Mycket tänkvärd klokskap från Warren Buffett

Genom årens lopp har Warren Buffett - Oraklet från Omaha - utbildat investerare genom att bjuda på oerhört mycket klokskap.

Jag läste nyligen ut boken The Essays of Warren Buffett, vilken är skriven av Lawrence A. Cunningham. Nedan redogörs för de anteckningar jag gjorde när jag läste boken.

Långsiktighet och fokus på bolagsägande vs. aktieägande

• Charlie and Warren hope that you do not think of yourself as merely owning a piece of paper whose price wiggles around daily and that is a candidate for sale when some external political event make you nervous. We hope you instead visualise yourself as a part owner of a business that you expect to stay with indefinitely
• If we have good long-term expectations, short-term price changes are meaningless for us except to the extent they offer us an opportunity to increase our ownership at an attractive price
• Too many are temporary (short-term) traders of common stocks – whose actions pose high costs
• Minimizing trading costs are necessary for long-term investment success
• Approach a transaction as if you are to buy into a private business

Undvik permanent förlust

• We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet. It has hampered our result development but it is the only behaviour that leaves us comfortable
• Don’t risk what you have and need in order to pursue what you don’t have and don’t need

Fler fallgropar att se upp för

• Speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest
• When (M&A) deals oftens fails in practice, they never fail in projections
• What is smart at one price is dumb at another price
• Unfortunately, stocks can’t outperform businesses indefinitely
• Leverage is addictive
• Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies
• A horse that can count to 10 is a remarkable horse. Not a remarkable mathematician
• How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four, because calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg
• Be leery of companies run by CEOs who woo investors with fancy predictions
• Beware of companies displaying weak accounting. There is seldom just one cockroach in the kitchen
• If you can’t understand a footnote or other managerial explanation, it is usually because the CEO doesn’t want you to

Bolagsstyrning

• The terrible manager is a lot easier to confront or remove than the mediocre manager
• Each dollar of earnings should be retained if retention will increase market value by at least a like amount; otherwise is should be paid out
• A company that sells its stock at a price less than its value is stealing from its existing shareholder (t ex flera nyemissioner)
• Most acquisitions are value-decreasing
• Owner-earning = operating earnings + non-cash charges – required reinvestment in the business (defined as the average amount of capitalised expenditures for plant and equipment, etc)
• Accounting is a form. And as a form, it can be manipulated
• If each of us hires people who are bigger (= better) than we are, we will become a company of giants
• Focus on what count, not how it will be counted
• When short-term and long-term conflict, widening the moat must take precedence
• There are two classes of clients you don’t want to offend; actual and potential
• Depreciation is a particularly unattractive expense because the cash outlay it represents is paid up front, before the asset acquired has delivered any benefits to the business

Ytterligare tänkvärt för investerare

• It is better to be approximately right then precisely wrong
• Growth and value are not distinct. They are integrally linked since growth must be treated as a component of value
• Put all your egg in one basket and watch that basket carefully
• Mr. Markets irrationality, margin-of-safety and circle of competence are three cornerstones in intelligent investing
• Jämför EPS och sysselsatt kapital över tid
• There is plenty of money to be made in the center of the court. If it is questionable whether some action is close to the line, just assume it is outside and forget it
• Mr Market has another endearing characteristics: He doesn’t mind being ignored. He will come back with a new price proposal tomorrow
• In an investment lifetime it is too hard to make hundreds of smart decisions. Warren and Charlie settle for one good idea a year
• Leaving the price aside, the best business to own is one that over an extended period can employ large amounts of incremental capital at very high rates of return. Most high-return businesses need relatively little capital. Shareholders of such a business usually will benefit if it pays out most of its earnings in dividends or makes significant stock repurchases
• I would rather be certain of a good result than hopeful of a great one
• You must resist the temptation to stray from your guidelines
• Fools give you reasons, wise men never try
• After 25 years of investing, we have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them
• Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful
• You should wish your earnings to be reinvested if they can be expected to earn high returns, and you should wish them paid to you if low returns are the likely outcome if reinvestment