There's no Buffett's strategy. Market buys whatever Buffett's company bought. That's how he got unusual gains.
Moment of fame stretched over 60 year of clipping coupons off of that initial fame.
The thing that made it possible was that he was content with his performance and never tried to one up himself. He kept his fame and market interest in him simmering over six decades inatead burning out in one bright flash.
I know one anecdote is not data, but his investment in BYD all the way back in 2008 does counter that viewpoint somewhat - his investment success in the BYD case isn’t from other investors following him in, it’s from him identifying BYD as a successful company far before any other major investors did.
> That sure does trivialize him. If that was your goal, you nailed it.
Pretty much. I'm always interested what's left once I reject te ususal narratives that people keep repeating to each other. I find this kind of excercise insightful and satisfying.
While in every working thing there's myriad of significant details, the main engine of operation is usually just one usually quite straightforward thing. I like making attempts at recognizing those main things. I'm sometimes wrong but even when I am I find satisfaction that I tried instead just repeating some selection of what other people said.
Yes its the typical attitude than gives HN users a bad name. And this particular comment doesn't seem to have done beyond surface level research either on his investment works. Maybe not even surface level. Too much confidence too little works just empty words.
I've begun to call it (in my own head) "pessimissivism", a fatal combination of being pessimistic and dismissive. It can't be unique to HN, but I find it particularly jarring that it has taken root here, given the optimistic and open-minded origins of this forum.
We are talking about about billionaires gambling with company issued casino chips while messing up the actual brick and mortar economy. Being open-minded and optimistic about this activity brought us such wonderful events as 2008.
Value investing a la Buffett and Munger is certainly not how we got 2008. Quite the opposite. In fact they were some of the most prominent individuals before 2008 outspoken about the risks of the derivatives that led to 2008, calling them "financial weapons of mass destruction".
There is and it’s found in float, leverage and low-volatility assets [1].
If you look at what he does, that becomes clear. If you only pay attention to how people talk about him on the internet, you’ll be misled into seeing trend following.
You can invent any strategy and you will be consistently successful if you get the flock to follow you. And if you don't, your strategy will crash and burn eventually, whatever it might be. The prolonged success of Buffet's strategy doesn't lie in the strategy. It lies solely in his fame and market followers.
He has plausible narratives for his success and that was enough to manufacture fame out of his initial random success. And the fame carried him for decades.
Moment of fame stretched over 60 year of clipping coupons off of that initial fame.
The thing that made it possible was that he was content with his performance and never tried to one up himself. He kept his fame and market interest in him simmering over six decades inatead burning out in one bright flash.