, when pension fund managers were still loading up on stocks: The Dow ended the year at 1020, had an average book value of 625, and earned 11% on book. Six years later, the Dow was 20% cheaper, its book value had gained nearly 40%, and it had earned 13% on book. Or as I wrote then, "Stocks were demonstrably cheaper in 1978 when pension fund managers wouldn't buy them than they were in 1972, when they bought them at record rates."

再看 1972 年的情形，当时养老金经理仍在大举买入股票：道琼斯年末为 1020，平均账面价值为 625，账面回报率 11%。六年后，道琼斯便宜了 20%，其账面价值却增长了近 40%，账面回报率达到 13%。或者如我当时所写：“1978 年，当养老金经理拒绝买入时，股票显然比 1972 年他们以创纪录速度买入时更便宜。”

At the time of the article, long-term corporate bonds were yielding about 9.5%. So I asked this seemingly obvious question: "Can better results be obtained, over 20 years, from a group of 9.5% bonds of leading American companies maturing in 1999 than from a group of Dow-type equities purchased, in aggregate, around book value and likely to earn, in aggregate, about 13% on that book value?" The question answered itself.

在那篇文章发表时，长期公司债的收益率约为 9.5%。于是我提出一个看似不言自明的问题：“在 20 年的跨度里，一组 1999 年到期、票息 9.5% 的美国龙头公司债，能否比一篮子以大致等于账面价值买入、整体上可能在账面上赚取约 13% 回报的道琼斯型股票，获得更好的结果？”答案不言自明。

Now, if you had read that article in 1979, you would have suffered--oh, how you would have suffered!--for about three years. I was no good then at forecasting the near-term movements of stock prices, and I'm no good now. I never have the faintest idea what the stock market is going to do in the next six months, or the next year, or the next two.

现在，假如你在 1979 年读了那篇文章，你将会受苦——哦，你会多么受苦啊！——大约三年。当时我并不擅长预测股价的短期走势，现在也不擅长。我从来对未来六个月、一年或两年里股市会怎么走毫无头绪。

But I think it is very easy to see what is likely to happen over the long term. Ben Graham told us why: "Though the stock market functions as a voting machine in the short run, it acts as a weighing machine in the long run." Fear and greed play important roles when votes are being cast, but they don't register on the scale.

但我认为，长期会发生什么其实很容易看清。Ben Graham 告诉了我们原因：“短期内股市像投票机，长期则像称重机。”恐惧与贪婪在投票时作用重大，但它们在秤上并不会显示出来。

By my thinking, it was not hard to say that, over a 20-year period, a 9.5% bond wasn't going to do as well as this disguised bond called the Dow that you could buy below par--that's book value--and that was earning 13% on par.

依我之见，并不难断言：在 20 年的周期里，一只 9.5% 的债券不会比这张伪装成“债券”的 Dow 表现更好——你可以在低于面值（即账面价值）的价格买到它，而它在面值上赚取 13% 的回报。

Let me explain what I mean by that term I slipped in there, "disguised bond." A bond, as most of you know, comes with a certain maturity and with a string of little coupons. A 6% bond, for example, pays a 3% coupon every six months.

让我解释一下我刚才顺带提到的术语“伪装的债券”是什么意思。债券，如你们大多数人所知，有明确的到期日，并配有一串小额“票息”。比如一只 6% 的债券，每六个月支付 3% 的票息。

A stock, in contrast, is a financial instrument that has a claim on future distributions made by a given business, whether they are paid out as dividends or to repurchase stock or to settle up after sale or liquidation. These payments are in effect "coupons." The set of owners getting them will change as shareholders come and go. But the financial outcome for the business' owners as a whole will be determined by the size and timing of these coupons. Estimating those particulars is what investment analysis is all about.

相反，股票是一种对某个企业未来分配的索取权的金融工具，无论这些分配以股息形式支付、以回购股票方式进行，还是在出售或清算后进行清算。这些支付在实质上就是“票息”。随着股东的进出，领取这些“票息”的所有者集合会发生变化。但该企业所有者整体的财务结果将由这些票息的规模与时间所决定。估计这些细节正是投资分析的全部所在。

Now, gauging the size of those "coupons" gets very difficult for individual stocks. It's easier, though, for groups of stocks. Back in 1978, as I mentioned, we had the Dow earning 13% on its average book value of $850. The 13% could only be a benchmark, not a guarantee. Still, if you'd been willing then to invest for a period of time in stocks, you were in effect buying a bond--at prices that in 1979 seldom inched above par--with a principal value of $891 and a quite possible 13% coupon on the principal.

当然，估计单只股票这些“票息”的大小非常困难。但对一组股票则更容易。回到 1978 年，正如我提到的，Dow 以 850 美元的平均账面价值赚取了 13%。这 13% 只能作为基准，而非保证。尽管如此，如果你当时愿意在一段时间内投资股票，你实际上就是在买一只债券——其价格在 1979 年很少高于面值——其“本金”为 891 美元，并且在本金上有相当可能实现 13% 的“票息”。

How could that not be better than a 9.5% bond? From that starting point, stocks had to outperform bonds over the long term. That, incidentally, has been true during most of my business lifetime. But as Keynes would remind us, the superiority of stocks isn't inevitable. They own the advantage only when certain conditions prevail.

这怎么可能不优于一只 9.5% 的债券？从那个起点出发，长期而言股票必然跑赢债券。顺带一提，在我大部分的商业生涯中，这都是真实的。但正如 Keynes 会提醒我们的那样，股票的优势并非必然。只有在某些条件成立时，它们才占优。

Let me show you another point about the herd mentality among pension funds--a point perhaps accentuated by a little self-interest on the part of those who oversee the funds. In the table below are four well-known companies--typical of many others I could have selected--and the expected returns on their pension fund assets that they used in calculating what charge (or credit) they should make annually for pensions.

让我再举一个关于养老金“羊群效应”的例子——这种效应可能还被监管这些基金的人自身的一点私利所放大。下表列出四家知名公司——它们只是我可以选择的众多公司中的典型——以及它们在计算每年应计入（或转回）养老金费用时所采用的养老金资产预期收益率。

Now, the higher the expectation rate that a company uses for pensions, the higher its reported earnings will be. That's just the way that pension accounting works--and I hope, for the sake of relative brevity, that you'll just take my word for it.

需要说明的是，公司用于养老金的预期收益率越高，其报告的利润就越高。这正是养老金会计的运作方式——为了相对简明，我希望你们相信我这一点。

As the table shows, expectations in 1975 were modest: 7% for Exxon, 6% for GE and GM, and under 5% for IBM. The oddity of these assumptions is that investors could then buy long-term government noncallable bonds that paid 8%. In other words, these companies could have loaded up their entire portfolio with 8% no-risk bonds, but they nevertheless used lower assumptions. By 1982, as you can see, they had moved up their assumptions a little bit, most to around 7%. But now you could buy long-term governments at 10.4%. You could in fact have locked in that yield for decades by buying so-called strips that guaranteed you a 10.4% reinvestment rate. In effect, your idiot nephew could have managed the fund and achieved returns far higher than the investment assumptions corporations were using.

正如表中所示，1975 年的预期相当保守：Exxon 为 7%，GE 和 GM 为 6%，IBM 低于 5%。这些假设的怪异之处在于，当时投资者可以买到收益率 8% 的长期、不可赎回政府债券。换言之，这些公司完全可以把整个养老金组合都配成无风险的 8% 债券，但它们却使用了更低的假设。到了 1982 年，如你所见，它们略微上调了假设，多数约为 7%。可那时你可以买到收益率 10.4% 的长期国债。实际上，通过购买所谓的“STRIPS”，你可以把这种收益率锁定几十年，并保证 10.4% 的再投资利率。实质上，你那位“愚笨的侄子”也能管理这只基金，并取得远高于公司所用投资假设的回报。

Why in the world would a company be assuming 7.5% when it could get nearly 10.5% on government bonds? The answer is that rear-view mirror again: Investors who'd been through the collapse of the Nifty Fifty in the early 1970s were still feeling the pain of the period and were out of date in their thinking about returns. They couldn't make the necessary mental adjustment.

为什么公司在可以从政府债获得接近 10.5% 的收益时，却要假设 7.5%？答案还是那面“后视镜”：经历过 1970 年代初 Nifty Fifty 崩塌的投资者，仍在承受那段时期带来的疼痛，他们对回报的思维已经过时，无法做出必要的心理调整。

Now fast-forward to 2000, when we had long-term governments at 5.4%. And what were the four companies saying in their 2000 annual reports about expectations for their pension funds? They were using assumptions of 9.5% and even 10%.

现在快进到 2000 年，当时长期政府债收益率为 5.4%。而那四家公司在其 2000 年年报中对养老金的回报预期是怎么说的？它们采用了 9.5% 甚至 10% 的假设。

I'm a sporting type, and I would love to make a large bet with the chief financial officer of any one of those four companies, or with their actuaries or auditors, that over the next 15 years they will not average the rates they've postulated. Just look at the math, for one thing. A fund's portfolio is very likely to be one-third bonds, on which--assuming a conservative mix of issues with an appropriate range of maturities--the fund cannot today expect to earn much more than 5%. It's simple to see then that the fund will need to average more than 11% on the two-thirds that's in stocks to earn about 9.5% overall. That's a pretty heroic assumption, particularly given the substantial investment expenses that a typical fund incurs.

我这个人好赌，真想和那四家中的任何一家公司的首席财务官，或者他们的精算师、审计师打个大赌：在接下来的 15 年里，他们不可能实现自己所假定的平均回报率。先看看算术。一只基金的资产组合很可能有三分之一是债券——在保守配置、期限结构合理的前提下，如今这部分很难指望获得超过 5% 的回报。于是很容易看出：为了总体达到约 9.5%，基金必须在其三分之二的股票部分上实现超过 11% 的平均回报。这是个相当“英雄化”的假设，尤其考虑到典型基金要承担可观的投资费用。

Heroic assumptions do wonders, however, for the bottom line. By embracing those expectation rates shown in the far right column, these companies report much higher earnings--much higher--than if they were using lower rates. And that's certainly not lost on the people who set the rates. The actuaries who have roles in this game know nothing special about future investment returns. What they do know, however, is that their clients desire rates that are high. And a happy client is a continuing client.

不过，“英雄化”的假设对报表利润可是奇效立竿见影。只要采用报表最右栏那些预期收益率，这些公司报告的利润就会远高于——远远高于——采用较低假设时的水平。设定这些比率的人当然心知肚明。参与其中的精算师并不掌握有关未来投资回报的特殊信息；但他们非常清楚，客户希望看到更高的比率——而让客户满意，客户就会继续留在身边。

Are we talking big numbers here? Let's take a look at General Electric, the country's most valuable and most admired company. I'm a huge admirer myself. GE has run its pension fund extraordinarily well for decades, and its assumptions about returns are typical of the crowd. I use the company as an example simply because of its prominence.

我们这里谈的是大数字吗？来看 General Electric，这家全国最有价值、也最受尊敬的公司。我本人也非常钦佩它。GE 数十年来把养老金基金管理得非常出色，其回报假设也具有群体的代表性。我之所以以它为例，仅仅因为它足够显著。

If we may retreat to 1982 again, GE recorded a pension charge of $570 million. That amount cost the company 20% of its pretax earnings. Last year GE recorded a $1.74 billion pension credit. That was 9% of the company's pretax earnings. And it was 2 1/2 times the appliance division's profit of $684 million. A $1.74 billion credit is simply a lot of money. Reduce that pension assumption enough and you wipe out most of the credit.

如果我们再回到 1982 年，GE 计提了 5.7 亿美元的养老金费用。这一金额相当于其税前利润的 20%。而去年，GE 确认了 17.4 亿美元的养老金收益（credit），占公司税前利润的 9%。而且这是家电部门 6.84 亿美元利润的 2.5 倍。17.4 亿美元的收益确实是一大笔钱。把养老金回报假设下调到足够的程度，你就会把这笔收益的大部分抹掉。

GE's pension credit, and that of many another corporation, owes its existence to a rule of the Financial Accounting Standards Board that went into effect in 1987. From that point on, companies equipped with the right assumptions and getting the fund performance they needed could start crediting pension income to their income statements. Last year, according to Goldman Sachs, 35 companies in the S&P 500 got more than 10% of their earnings from pension credits, even as, in many cases, the value of their pension investments shrank.

GE（以及许多其他公司）的养老金收益之所以存在，源于 Financial Accounting Standards Board 于 1987 年生效的一项规则。从那时起，只要配上“合意”的假设并获得相应的基金业绩，公司就可以在损益表中确认养老金收益。根据 Goldman Sachs 的数据，去年标普 500 指数中有 35 家公司的养老金收益占其利润的比例超过 10%，即便在许多案例中，它们的养老金投资市值其实是在缩水的。

Unfortunately, the subject of pension assumptions, critically important though it is, almost never comes up in corporate board meetings. (I myself have been on 19 boards, and I've never heard a serious discussion of this subject.) And now, of course, the need for discussion is paramount because these assumptions that are being made, with all eyes looking backward at the glories of the 1990s, are so extreme. I invite you to ask the CFO of a company having a large defined-benefit pension fund what adjustment would need to be made to the company's earnings if its pension assumption was lowered to 6.5%. And then, if you want to be mean, ask what the company's assumptions were back in 1975 when both stocks and bonds had far higher prospective returns than they do now.

不幸的是，尽管养老金假设至关重要，但它几乎从不出现在公司董事会的议题上。（我本人担任过 19 家公司的董事，从未听到过对这一主题的认真讨论。）而现在，讨论的必要性尤为突出，因为人们在盯着 1990 年代的辉煌回望时所做出的这些假设实在过于极端。我建议你去问一家拥有大型固定给付养老金的公司的首席财务官：如果将养老金回报假设下调到 6.5%，公司利润需要做出怎样的调整？然后，如果你想再“刻薄”一点，就问问这家公司在 1975 年所采用的假设是多少——那时候股票和债券的远期回报都远高于现在。

With 2001 annual reports soon to arrive, it will be interesting to see whether companies have reduced their assumptions about future pension returns. Considering how poor returns have been recently and the reprises that probably lie ahead, I think that anyone choosing not to lower assumptions--CEOs, auditors, and actuaries all--is risking litigation for misleading investors. And directors who don't question the optimism thus displayed simply won't be doing their job.

随着 2001 年年报即将出炉，看看公司是否下调了对未来养老金回报的假设将会很有意思。考虑到近期回报之差以及很可能重演的情形，我认为凡是不愿下调假设的人——无论是 CEO、审计师还是精算师——都在冒着因误导投资者而被起诉的风险。而对这种乐观不加质疑的董事们，显然也没有尽到自己的职责。

The tour we've taken through the last century proves that market irrationality of an extreme kind periodically erupts--and compellingly suggests that investors wanting to do well had better learn how to deal with the next outbreak. What's needed is an antidote, and in my opinion that's quantification. If you quantify, you won't necessarily rise to brilliance, but neither will you sink into craziness.

我们对上个世纪的回顾证明，极端的市场非理性会周期性爆发——并强有力地提示：想取得好结果的投资者最好学会如何应对下一次爆发。所需要的是解毒剂，而在我看来，这个解毒剂就是“量化”。如果你进行量化，你未必会脱颖而出，但也不会陷入疯狂。

On a macro basis, quantification doesn't have to be complicated at all. Below is a chart, starting almost 80 years ago and really quite fundamental in what it says. The chart shows the market value of all publicly traded securities as a percentage of the country's business--that is, as a percentage of GNP. The ratio has certain limitations in telling you what you need to know. Still, it is probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment. And as you can see, nearly two years ago the ratio rose to an unprecedented level. That should have been a very strong warning signal.

在宏观层面，量化一点也不必复杂。下面有一张图，从近 80 年前开始，其所表达的内容非常基础。该图展示了所有公开交易证券的市场价值占全国“商业规模”的比例——也就是占 GNP 的比例。该比率在传达信息方面当然有其局限性。但它很可能是衡量任何时点估值水平的最佳单一指标。而正如你所见，近两年前这一比率升至史无前例的水平。这本应是一个非常强烈的警示信号。

For investors to gain wealth at a rate that exceeds the growth of U.S. business, the percentage relationship line on the chart must keep going up and up. If GNP is going to grow 5% a year and you want market values to go up 10%, then you need to have the line go straight off the top of the chart. That won't happen.

若要投资者的致富速度超过美国商业本身的增长速度，那么图上的这条“百分比关系”曲线就必须不断上行。如果 GNP 每年增长 5%，而你希望市场总市值上涨 10%，那这条曲线就得一路冲出图表上沿。这是不可能的。

For me, the message of that chart is this: If the percentage relationship falls to the 70% or 80% area, buying stocks is likely to work very well for you. If the ratio approaches 200%--as it did in 1999 and a part of 2000--you are playing with fire. As you can see, the ratio was recently 133%.

对我而言，这张图传递的信息是：如果该百分比回落到 70% 或 80% 区间，买入股票大概率会有很好的结果；如果该比率逼近 200%——如同 1999 年和 2000 年一部分时间那样——那就是在玩火。正如你所见，最近这一比率为 133%。

Even so, that is a good-sized drop from when I was talking about the market in 1999. I ventured then that the American public should expect equity returns over the next decade or two (with dividends included and 2% inflation assumed) of perhaps 7%. That was a gross figure, not counting frictional costs, such as commissions and fees. Net, I thought returns might be 6%.

尽管如此，这一水平较我在 1999 年谈市场时已有了不小的下降。当时我斗胆估计，美国公众在未来十到二十年中应当期待股票回报（含股息，假设 2% 通胀）大约在 7%。那是“毛回报”，不包含佣金、管理费等摩擦成本。扣除后，我认为“净回报”可能在 6%。

Today stock market "hamburgers," so to speak, are cheaper. The country's economy has grown and stocks are lower, which means that investors are getting more for their money. I would expect now to see long-term returns run somewhat higher, in the neighborhood of 7% after costs. Not bad at all--that is, unless you're still deriving your expectations from the 1990s.

如今可以说“股市的‘汉堡’更便宜了”。国家经济在增长，而股价更低，这意味着投资者花同样的钱能买到更多。我现在预计长期回报会略高一些，成本后大致在 7% 左右。这一点也不差——除非你的期望仍然来自 1990 年代。

2001-12-10 Mr. Buffett on the stock market

2001-12-10 Mr. Buffett on the stock market

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