Source: Barron's Weekly
Author: Ed Lin
The second largest public retirement fund in the United States recently made significant adjustments to its stock investment portfolio listed in the United States. The California Teachers' Retirement Fund increased its investment in Chinese e-commerce company, pdd holdings (PDD.US), and bought more shares of Discover Financial Services (DFS.US) and Williams-Sonoma (WSM.US) in the first quarter, while reducing its holdings of American Airlines (AAL.US) stocks. The California Teachers' Retirement Fund disclosed this stock trading information in a report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Our public equity investment portfolio uses both passive and active strategies," the California Teachers' Retirement Fund said in a statement responding to a review request. "The portfolio's positions may change for various reasons, including fund managers' realignments of the active or index weights they require, or as a result of corporate mergers, stock splits, name changes or similar company actions." As of April 30, the fund managed assets of about $332.5 billion, making it the second largest public pension fund in the United States in terms of assets under management.
Author: Elsa Oren, et al.
Born on August 30, 1930, Buffett has 94 years of life experience and 83 years of investment experience. According to biographer Roger Lowenstein, he is hailed as the "Omaha Prophet". Buffett bought his first stock at the age of 11.
Buffett is one of the world's greatest investors, known for buying undervalued stocks and holding them for the long term, making billions of dollars. This Wednesday (August 28th), the investment company he took over in 1965 became the ninth company in history to have a market capitalization exceeding 1 trillion US dollars. $Berkshire Hathaway-A (BRK.A.US)$ / $Berkshire Hathaway-B (BRK.B.US)$
In the 1960s, when Buffett bought Berkshire Hathaway stock, the price was about $8. As of July of this year, the price of Berkshire Hathaway's Class A shares, which have never been split, exceeded $0.62 million.
On the issue of creating value, Buffett has accumulated some experience in his 60 years of leading Berkshire Hathaway. To celebrate the 94th birthday of the 'Oracle of Omaha,' Barron's summarized Buffett's five major investment experiences.
1. Failure is a part of success.
All people who live to be 94 have experienced failure. The ability to deal with it calmly and learn from mistakes is the most important characteristic of Buffett's career.
In recent years, Berkshire Hathaway has made several mistakes. By the end of 2023, Berkshire Hathaway sold off its shares in $General Motors (GM.US)$ , which was a disappointing investment for Berkshire Hathaway. In the second quarter of 2024, they sold off their shares. $Apple (AAPL.US)$ The timing doesn't seem to be good, Apple has risen nearly 20% in the past three months.
$American Express (AXP.US)$These leading cloud companies are worth considering.coca-cola (KO.US) far outperformed those losses. Over the past 40 years, the annualized return of Berkshire Class A shares has been 17%, compared with$S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$a 11% gain during the same period.
This reminds us that to be a good investor, usually only need to do the right thing in a little over 50% of the time.
2. Cash is not king, but don't be afraid to hold it.
In the past, Buffett did not hesitate to criticize the view that "holding cash is a viable investment strategy."
In 2008, Buffett said in an interview with Charlie Rose, the anchor of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), "When people talk about cash being king, if it just sits there and does nothing, then it can't be called king."
However, this does not mean that it is the correct practice to blindly buy stocks or other assets that you are not completely satisfied with for the purpose of investment.
Buffett has shown through his own practice that in periods of market turmoil, sometimes you can completely refrain from participating. This year is a good example. Currently, Berkshire Hathaway's cash holdings have reached a record level of nearly $200 billion. Buffett said at the 2024 annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting, "I think those of us sitting up here don't know how to use cash effectively, so we don't use it."
3. It's okay to change your mind.
Buffett advises investors to hold stocks for the long term, but also advocates changing strategies when necessary. For example, Buffett has never liked investing in banks or investing in their stocks, but he bought them in 2011. $Bank of America (BAC.US)$ Warren Buffett extended a helping hand by purchasing $5 billion worth of preferred stocks to the then struggling Bank of America. Recently, Buffett has started selling Bank of America's stocks.
Buffett has also changed his views on $Apple (AAPL.US)$ this year (before Berkshire's market cap reached $1 trillion) reducing his Apple stocks by more than 50%.
Buy the company, not the CEO.
This is another valuable investment advice. Buffett said: "You should invest in a company that even fools can run, because one day a fool will run that company."
Buffett does not buy companies that rely on excellent management to succeed. He believes that even with a very good CEO, a company with a poor fundamental cannot be revived.
如今这条经验尤为重要，一些市值庞大的公司的CEO——比如差点要和埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)“笼斗”的马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)，或者爱穿皮衣的黄仁勋(Jensen Huang)——凭借一己之力成为了名人。
许多投资者将买入$Tesla (TSLA.US)$的股票视为投资马斯克的一种方式，但巴菲特可能会告诉这些投资者，真正需要关注的是特斯拉的基本面。
5、不要买《蒙娜丽莎》这类艺术品，把钱用来投资。
巴菲特曾在1996年说：“如果你不愿意持有一只股票10年，那就不要考虑持有它10分钟。”这也是一条非常有价值的投资经验，这句话说的是复利的力量。
巴菲特用达芬奇的名画《蒙娜丽莎》来解释复利：如果16世纪法国国王弗朗西斯没有花4000埃居——相当于0.02 million美元——购买这幅画，而是将这0.02 million美元用于能够获得6%年回报率的投资，那么到1963年，法国国库将增加1000 trillion美元，是法国国家债务的3000倍。
与此同时，1962年《蒙娜丽莎》的保险估价“仅”为0.1 billion美元。
Author Morgan Housel of "The Psychology of Money" points out that Buffett earned most of his money after the age of 60, mainly thanks to the simple mathematics of compound investing.
Editor / jayden