Paul,
What got my goat was at the last shareholder meeting, Mr. Buffet meticulously informed everyone that he believed that his insurance holdings would do VERY poorly over the next year or two. And then he proclaimed that "as a long term investor, we must be patient". He was quite correct in that his holdings went on to perform badly and his shareholders suffered great losses.
Later that day, someone asked him what he thought about technology stocks. He replied that, since he couldn't predict the winners, he didn't spent any time following technology. Which made a lot of sense to me since anyone who doesn't invest the time to learn about something new, probably won't end up knowing very much.
IMHO, anyone who claims to be good at identifying and holding losers but has no time or inclination to identify winners in the marketplace, has ... er .. lost his edge.
Without a doubt, Warren Buffet was once an asounding stockpicker. But there comes a time in everyone's life when their senses are not longer so sharp and the wisdom of age is unable to compensate for the failures of the body. Regretfully, with respect to Mr. Buffet, the fact the his "time" has come is painfully obvious.
I personally like the man and no personal crticism of Warren Buffet is intended. Rather, a recognition that eventually we will all age and our faculties will diminish. Whether we accept this fact and deal with it gracefully or persist in the belief that we are somehow invulnerable, will determine just how many people we will harm before we finally smell the daisies six feet above our heads.
Craig |
