link to 2009 PDF annual shareholder letter here.
Buffett CNBC interview
(part 1 here, following the link from part 1 to get to part 2 to 8 )
Recommend reading by Buffett
Keynes’s *General Theory*, chapter 12
Intelligent Investor Chapter 8 and 20
My Notes
p. 4
Our market gain is better because in 1965 Berkshire shares sold at an appropriate discount to the book value of its underearning textile assets, whereas today Berkshire shares regularly sell at a premium to the accounting values of its first-class businesses.
In other words, our defense has been better than our offense, and that’s likely to continue.
Charlie and I avoid businesses whose futures we can’t evaluate, no matter how exciting their products may be. In the past, it required no brilliance for people to foresee the fabulous growth that awaited such industries as autos (in 1910), aircraft (in 1930) and television sets (in 1950). But the future then also included competitive dynamics that would decimate almost all of the
companies entering those industries. Even the survivors tended to come away bleeding.
p. 5
GEICO, which is known to all of you because of its $800 million annual advertising budget (close to twice that of the runner-up advertiser in the auto insurance field).
p. 15
We’ve put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years. It’s been an ideal period for investors: A climate of fear is their best friend. Those who invest only when commentators are upbeat end up paying a heavy price for meaningless reassurance. In the end, what counts in investing is what you pay for a business – through the purchase of a small piece of it in the stock market – and what that business earns in the succeeding decade or two.