The Real Warren Buffett - 巴菲特每周新闻专贴

lewie

呵呵，本人对巴老的崇敬之心，不会比论坛上任何一位低。如果翻看以前的帖子，就略知一二了。只是想通过此事带出一个观点：不要因为某人身上的一些闪光点（即使这些闪光点很多很亮），就无条件地全盘接受他的一切观点，需要有自己的独立思考和判断。向人家学习，并不等于要顶礼膜拜式的盲从。实事求是地分析人家讲的每一个观点，合乎逻辑的就接纳，鲁迅先生所讲的“扬弃”是也！

lewie

atcoolman兄，你说的是有道理的。经济肯定会复苏，这个毫无疑义，但加上了时间定语，似乎就有问题了。我的疑问是指这个。经济可能很快就复元，也可能很久，没有谁有预测能力，谁又能预测到日本的熊市走了19年还在创新低呢？既然是能力以外的事，我想，不知道就说不知道、不懂就说不懂好了，这是我自己的态度。Moreover，说话前要考虑自己的影响力造成的社会影响，因为你的出发点和立意可能是很好的，但却可能造成反效果。举个简单的例子，巴老8900点要大家可以买了，当时的买入，到现在是暂时套牢了，几时解套不是这里讨论的，但它最快速直接的后果就是又一批社会购买力被搁置了，一群人的消费力又再被削弱了，这对经济的恢复起的是负面作用。 ［此帖子已被 lewie 在 2009-3-11 12:30:05 编辑过］

atcoolman

和瑞士再保的投资：

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Thursday, 5 Feb 2009
Warren Buffett "Delighted" With New Swiss Re Investment Paying 12 Percent
Posted By: Alex Crippen

Warren Buffett says he is "delighted" to have an opportunity to increase Berkshire Hathaway's investment in Swiss Re by 3 billion Swiss francs, or about $2.6 billion.

Berkshire's cash infusion is seen as a vote of confidence in the troubled reinsurer, which is bolstering its capital position in an effort to save its credit rating.

As usual, however, Buffett will be well paid for his support. Berkshire is buying bonds that pay 12 percent a year. After three years, they're convertible into Swiss Re common at 25 francs a share.

Buffett got a 10 percent return on his investments late last year in General Electric and Goldman Sachs, and 15 percent from Harley-Davidson a few days ago.

A news release from Swiss Re quotes Buffett as saying, "I am very impressed by (Swiss Re) CEO Jacques Aigrain and his management team."

Aigrain says, "Warren Buffett's agreement to invest in Swiss Re is a testament to the strength of our franchise."

Investors aren't so sure. In early New York trading today, Thursday, ADRs of Swiss Re are down over 26 percent to $19.05.

Current price: [SWCEY 16.45 --- UNCH (0) ]

Along with the Berkshire investment, Swiss Re announced today that it expects to report a loss of 1 billion francs in 2008. It's been hammered by massive red ink in its financial markets operations, which have since been terminated. Berkshire bought a three percent stake in Swiss Re a year ago, getting 20 percent of its property/casualty business for five years.

Current Berkshire stock prices:

Class A: [US;BRK.A 89900.0 550.00 (+0.62%) ]

Class B: [US;BRK.B 2915.0 5.00 (+0.17%) ]

aa33

巴菲特的战争宣言：“一切都会好起来的”

继美国总统奥巴马罕见呼吁民众炒股之后，奥巴马的竞选支持者、有股神之称的沃伦?巴菲特也极为少有地跳出来为美国股市“打气”。

　　3月9日上午，78岁的巴菲特在家乡内布拉斯加州奥马哈，接受了美国主流媒体CNBC电视台Squawk Box栏目长达3个多小时的采访，纵论美国经济、指点股票市场。

　　“爱国者都将意识到这是一场战争。”巴菲特呼吁美国民主、共和两党放下党争，惟奥巴马马首是瞻，“在如何解决危机的问题上，……所有议员都应该停止党派争吵……美国需要一位总司令。”

　　巴菲特强调，美国经济已经坠落悬崖，接近于最糟糕的境地，这种境地使得美国人比他之前见过的任何时候都恐惧、混乱，并正在改变购买习惯，这也是为什么售卖廉价商品的沃尔玛表现不错的原因。

　　巴菲特相信，美国领导人必须清除上述恐惧，使每个人都变得更有信心，这是经济复苏的首要前提。

　　“一切都会好起来的。”巴菲特说，美国拥有有史以来最伟大的经济机制，这保证了美国的下一代会比现在过得更好。

　　悲观主义者巴菲特不忘提醒投资者，美国经济可能还需要5年时间才能完全走出目前的衰退。

巴菲特说，自己对去年10月17日在《纽约时报》撰文呼吁“抄底”并不后悔，但回头看看，内心还是希望那篇文章能晚几个月发表。

　　自这位“股神”发表“抄底宣言”后，道琼斯工业指数已从那时的8800多点跌至如今的6500多点。

　　市场一朝被蛇咬的痛楚显然还没有完全消退。巴菲特的“战争宣言”话音刚落，标准普尔500指数应声下跌1%，至676.53点，创下自1996年9月以来的最低水平。欧洲股市周一收盘也触及12年新低。

　　巴菲特辩称，他仍对美国股市抱有信心，从长期看，证券投资的收益将远超美国政府国债等所谓“安全投资”。不过巴菲特无法断定美国股市现阶段是否已经见底。

　　9日，相信“一切都会好起来的”的并不独巴菲特一人。欧洲央行行长特里谢当天也告诉投资者和观察家们，别太悲观，经济复苏并不遥远。

　　复苏与否，尚难断言。但全球经济的一些扩张性迹象，确实正在显现??9日，默克宣布以411亿美元收购先灵葆雅。
亚太股市周二普遍上扬，金融股表现抢眼。中国香港股市升3.08%，中国台北股市收盘上涨0.92%，韩国股市涨1.9%，澳大利亚股市收高1%。

　　惟一的例外是日本，日经指数周二收低0.4%，报7054.98点，创出26年以来收盘新低。日本内阁府10日公布的景气动向指数速报显示，今年1月份显示日本经济景气现状的一致指数连续第6个月下降，至6年多来的最低水平。

　　至昨晚10点截稿时，欧洲股市周二开盘，英国富时100指数无视英国1月份制造业产值创下历史降幅的现实，上涨了1.33%；法国CAC-40指数上涨了1.85%；德国DAX上涨了1.36%。

　　一切，真的开始好起来了？

atcoolman

Wednesday, 4 Mar 2009
Berkshire Hathaway Credit Default Swaps Rise to "Junk" Territory - Bloomberg
Posted By: Alex Crippen

The price of Berkshire Hathaway credit-default swaps hit a record high today (Wednesday), going as high as 535 basis points, before retreating to 515 basis points in the late afternoon.

Bloomberg reports the swaps, which are in effect insurance against a default by Warren Buffett's holding company, are trading at levels "more typical of junk-rated companies" even though Berkshire retains its triple-A rating.

The news service says the swap prices may be rising due to worries Berkshire will lose big on derivatives contracts tied to the long-term moves of global equity indexes, high-yield corporate bonds and municipal debt.

Bloomberg quotes Buffett author Jeff Matthews as saying, "There are two extremes on Berkshire, and one is that he’s going to make a lot of money on these things, just like he’s promised." The other extreme: "He could in fact suffer huge losses and it could really trigger some problems."

As part of a lengthy section on derivatives in this year's annual letter to shareholders, Buffett wrote that his expectation, "though it is far from a sure thing, is that we will do better than break even" on the contracts.

Buffett has said Berkshire will not have to pay out any money on the contracts until well into the future, even if they lose value on paper in the meantime.

Current Berkshire stock prices:

Class A: [US;BRK.A 73195.0 795.00 (+1.1%) ]

Class B: [US;BRK.B 2327.0 27.00 (+1.17%) ]

atcoolman

Published Sunday March 8, 2009
Warren Watch: This is a real power meeting
BY STEVE JORDON
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Is Berkshire going nuclear?

Omaha Public Power District's nuclear power plant in Fort Calhoun, Neb., was one of three facilities a Berkshire Hathaway group toured. The other two were MidAmerican Energy's new coal-fired plant in Council Bluffs and its wind power farm in northwestern Iowa.Not any time soon, despite a tour by Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and other top officials recently at Omaha Public Power District's Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant.

Omaha Public Power District's nuclear power plant in Fort Calhoun, Neb., was one of three facilities a Berkshire Hathaway group toured. The other two were MidAmerican Energy's new coal-fired plant in Council Bluffs and its wind power farm in northwestern Iowa.

The visit, confirmed by OPPD, took most of a day and included a broad discussion of the future of energy, also encompassing wind and coal power sources.

Besides Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Buffett and Berkshire director Gates, the group included Walter Scott Jr., David Sokol, Greg Abel and Bill Fehrman.

Sokol and Abel are chairman and CEO, respectively, of Berkshire's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. Fehrman is president of MidAmerican's nuclear energy unit. Scott is a Berkshire director, part-owner of MidAmerican and a longtime Buffett associate.

Also taking part were Marvin S. Fertel, newly elected president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C.; Steve Specker, president and CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute of Palo Alto, Calif.; and OPPD CEO Gary Gates and chief nuclear officer David Bannister.

Besides the conveniently located Fort Calhoun plant, the group also toured a MidAmerican wind power farm in northwestern Iowa and the company's new coal-fired plant in Council Bluffs, which bears Scott's name.

OPPD said in December that if it builds a nuclear power plant someday, it may need a partner to share the cost and use some of the electricity. MidAmerican is, among other things, Iowa's largest electricity provider. It might be in the market for more power in the decade or more it would take to build a nuclear plant.

Buffett said in his recent annual letter to Berkshire shareholders that he is enthusiastic about MidAmerican's prospects under Sokol and Abel.

"I love it when they come up with new projects because in this capital-intensive business these ventures are often large," Buffett wrote. "Such projects offer Berkshire the opportunity to put out substantial sums at decent returns."

Sokol said any nuclear power plant would be a long way off.

In January 2008 MidAmerican dropped plans to build a nuclear plant in Idaho because it didn't make economic sense. MidAmerican has never built a nuclear power plant but owns part of an Illinois nuclear facility.

"We think very highly of Gary Gates and the OPPD team, but we've never had any discussion about co-investing in a nuclear plant," Sokol said. "We're obviously trying to stay at the forefront of where technology's going throughout the energy industry."

He said he was disappointed with a recent decision ruling out Nevada's Yucca Mountain for storing nuclear waste, which he said would set back the nuclear industry. Pending rules on carbon emissions also are a factor, he said.

"Nuclear needs to play a role in the future energy mix," Sokol said. "We're trying to get a handle on what needs to occur to meet future energy needs in the United States on a long-term basis."

Earlier, OPPD executives met with Baltimore-based UniStar Nuclear Energy, a joint venture of Constellation Energy and its largest shareholder, Électricité de France, which has extensive nuclear facilities in Europe.

MidAmerican, coincidentally, made a $1 billion profit last year when it provided cash at a time when Constellation was within hours of bankruptcy, according to Buffett's letter to shareholders.

Much of Berkshire's profit came when Constellation canceled its agreement to be purchased by Berkshire in favor of a takeover by Électricité de France.

Another book

Investment adviser Janet Tavakoli parlayed a four-hour lunch meeting with Buffett into a book, titled, "Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street."

The jacket cover shows a pair of map pins sticking in dots labeled "Omaha" and "Wall Street."

Inside, Tavakoli describes how she sent a copy of her book on derivatives to Buffett, tucking a letter between its pages. When he read the book, he mailed her a reply, inviting her to lunch if she ever came to Omaha.

In August 2005 she took him up on his offer, had a lengthy discussion at his office and then rode with him to lunch and back. She returned to Chicago that afternoon.

Tavakoli wrote that the two have exchanged e-mails since then.

Every chapter of the 282-page book ($24.95, John Wiley & Sons Inc.) starts with observations about Buffett, usually describing how Tavakoli agrees with him.

"In the spring of 2008, both Warren and I said the United States was already in a recession," or "In 2007, both Warren and I thought many hedge funds were over-leveraged."

The visit to Omaha and conversation with Buffett changed her perspective on investing, she wrote.

Tavakoli is president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, a consulting firm to financial institutions, institutional investors and hedge funds. She has taught about derivatives at the University of Chicago.

ICE

巴菲特称美国经济“跌下了悬崖”

新华社华盛顿3月9日电美国亿万富翁沃伦?巴菲特9日称,美国经济在过去6个月里“跌下了悬崖”,但他同时表示仍对美国长期经济前景感到乐观。

　　巴菲特当天接受美国ＣＮＢＣ电视台采访时说,随着经济衰退,人们的消费习惯已经发生了显著改变。他说,最近几个月来,担心和困惑支配了消费者和投资者的行为。美国领导人需要清除这种困惑,才能使每个人都变得更有信心。

lewie

好象还漏了一些："People's behaviour have changed and I never saw it before."（看新闻时听的，不一定完全准确）。疑问是：既然你never saw it before, 又凭什么predict "the economy will be running fine five years from now"呢？这个逻辑似乎有些矛盾。

atcoolman

Is Buffett Insane?

By Richard Gibbons
November 28, 2008

In the midst of economic chaos, Warren Buffett recently made a bold prediction. He said that now is the time to buy American stocks.

Of course, this call seems utterly insane. Banks are failing, the credit markets are deadlocked, unemployment is skyrocketing, and there's likely to be terrible news for months.

On the other hand, this is Warren Buffett, and he's made these sorts of predictions before.

1974: Stagflation

The years 1973 and 1974 were two very bad ones for the market. OPEC had started flexing its muscles, causing oil to quadruple. This resulted in a long recession, with inflation spiking to 12.3% in 1974, while real GDP growth fell by 0.5%. America experienced stagflation -- the ugly combination of a recession and high inflation rates -- and people were terrified. The situation was even worse in the United Kingdom, where the government was bailing out banks after real estate crashed. Over those two years, the S&P 500 plunged by 42%.

It was then, on Nov. 1, 1974, at the height of the pessimism, that Buffett made his first well-publicized bullish market call. He noted that he was well aware that the world was in a mess, but that stocks were simply too cheap. "If you're only worried about corporate profits, panic or depression, these things don't bother me at these prices."

To be totally clear, Buffett made one of the most direct predictions of his entire career: "Now is the time to invest and get rich." Buffett himself was buying shares of The Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) and advertising agency Interpublic (NYSE: IPG).

It worked out pretty well for him. The market jumped 32% in 1975, and another 19% the next year. Even today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average's 38% gain in 1975 stands up as its biggest increase since 1955.

1979: An oil crisis

That excellent performance was followed by two poor years. Once again, we were experiencing double-digit inflation and falling GDP growth. Again, we were going through an oil crisis, this one coming in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. As a result, when Buffett made his next call on Aug. 6, 1979, the Dow Jones Average was actually trading lower than at it was at the end of 1975.

This time, Buffett noted that stocks were far more attractive than bonds. He believed that pension managers, who were piling into bonds yielding 9.5%, were investing using the rearview mirror. They were avoiding the equities that had recently lost them money. But Buffett recognized that the underlying businesses were actually performing well. A combination of falling stock prices and improving business fundamentals made stocks an attractive investment.

Buffett figured that stocks were probably offering long-term returns of 13% or better. He bought oil producer Hess (NYSE: HES), GEICO, and General Foods, which later became part of Kraft (NYSE: KFT).

This time, Buffett's timing wasn't perfect -- the S&P 500 fell a bit more over the next few months. But his long-term prediction was spot-on. During the 1980s, the S&P 500 rose 13% annually before dividends.

1999: The Internet bubble

In November 1999, during the height of the Internet bubble, Buffett made his only bearish call. At the time, the market was in a speculative fervor, with Internet stocks showing huge price increases seemingly every day. In the five years between 1995 and 1999, the S&P 500 tripled, with compound annual returns of 26%. Many considered Buffett a relic for refusing to buy into the technology boom.

Buffett, however, noted that, because of a combination of cheap initial valuations and falling interest rates, stocks had achieved unprecedented annual returns of 19% over a 17-year period. These results made investors unreasonably optimistic. New investors were expecting 10-year annual returns of 22.6%, while even experienced investors predicted 12.9%. But the huge boom was only supported by modest GDP growth, and therefore wasn't sustainable. So, Buffett expected about 4% real returns.

He continued to hold Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), and M&T Bank (NYSE: MT), though he noted in the 2004 annual report that he should have sold some of Berkshire Hathaway's overvalued holdings.

Buffett's bearish prediction proved optimistic. The market continued to rise for a few months, with the S&P 500 topping out 9% above where it was when Buffett made the call. But that was followed by a crash. Since his call, the S&P 500 has dropped by 39%, for average annual losses of about 5%, well below Buffett's estimates.

The Foolish bottom line

The common theme of all these predictions is that Buffett didn't care about short-term fears. He wasn't worried about stagflation in the 1970s, and he didn't buy into the unrealistic optimism of the late 1990s. Instead, he rationally valued stocks, and made the right long-term calls. His biggest mistake was the 4% number he threw out in 1999 -- long-term returns have been much worse than his bearish prediction.

But that prediction was too optimistic partly because stocks are so unreasonably cheap right now. And that's why Buffett's buying today.

If you're a short-term speculator, now is a bad time to gamble. But if you're truly in it for the long term, Warren Buffett has made the call. He thinks stocks are cheap. And we agree with him. Our Motley Fool Inside Value team is astounded at the bargains that we're finding right now. You can read about them by taking a 30-day free test-drive.

Fool contributor Richard Gibbons is terrified, but still thinks this is the time to invest and get rich. Kraft is an Income Investor recommendation. Coca-Cola and Berkshire Hathaway are Inside Value picks. Berkshire Hathaway is also a Stock Advisor selection and Motley Fool holding. The Fool's disclosure policy predicted a McCain victory.

［此帖子已被 atcoolman 在 2008-11-29 13:54:05 编辑过］

xialuoke0089

好资料，边看边学！