42. Japan’s economic slump doesn’t affect Berkshire
日本的经济低迷不会影响伯克希尔
WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 5. (Laughter)
沃伦·巴菲特: 第五区域。(笑声)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. My name is Bob Brewer (PH). And I’m from down the road in Lincoln, Nebraska.
观众: 早上好。我叫鲍勃·布鲁尔(音),来自内布拉斯加州林肯,就在附近。
I just wanted to ask you how you think the continuing economic turmoil in Japan is likely to affect the global economy and the U.S. stock market over the next five to 10 years?
我想请问您,您认为日本持续的经济动荡可能会如何影响未来五到十年的全球经济和美国股市?
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, Charlie and I are no good on those macro questions.
沃伦·巴菲特: 嗯,查理和我不擅长回答这种宏观问题。
But I would say this: I mean, the Japan problem has been around, now — in financial markets and banking systems — has been around for some time now. So, I see no reason why it should have more impact on the rest of world now than it has had in the last few years. And I would say it’s had certainly very little effect on the U.S. in the last few years.
但我想说的是,日本的问题,无论是在金融市场还是银行系统,都已经存在了一段时间。所以,我看不出为什么它现在会比过去几年对世界其他地方有更大的影响。而且,我认为过去几年它对美国的影响非常小。
It’s not — it’s no factor in our thinking at all, in terms of what we would buy or sell tomorrow morning. I mean, if we got offered a good business tomorrow — unless it was directly involved and its primary business was in Japan — but if it was a business in this country, that’s not something that we would be thinking about. We would be thinking about the specifics of that business.
它完全不是我们考虑的因素,无论是明天早上要买还是要卖。我是说,如果明天我们遇到一个好的生意——除非它直接与日本相关且主要业务在日本——但如果它是美国的业务,我们不会考虑日本问题。我们会关注的是这个业务的具体情况。
We don’t really get too concerned about the things that come and go. I mean, in the end, if we’re right about a business over a 10 or 20-year period — take See’s Candy.
我们不会过于担心那些来来去去的事情。我的意思是,最终,如果我们对一个业务在10年或20年的时间里判断正确——比如说See’s糖果。
问题是很多人活在来来去去的事情中。
We bought it in 1972. Look what happened in 1973 and 4, you know, and all the oil shocks and what this country was going through and inflation, all that sort of thing.
我们在1972年买下了它。看看1973年和1974年发生了什么,比如石油危机,这个国家经历的各种问题,以及通货膨胀,等等。
For us to — and let’s say in 1972 somebody laid out a roadmap from 1972 to 1982, with the prime rate going to 21 1/2 percent, long-term rates going to 15 percent. And all of the things happening, the Dow going to 570 or what — or 560.
假设在1972年,有人列出一份从1972年到1982年的路线图,说明基准利率会升到21.5%,长期利率会升到15%,还有其他各种事情,道琼斯指数会降到570点或560点。
That wasn’t the important thing. The important thing was that this peanut brittle tastes like it does, which is terrific. (Laughter)
这些都不是重要的事情。重要的是,这款花生脆糖的味道依然如同它本来的样子——非常棒。(笑声)
And that over time, we could get a little more money for it. So, you know. See’s made $4 million, pretax, in 1972, when we bought it. It made 62 million last year.
而且随着时间的推移,我们可以从中赚到更多钱。你知道的,1972年我们买下See’s时,它的税前利润是400万美元。去年,它赚了6200万美元。
It doesn’t — we don’t want to be thinking about the wrong things when we’re buying businesses. And that applies to marketable securities, just as much as it does as when we’re buying 100 percent of the business.
当我们购买业务时,我们不想考虑错误的事情。这一点同样适用于可交易证券,就像适用于我们购买一家公司100%的股份时一样。
If we’re right about the business, the macro factors aren’t going to make any difference, you know. And if we’re wrong about the business, macro factors are not going to bail us out.
如果我们对业务的判断是正确的,宏观因素不会产生任何影响。如果我们对业务的判断是错误的,宏观因素也救不了我们。
Charlie?
查理?
17. Why buying a stock should be like buying a farm
为什么购买股票应该像购买农场一样
WARREN BUFFETT: But going back to stocks, people bring the attitude to them too often that because they are liquid and quoted minute-by-minute, that it’s important that you develop an opinion on them, minute-by-minute.
沃伦·巴菲特:但回到股票上,人们往往带着这样的态度,因为股票是流动的,并且每分钟都有报价,所以你必须每分钟对它们形成看法。
Now that’s really foolish when you think about it. And that’s something Benjamin Graham taught me in 1949. I mean, that single thought, that stocks were parts of businesses and not just little things that moved around on charts or — charts were very popular in those days — whatever it may be.
现在仔细想想,这真是愚蠢。而这是本杰明·格雷厄姆在 1949 年教我的。我是说,这个单一的想法,即股票是企业的一部分,而不仅仅是图表上移动的小东西——在那个时代,图表非常流行——无论它是什么。
Imagine for a moment that you decided to invest money now. And you bought a farm, and the farmland around here — let’s say you bought 160 acres and you bought it at x per share — or per acre. And the farmer next to you had 160 identical acres, same contour, same quality — soil quality. So, it was — it was identical.
想象一下,如果你决定现在投资一些钱。你买了一块农场,周围的农田——假设你买了 160 英亩,并且以每股或每英亩 x 的价格购买。而你旁边的农民也有 160 英亩相同的土地,地形相同,土壤质量相同。所以,它是——它是完全相同的。
And that farmer next door to you was a very peculiar character. Because every day that farmer with the identical farm said, “I’ll sell you my farm” — or “I’ll buy your farm” — at a certain price which he would name. Now, that’s a very obliging neighbor. I mean, that’s got to be a plus to have a fellow like that with the next farm.
而你隔壁的农民是个非常奇特的人。因为每天那个拥有相同农场的农民都会说:“我会以某个价格卖给你我的农场”——或者“我会以某个价格买你的农场”。现在,这真是个很乐于助人的邻居。我是说,拥有这样一个邻居肯定是个好处。
You don’t get that with farms. You get it with stocks. You want a hundred shares of General Motors. On Monday morning, somebody will buy your hundred shares or sell you another hundred shares at exactly the same price, and that goes on five days a week.
你在农场得不到这一点。你在股票中得到它。你想要一百股通用汽车。周一早上,有人会以完全相同的价格买下你的那一百股,或者再卖给你一百股,这样一周五天都在进行。
But just imagine if you had a farmer doing that. When you bought the farm, you looked to what the farm would produce. That was what went through your mind. You’re saying to yourself, I’m paying x dollars per acre, I think I’ll get so many bushels of corn or soybeans on average, some years good, some years bad, some years the price will be good, some years the price will be bad, etc.
但想象一下如果你有一个农民这样做。当你购买农场时,你考虑的是农场将会生产什么。这就是你脑海中想到的。你在心里说,我每英亩支付 x 美元,我认为我平均会得到这么多蒲式耳的玉米或大豆,有些年份好,有些年份差,有些年份价格好,有些年份价格差,等等。
But you think about the potential of the farm. And now you get this idiot that buys a farm next to you and — and on top of that he’s sort of a manic depressive and drinks, maybe smokes a little pot, so his numbers just go all over the place.
但是你考虑到农场的潜力。现在你遇到这个傻瓜,他在你旁边买了一个农场——而且他有点躁郁症,还喝酒,可能还抽一点大麻,所以他的数字完全不稳定。
Now, the only thing you have to do is to remember that this guy next door is there to serve you and not to instruct you. You bought the farm because you thought the farm was — had the potential. You don’t really need a quote on it.
现在,您唯一需要做的就是记住,隔壁的这个家伙是来为您服务的,而不是来指导您的。您购买这块农场是因为您认为这块农场有潜力。您实际上并不需要对此进行报价。
You know, if you bought in with John D. Rockefeller, or Andrew Carnegie, there were never any quotes — well, there were quotes later on, but — but basically, you bought into the business, and that’s what you’re doing when you buy stocks.
你知道,如果你和约翰·D·洛克菲勒或安德鲁·卡内基一起投资,根本没有任何报价——好吧,后来有了报价,但——基本上,你是投资于这个业务,而这就是你购买股票时所做的。
But you get this added advantage that you do have this neighbor, who you’re not obliged to listen to at all, who is going to give you a price every day. And he’s going to have his ups and downs. And maybe he’ll name a silly price that he’ll buy at, in which case you sell, if you want to. Or maybe he’ll name a very low price and you’ll buy his farm from him. But you don’t have to. And you don’t want to put yourself in a position where you have to sell.
但你会得到一个额外的好处,那就是你有这个邻居,你完全不必听他的,他每天都会给你一个价格。他会有起有落。也许他会报一个愚蠢的买入价格,这样的话,如果你愿意,你可以卖给他。或者也许他会报一个非常低的价格,你可以从他那里买下他的农场。但你并不一定要这样做。你也不想让自己处于必须出售的境地。
Stocks have this enormous inherent advantage of people yelling out prices all the time to you. And many people turn that into a disadvantage. And of course, many people can profit in one way or another from telling — telling you that they can tell you what this farmer is going to yell out tomorrow or next — your neighboring farmer — is going to yell out tomorrow or next week or next month. There’s huge money in it.
股票有一个巨大的内在优势,那就是人们不断向你喊出价格。然而,许多人把这个优势变成了劣势。当然,许多人通过告诉你,他们可以预测明天或下周甚至下个月你的邻居农民会喊出什么价格,从中获利。这其中有巨大的利润空间。
So, people tell you that it’s important and they know and that you should pay a lot of attention to their thoughts about what price changes should be, or you tell yourself that there should be this great difference.
于是,人们告诉你,这些价格变化很重要,他们知道这些,并且你应该非常关注他们对价格变化的看法,或者你自己认为这些价格变化应该有很大的差异。
But the truth is, if you owned the businesses you liked prior to the virus arriving — it changes prices and it changes — but nobody’s forcing you to sell. And if you really like the business, and you like the management you’re in with, and the business hasn’t fundamentally changed — and I’ll get to that a little when I report on Berkshire, which I will soon, I promise.
但事实是,如果你在病毒到来之前拥有你喜欢的企业——价格会变化,情况也会变化——但没有人强迫你出售。如果你真的喜欢这个企业,喜欢你所参与的管理,而且企业没有从根本上改变——我稍后会在报告伯克希尔时提到这一点,我会很快做到,我保证。
Stocks have an enormous advantage. And you still can bet on America. But you can’t bet unless you’re willing, and have an outlook, to independently decide that you want to own a cross section of America, because I don’t think most people are in a position to pick single stocks. A few may be, but — but on balance, I think people are much better off buying a cross section of America and just forgetting about it.
股票有巨大的优势,你仍然可以押注美国的未来。但除非你有意愿,并且有独立的视野去决定你想拥有美国的一个横截面,否则你无法进行这样的押注。因为我认为大多数人并不具备挑选单只股票的能力。少数人可能可以,但总体来看,我认为人们最好是购买一部分美国的整体股票,然后忘记它,不去过多关注。
If you’d done that — if I’d done that when I got out of college, it’s all I had to do to make 100-for-1 and collect dividends on top of it, which increased — would increase substantially over time.
如果你那样做了——如果我在大学毕业时就那样做,那是我唯一需要做的事情,就可以赚到100倍的回报,并且还能领取股息,而这些股息会随着时间大幅增加。
The American tailwind is marvelous. American business represents — and it’s going to have interruptions and you’re not going to foresee the interruptions, and you do not want to get yourself in a position where those interruptions can — can affect you, either because you’re leveraged or because you’re psychologically unable to handle looking at a bunch of numbers.
美国的顺风势头非常强劲。美国的商业代表了这一点——虽然会有中断,你无法预见这些中断,但你不希望让自己处于被这些中断影响的境地,可能是因为你用了杠杆,或者你在心理上无法应对看到一堆数字的压力。
If you really had a farm, and you had this neighbor and one day he offered you $2,000 an acre, and the next day he offers you $1200 an acre, and maybe the day after that he offers you $800 an acre, are you really going to feel that at $2,000 an acre, when you had evaluated what the farm would produce, are you going to let this guy drive you into thinking I better sell because this number keeps coming in lower all the time?
如果你真的有一个农场,而你有一个邻居,有一天他给你每英亩 2000 美元的报价,第二天他给你每英亩 1200 美元的报价,也许在那之后的某一天他给你每英亩 800 美元的报价,你真的会觉得在每英亩 2000 美元的情况下,当你评估过农场的产出时,你会让这个家伙让你觉得我最好卖掉,因为这个数字一直在下降吗?
It’s a very, very, very important matter to bring the right psychological approach to owning common stocks.
将正确的心理方法应用于拥有普通股是一个非常非常重要的事情。
But I will tell you if you bet on America and sustain that position for decades, you’re going to do better than — than — in my view — far better than owning Treasury securities. Or far better than following people who tell you what the farmer is going to yell out next.
但我会告诉你,如果你押注于美国并在几十年内坚持这个立场,你会比——在我看来——远远好于拥有国债。或者远远好于听那些告诉你农民接下来会喊什么的人。
There’s huge amounts of money that people pay for advice they really don’t need and for advice where the person giving it can be very well meaning and believe their own line. But the truth is that — that you can’t have — you can’t deliver superior results to everybody by just having them trade around a business.
人们为他们实际上并不需要的建议支付了巨额费用,而提供这些建议的人可能出于好意并相信自己的观点。但事实是,你无法通过让所有人频繁交易股票来为每个人提供优异的结果。
A business is going to deliver what the business produces. And the idea that you can outsmart the person next to you, or that the person advising you can outsmart the next — the person sitting next to you — is — well, it’s really the wrong approach.
一家公司将会交付它所能生产的成果。认为你可以比身边的人更聪明,或者你的顾问可以比坐在你旁边的人更聪明,这种想法——其实是错误的方法。
So, find businesses — get a cross section. In my view, for most people, the best thing to do is to own the S&P 500 index fund. People will try and sell you other things because there’s more money in it for them if they do. And I’m not saying that that’s a conscious act on their part. Most — most good salespeople believe their own baloney. I mean, that’s part of being a good salesperson. And I’m sure I’ve done plenty of that in my life, too. But it’s very human.
所以,寻找企业——获取一个横截面。在我看来,对于大多数人来说,拥有标准普尔 500 指数基金是最好的选择。人们会试图向你推销其他东西,因为这样对他们来说能赚更多的钱。我并不是说这是他们有意识的行为。大多数——大多数优秀的销售人员相信他们自己的胡说八道。我是说,这也是成为一名优秀销售人员的一部分。我相信我在生活中也做过很多这样的事情。但这非常人性化。
If you keep repeating something — often that’s why lawyers get — have the witnesses keep saying things over and over again that by the time they get on the witness stand, they’ll — they’ll believe it whether it was true in the first place or not. The—
如果你不断重复某件事——这通常就是律师让证人不断重复说同样的话的原因——以至于当他们上证人席时,他们会相信这是真的,无论最初是否真实。