well, skeeter, i read the whole buffet article, and i thank you for offering it. i took the same course he did at the columbia graduate school taught by benjamin graham - a year ahead of buffet, so i should be richer. mr. graham had us go down to the library stacks and compare the djia with long rates over 50 years to see how rates drive stock prices. but, now, how come when japanese rates dropped from 3.5 to 1, japanese stock prices continued to fall? maybe the relationship is not that predictable.
buffet says stocks can't earn 13% as a group unless some combination of gdp + dividends = 13%. but gdp has never grown like that, and stocks have grown by 13% annually the last 10 or more years.
10 years ago bill gates met buffet and invited him to buy a large stake in microsoft, buffet told us. wryly, he admitted, "I always look for a company that has a franchise," [a monopoly, a lock, control of the market; like Coke or Gillette, say]"and i told bill i didn't think he had a franchise."
earlier this year buffet told us stockholders, words to this effect: i would have done you all a favor this year if i'd just gone down to the corner drugstore and had a soda.
he compares transforming industries like autos and airlines to the internet, saying no one's made much in them - 0 in airlines - and of dozens who started in each only 3 are left in autos and few more in airlines. that would be apt if he compared them to internet cos like amazon or aol. but those car companies could never own the roads, and those airlines could never own the sky. picking well, we have a shot at doing that today. |
