Les lettres aux actionnaires de Warren Buffett – passages choisis (partie 2 / 4)

J'ai relu dernièrement toutes les "Shareholder Letters" rédigées par le plus grand investisseur de tous les temps depuis 1977. Elles sont disponibles gratuitement sur:

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

Difficile de trouver quelqu'un qui allie à la fois des connaissances économiques aussi poussées, un bon sens à toute épreuve et un sens de l'humour aussi fin, même quand il s'agit de rire de lui-même.

J'ai sélectionné mes passages préférés afin de vous faire profiter de ces pensées intemporelles.

L'année se réfère toujours à celle de l'assemblée générale (par exemple, 2000 correspond à la lettre aux actionnaire de 2000 pour l'exercice comptable 1999).

1993:
It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.

After we buy a stock, consequently, we would not be disturbed if markets closed for a year or two.

1996:
Our portfolio shows little change: We continue to make more money when snoring than when active. Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior.

In studying the investments we have made in both subsidiary companies and common stocks, you will see that we favor businesses and industries unlikely to experience major change. The reason for that is simple: Making either type of purchase, we are searching for operations that we believe are virtually certain to possess enormous competitive strength ten or twenty years from now. A fast-changing industry environment may offer the chance for huge wins, but it precludes the certainty we seek.

I should emphasize that, as citizens, Charlie and I welcome change: Fresh ideas, new products, innovative processes and the like cause our country's standard of living to rise, and that's clearly good. As investors, however, our reaction to a fermenting industry is much like our attitude toward space exploration: We applaud the endeavor but prefer to skip the ride.

Intelligent investing is not complex, though that is far from saying that it is easy. What an investor needs is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that word "selected": You don't have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.

To invest successfully, you need not understand beta, efficient markets, modern portfolio theory, option pricing or emerging markets. You may, in fact, be better off knowing nothing of these. That, of course, is not the prevailing view at most business schools, whose finance curriculum tends to be dominated by such subjects. In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses - How to Value a Business, and How to Think About Market Prices.

Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now. Over time, you will find only a few companies that meet these standards - so when you see one that qualifies, you should buy a meaningful amount of stock. You must also resist the temptation to stray from your guidelines: If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio's market value.

1999:
If we have a strength, it is in recognizing when we are operating well within our circle of competence and when we are approaching the perimeter. Predicting the long-term economics of companies that operate in fast-changing industries is simply far beyond our perimeter. If others claim predictive skill in those industries — and seem to have their claims validated by the behavior of the stock market — we neither envy nor emulate them. Instead, we just stick with what we understand.