Actually, only certain of Buffett investments rely on him picking the phone and talking to the board. He may know the people who run KO or JNJ, but I doubt there is a lot of advantage there, you can buy these companies as well and actually at prices (for JNJ) lower than what Buffett paid. And his influence on the boards is not as big as I would want: he never got any CEO to lower his salary/bonuses in any companies he almost controlled.
Label speculator/business investor matters only in so much that if you own a business, you really don't care what it's trading at. You care what is its long term prospects and future earnings/dividends. It is like a house - you don't sell the house you have as an owner just because it is overpriced. And you definitely don't sell it if it is underpriced, but may fall lower. And if you are a part owner of a business/house, you may buy more if its cheap and may sell a bit if its expensive, but you won't sell when it's cheap... ;)
Being speculator is not necessarily negative. However, if you are a speculator, you may need all the TA, macro, investor psychology and whatever other stuff that is not really needed by business investor. And even then it's not clear - at least for me - whether that many speculators succeed. :)
I am also 100% in the market, so I do understand that you have to make choices of holding vs. switching into more attractive investments. Nothing wrong with that. Personally, I do not sell the "core" holdings though, even if I doubt they will return more than some of the new buys. |
