巴菲特眼中的市场先生

Views on the market and where it's going?

您对市场的看法以及您觉得市场将何去何从？

I have no idea were the market is going to go. I prefer it going down. But my preferences have nothing to do with it. The market knows nothing about my feelings. That is one of the first things you have to learn about a stock.

我也不知道市场的走向是什么，我更倾向于认为它在走下坡路。但我的个人喜好与之无关。反过来市场也了解不了我是怎么想的。这其实也是你踏足股市的时候所要学到的第一课。

You buy 100 shares of General Motors (GM). Now all of a sudden you have this feeling about GM. It goes down, you may be mad at it. You may say, "Well, if it just goes up for what I paid for it, my life will be wonderful again." Or if it goes up, you may say how smart you were and how you and GM have this love affair. You have got all these feelings. The stock doesn't know you own it.

你买了通用汽车100股，之后突然有一天你开始看衰通用汽车，股价开始下跌。可能你那个时候会很抓狂，你可能会说“好吧，如果这支股票按照我的购买预期所上涨的话，我的生活早就能阳光灿烂。”若股价上涨，你会因你的购入行为而自诩聪明。只不过你所有的这些感觉这支股票本身并不知道。

The stock just sits there; it doesn't care what you paid or the fact that you own it. Any feeling I have about the market is not reciprocated. I mean it is the ultimate cold shoulder we are talking about here. Practically anybody in this room is probably more likely to be a net buyer of stocks over the next ten years than they are a net seller, so everyone of you should prefer lower prices.

不管你买股票的理由是什么，不管你为之投入了多少资金，股票本身只想静静，并不在意这些。任何我对股票所持有的看法都不能在感性层面上由股票本身来反馈。所以这是个在情感上极其冷淡的话题。实际上任何在场的人士在未来十年内相对于做股票的净卖家还是更乐意做净购买者。所以你们肯定喜欢更低的买入价。

If you are a net eater of hamburger over the next ten years, you want hamburger to go down unless you are a cattle producer. If you are going to be a buyer of Coca-Cola and you don't own Coke stock, you hope the price of Coke goes down. You are looking for it to be on sale this weekend at your Supermarket. You want it to be down on the weekends not up on the weekends when you tend the Supermarket.

举例来说如果你只是一个汉堡包的消费者你肯定乐于看到汉堡价钱越低越好，除非你是养肉牛的。如果你是买可乐的，手头也没持有可口可乐的股票你肯定希望可乐降价。像是在你家附近的超市有个神马周末促销之类的。

The NYSE is one big supermarket of companies. And you are going to be buying stocks, what you want to have happen?You want to have those stocks go down, way down; you will make better buys then. Later on twenty or thirty years from now when you are in a period when you are dis-saving, or when your heirs dis-save for you, then you may care about higher prices.

纽约证交所就像一个在货架上有各种公司的大超市。当你去买股票的的时候你希望发生什么？你希望股价低低的，你就能多买点。二三十年之后当你不慎开始入不敷出，或你的法定继承人们开始啃老，你就该开始关注这个股价有木有涨起来。

There is Chapter 8 in Graham's Intelligent Investor about the attitude toward stock market fluctuations, that and Chapter 20 on the Margin of Safety are the two most important essays ever written on investing as far as I am concerned.

在Graham所著的《聪明的投资者》的第8章里提到了对于股票市场波动的态度和《安全边际》的第20章里的内容在我看来是关于投资的最有参考价值的两篇论述。

Because when I read Chapter 8 when I was 19, I figured out what I just said but it is obvious, but I didn't figure it out myself. It was explained to me.I probably would have gone another 100 years and still thought it was good when my stocks were going up. We want things to go down, but I have no idea what the stock market is going to do. I never do and I never will. It is not something I think about at all.

When it goes down, I look harder at what I might buy that day because I know there is more likely to be some merchandise there to use my money effectively in.

当股价下挫，我会更加关注我想买入的股票，因为它可能会更贴近实际的投资价值，从而使得我的投资更高效。

Regardless of the market, I will keep buying businesses. We like low prices.

　　忽略市场本身，我们将继续买入业务，因为我们喜欢低廉的价位。

　　We’re not good at forecasting markets. Charlie and I spend no time thinking about where the market’s going. We do know when we’re getting good value [when we’re buying a stock or business].

　　我们并不擅长预测市场，Charlie和我并没有在思考市场走向上花时间，我们只知道什么时候买入能使收入最大化。

　　There are always going to be some good and bad things happening.

　　好事和坏事总是并存的。

　　I’ve seen more people lose more money by getting focused too much on one factor. We’ve never not bought something due to macroeconomic concerns.

　　我见过一些人因为过度关注于某一个因素导致浪费了很多金钱，所以我们从不买入那些过度受宏观经济因素支配的业务。

　　Very infrequently you can say something intelligent about the market as a whole – when circumstances are so extreme that you predict the next 5-10 years with some degree of certainty. This was the case in 1969 and 1974. But most of the time, we’re in some in-between zone.

　　从整体角度对市场所做出的判断很少有明智的，除了少数极端情况你能根据确定度来预测一下未来5-10年的情况，例如1969和1974年，不过大多数时候我们还是处在一个暧昧的中间地带。

　　Obviously you can get more for your money now than in 1999 when I wrote that Fortune article (“Mr. Buffett on the Stock Market”). I knew I’d be right.

　　看了我在1999年写在《财富》杂志上的文章（“Buffett先生在股市”）很明显你现在赚的钱比那时候更多，我就知道我说的是对的

　　If I had to make a choice today between long-term bonds yielding 4.5% vs. equities over the next 20 years, I’d prefer equities. But people who expect 6-7% after-tax or double digits [pre-tax] and think they can do it or hire someone else to do it will likely be disappointed.

　　如果现在让我在一个4.5%收益率的长期债券和一个20年期的股票之间做选择的话我选择股票，但是那些期待税后收益率6-7%或税前百分之十几收益率还认为他们能直接放开手脚雇佣别人干这些就行的人很可能会失望。

　　I don’t think we’re in bubble times or bargain times.

　　我不认为我们处在泡沫时期或者讨价还价时期

　　I think you’ll get a chance to do something screamingly intelligent within a few years, maybe much sooner, relative to current choices.

　　我认为你们有机会在几年内搞一些大事情，或早或晚，这取决于你们现在的选择。

　　Mr. Market is valuing Dow Jones at about 7000, and the S&P at about than 800. What is a fair valuation? (1997)

　　Market估计的道琼斯指数是大约7000，标普指数是800左右，您觉得相对客观的数值是多少？

　　If you believe that American businesses in aggregate can earn the kind of returns they have been earning in the past couple of years, and you postulate no change in interest rates, you can justify 7000 on the Dow and 800 on the S&P. Now, if interest rates go higher, the valuation goes down automatically. And, more importantly, if the returns on equity of American industry, which are at historic highs, and which classical economics tells you would be hard to maintain--if those returns go down, that also would pull it down.

　　如果你相信美国全体本土业务能获得像前几年一样的利润，假设利率不变，那么标普指数和道琼斯指数就和market所估计的差不多。但现在如果利率升高则这两个指数就会下跌，此外更重要的是，如果美国本土工业的资产收益率位于历史高位，且古典经济学会告诉你这很难维持，一旦回报率下跌，那这两个指数也会下跌。

　　I'll give you a little quiz: What two years has the Dow had the greatest overall gain? The two years in the 1900s are 1933, which most of you don't think of as a banner year, and 1954, and in both of those years the Dow was up over 50%, counting dividends.

　　In March of 1955, because of the fact that the Dow had gone up, they decided to have Congressional hearings about it (laughter), and my boss Ben Graham was called down to testify, and Ben's opening comments about the market at that time were, "The market looks high, it is high, but it's not as high as it looks." Which brings about the current situation--the market certainly looks high, but there have been huge changes in earnings and return on equity and you've had this big move in interest rates. Now those are underlying fundamentals that have powered a huge bull market. After a while, people get captivated simply by the notion of rising prices without going back to the underlying rationale and that's when you get very dangerous conditions in terms of possible developments. I have no idea where the markets will go, but you have the kind of conditions that could cause real excesses, just like you had excesses in 1973-74 in the other direction, when you could buy businesses for 20 cents on the dollar. People behave in extreme ways in markets and over time that's very good for people who keep their heads.

　　一个小测验：哪两年道琼斯指数的整体值最高？一个是上世纪三十年代的1933年，并不是大多数人心目中的辉煌年份。另外一个就是1954年，这两个年份的道琼斯指数都上涨了50%。

　　1955年3月计算股息的时候，因为道琼斯指数上涨过猛，国会决定举办听证会。我当时的老板Ben Graham被传唤与会作证，当时他开场白是这么说的，市场看起来不错，也确实不错，但并不是像看起来的那么不错。这句话一语道破天机，也就是说，当前的市场看起来不错但是里面的利润和股本回报率已经发生了巨大变化，与此同时利率也有很大调整，这些东西是驱动当下这个大牛市的基本面因素。没过多久人们就被这个不受基本原理约束的价格上涨概念所迷住了，此时人们为了发展把自己置于一个很危险的境地。我不知道市场将何去何从，但是你们现在的情况非常容易引发资金过剩，跟1973-74年的情况类似。如果你能以0.2美元的价格买入一个业务，人们在市场中会表现得非常极端，不过这对于想保住脑袋的人倒是很有好处。

　　标普指数有22%的股本回报率，相比过去十年美国本土公司的12-13%，这样出众的盈利能力我们是如何达到的，这样的态势是可持续的吗？

　　22% returns are sustainable in a world where the long-term interest rates are 7% and where the capability of saving large amounts in the economy are quite dramatic. You could just think that there would be some sort of leveling effect between 7 and 22, that as savings got directed within the economy, and as the competitive forces operate that we've been taught will operate over time, will come into play, but I've been wrong on that subject.

　　Let's say you have a 22% perpetual bond, and let's say a third of that coupon would be paid out. So, a bond with a 22% coupon, and say 7% is paid out, being the dividend payout on the S&P we'll say, and the other 15% is reinvested in more 22% bonds with similar characteristics. Now what's that instrument worth on a present value basis? A lot of money. In fact, it's worth so much that it becomes a mathematical fallacy at some point, because when the compound rate becomes higher than the discount rate you get infinity, and that's a concept we like to think about around Berkshire though we may not attain it.

　　There's a book called The Petersburg Paradox and the Growth Stock Fallacy by David Durant, written about 25 years ago, and it gets into this bit where the growth rate is higher than the discount rate, and it shouldn't work for an extended period of time. Charlie?

　　持续的22%的回报率建立在7%的利率的基础以及经济基础所积累的大量资本的基础之上，想象一下大约在7和22之间的均化指数，均化指数的值由经济储量值决定，来作为经济竞争力的表现，但是在这个指标上我犯了错误。

　　假设你有一个22%的永久债券，这其中三分之一的息票会支出。债券票面利率为22%，7%支出，类似于以标普指数来做指标的股息支出。剩下的15%作重新投资到此债券中。此时以什么来作为衡量当前价值的工具？答案是大量的金钱。事实上，如果以这么多的钱来做价值尺度的话从某种程度上来说就是一种谬论。因为当复利率大于折扣率的时候你的收益会无限增长。这就是为什么我们见贤思齐向Berkshire公司的表现靠拢即使我们知道可能达不到这样的高度。

　　二十五年前有两本书，一本叫做《圣彼得堡悖论》，另一本是David Durant写的《增长股票悖论》。书中集中探讨了复利率大于折扣率的问题，这样的情况在未来一段时间内也确实是不会出现。Charlie有补充吗?

　　[CM: I think a couple of things contributed to this phenomenon that we so carefully mispredicted. Number one, it became very fashionable for corporations to buy in shares, and I think that we helped in a very small way to bring on that. I think that was a plus in terms of corporate decision making. The other thing that happened is that the anti-trust administration got way more lenient in allowing people to buy competitors.

　　And I think that those two factors helped raise returns on capital in the United States, but you wouldn't think that could go on forever. What 15% per annum compounded will do is grow way faster than the economy can grow, way faster than aggregate profits can grow over the long haul ... I don't think we've reached a new order of things where the laws of mathematics have been repealed ... All of you should be aware of this, because all the people who are professional sellers of investment advice and brokerage services, etc., etc., have an immense vested interest in believing that things that can't be true, are true. And not only that, they've been selected in a Darwinian process to have formidable sales skills and large incomes. (laughter) That makes it dangerous for the rest of us.]

　　CM:我考虑了一些可能导致此现象的一些因素，一，股份制正变得越来越流行，对此我们所能做的很有限，但我觉得这种制度对公司的内部决策有帮助。二、反垄断法在对于人们买入企业竞争对手的时候得有关规定更加宽松。

　　我觉得这两个因素提升了美国境内的资本回报率。但这种现状不可能一直持续下去，每年15%的复合率增长比经济的增长速度快得多，也快于长远的总利润增长。我不认为我们已经可以打破传统的数学法则来做到上述这些。你们所有人都应该意识到这一点。因为所有的专业卖家都相信这不可能是真的，不仅如此，他们可是被进化论所选召出来的销售人才和赚钱人才（笑）这对于我们剩下的人来说可很危险

　　And you've been selected to be the recipients of their advice. (more laughter)

　　因为你们就是那种接受他们建议的人（笑X2）

　　公司的利润水平会持续稳定吗？

　　Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at a record. I’ve been amazed. After being in a range for decades, it’s jumped up. I’d have to look at a chart, but other than maybe a year after World War II, I think there have only been two or three years in the past 75 where corporate profits have been as high [as they are today]. I would not think it would be sustainable. When they get up to 8% or more of GDP, that’s high, but so far there’s been no reaction like higher taxes.

　　公司利润占GDP的百分比正处在历史最高位，我很高兴，过了十多年它终于上涨了，我看了一下图表，二战之后过去的七十多年里这样的情况可不多，也就有两三年是这样。我不去想它是否能持续，当占GDP比达到8%的时候，就很好了。但是到目前为止我们还没有收到相关反馈。例如税率的上涨。

　　You have lots of businesses earning 20% on tangible equity in a world where corporate bonds are yielding 4-5%. That’s astonishing. If you read a book, it would say it’s not possible. This is high, which means someone else’s share is going down, namely labor’s. Does it become a political issue? Congress has power to change this very quickly. Corporate tax rates used to be 35%, but now many companies are paying only 20%.

　　你们有很多有形股权收益占20%的业务，公司债券收益率是4-5%，这很令人惊讶。如果你读过书，书上会说这根本不可能，太高了，这意味着其他人的分红变少了，也就是劳动人民的收益变少了，这就政治不正确了，国会有这个权力去瞬间扭转这些。企业所得税税率之前是35%，现在很多公司却只缴纳20%

　　Corporate America is living in a great time. History shows this is not sustainable. I would imagine that it will not be.

　　美国公司正处在发展的好时机，历史情况表明这不会一直持续下去，我希望不会。

　　Munger: A lot of profits are not in manufacturing or retailing, but in financial sectors. There’s been a huge flow of profits to banks and investment banks. That has no precedent. I don’t think it’s ever been as extreme as it is now.

　　Munger：制造业和零售业并不能制造大量的利润。但是在金融部门，例如银行和投资银行确有大量的利润流动，这样极端的情况历史上并没有先例。

　　Buffett: We’ve invested in and owned banks. If 20 years ago you’d asked me whether it was possible, in a world of 4.75% bonds, that countless banks would earn 20%+ returns on tangible equity, I’d have said no. In part this is due to leverage. A 1.5% return on assets leveraged 15 times is a 22.5% return on equity. But even so, you’d think once everyone was doing it, return on assets would drop to 1%, but it hasn’t happened yet.

　　Buffett：我们既投资银行，也拥有银行。如果二十年前你问我这可不可能，在一个4.75%回报率债券的世界，无数的银行在有形资本上的回报率将会达到20%以上，我会说不，在某种程度上这归功于杠杆。1.5%的资产回报率杠杆15倍22.5%的股本回报率，但即便如此，你会想一旦所有人都这么做，资产回报率会回落到1%，但目前这种情况还没有发生。

　　Munger: Some of this is due to consumer credit, which has been pushed to extremes. Other countries that have done this have suffered bad consequences – South Korea, for example, really suffered for two or three years. I don’t think this is a time to swing for the fences.

　　Munger：某种程度上这可以归咎于消费信贷，因为它们当时被炒得火热，其他这么做的国家承受了糟糕的结果，例如韩国，近两三年来很不好过，我也不认为现在是打全垒打的好时机。

　　Buffett: In South Korea, it produced some of the cheapest stock prices I’ve ever seen.

　　Buffett：在韩国，它们搞出了一些有史以来我见过的最便宜的股价

　　Source: BRK Annual Meeting 2007 Tilson Notes

　　Time: 2007

　　来源：2007年BRK年会Tilson笔记

　　时间：2007年

　　Back in the Sixties, you disbanded the Buffett Partnership when you perceived the market to be overvalued. If you had only 100 partners in Berkshire Hathaway, would you disband it? (1999)

　　回到20世纪60年代，当你认为市场价值被高估的时候你解除了与Buffett的合作关系如果你在Berkshire Hathaway只有一百个合作伙伴，你还会跟他们吹灯拔蜡吗（1999）

　　If I were limited to only marketable securities investments, I?’d probably put it out to the partners to decide what they?’d want to do. But we own many wonderful businesses, so we?’re not in exactly the same position. In those days, the expectations had been raised so much, I felt tremendous internal pressure to keep it up; I didn?’t want to fail delivering, so I folded it up.

　　如果我被限制在只能进行有价证券投资的活动范围内，我可能会让我的合作伙伴来自行决定他们想做的事。但我们拥有很多出色的生意项目。所以我们实际上并不处在同一位置。在那些日子里，外界的期待值非常高，内部压力也使得我不得不开足马力向前努力，我不想失败，所以我精简优化了我的团队。

WB:我可以扩展这个问题的范围但是我回答不了。Charlie和我都没法断定市场在下一年，下个月，甚至哪怕是下一周的走向，这不是我们所关心的，也不是我们所能操盘的游戏。我们每天会过目上千所公司的股价，其中99%我们都会忽略掉。

Every now and then, we find an attractive price for a business. When we buy it, we would be happy if the market was closed for a few years; you wouldn’t get a price quote daily if you owned a farm. We look at expected yield, cost of taxes. If you buy a farm, you would look at the cost of fertilizers, what a farm produces relative to the purchase price, price per acre, production per acre, etc. We make judgments.

时不时地我们会找到一个对于某一门生意有吸引力的价格。当我们买入的时候如果这个市场也跟着封闭上几年就再好不过了。如果你拥有一个农场，你不可能每天都收到关于它的报价。我们关注的是农场内作物的预期产量，税务成本。如果你买了一个农场，你也会关注买化肥花了多少钱，农场的创收能不能与买入投资相抵，每英亩的买入价，每英亩的收成等等，然后再作出综合结论。

CM: Nothing to add.

CM:我没什么要补充的了

WB: He’s been practicing for weeks. [laughter]

WB:那这可难为他攒了一星期的台词了（笑）

[Q - In 2008 you highly recommended buying US stocks. What is your opinion on market going forward? What is reasonable rate of return?]

2008年您极力推荐购买美国本土股票，您对市场的未来走向有什么看法？以及合理的回报率是多少？

WB: I write articles on general level of market itself rarely, only 4 or 5 times in forty years. It turned out I was pretty premature in Oct 2008. But I felt it would be way better to own bonds or cash. I thought I would be eventually alright.

WB:我在过去的四十年里也就写过四五次关于市场整体水平的总结评价性文章。2008年10月所发生的事证明我还是太“前瞻”。但我仍然认为相比持有债券或现金还是持有股票比较好，起码最终会是一个稳定之选。

I have no idea what the stock market will do this week or next year. I do think I’d rather own equities than cash or 20yr bond over the long term. This is partly because I am unenthusiastic on alternatives. I think there will be a modest positive real return over time.

我不知道股票市场这周或明年会发生什么，我只觉得相对于持有20年债券或者现金我更乐意持有股票，这种想法部分来自于我对上述模棱两可的两个选项的态度并不乐观。我认为我的选择会有一个相对乐观的实际收益率。

CM: Equities are best of a bad lot of available opportunities. I think you are right, and people should get used to ordinary real returns – not exciting.

CM：我觉得你是对的，矬子里面拔将军的话股票会是最好的选择，人们也应该适应一个普通平淡的实际回报率，而不要为之过于乐观或狂躁。

WB: We like owning businesses. They do beat holding cash or 5, 10 or 20yr bonds.

WB:这就是为什么我们乐意参股持股，这确实比持有现金或者那些五年十年二十年的债券强多了。

熊市是否即将来临？

Humans are still made up of the same psychological makeup, and opportunities will always present themselves. All these people have not gotten more rational. They are moved by fear and greed. But I'm never afraid of what I am doing.

大多数人的心态构成都差不多，随着机会的不断出现，人们也没有变得以更加理性去面对，仍然会受到恐惧和欲望的趋势，但我从不害怕我所做的。

Opinion of forecasts?

您对于对于各式各样关于市场的预测有什么看法？

CM: People have always had this craving to have someone tell them the future. Long ago, kings would hire people to read sheep guts. There’s always been a market for people who pretend to know the future. Listening to today’s forecasters is just as crazy as when the king hired the guy to look at the sheep guts. It happens over and over and over.

CM：人们总希望有人能告知他们未来会发生什么。很久以前那些个三皇五帝啥的就会雇人瞅瞅羊的心肝脾肺来占卜。所以那些号称能预知未来的神棍总是有市场的。听听他们扯淡就知道这和古时候看羊肚子的货没啥区别，跟轮回似的周而复始，屡禁不绝。

回过头看看1998年的市场，您对它有什么评价？

In 1998, there were incredible opportunities. Just like today, there were a lot of smart people with 150 IQs running around with lots of money, but there was a panic.

1998年的时候有很多很不错的商业机遇，就像今时今日，那些个智商150往上的聪明人将大把银子玩弄于股掌。但是彼时有一股恐慌气氛蔓延开来。

For example, there was a 30 basis point difference in the yields of on-the-run and off-the-run 30-year Treasuries. Literally, a 29 1/2- year traded 30 basis points higher than a 30-year because of the slight liquidity difference. You could have made a lot going long one and short the other. You wouldn’t have thought this kind of thing was possible, but it happened.

举个例子，当时新发行国债和旧发行的30年期国债之间的收益差了30个基点，以准确数据来说就是29年半期的国债收益比30年期的收益高了30个基点就因为这轻微的流动时间差。你从未想象得到会发生这种此消彼长的事情会发生，但它确确实实发生了。

The high-yield market went crazy as well. In the span of only 14 months, you had yields go from 25%-60% to 7%. [Buffett put up the following chart.]

与此同时高收益市场也炸锅了，短短14个月的时间里收益率从25%-60%降到了7%。（Buffett随之放了一个表格数据来佐证）

您认为当下的股市是确确实实回暖了吗？

What's going to happen tomorrow, huh? Let me give you an illustration. I bought my first stock in 1942. I was 11. I had been dillydallying up until then. I got serious. What do you think the best year for the market has been since 1942? Best calendar year from 1942 to the present time. Well, there's no reason for you to know the answer.

明天会发生什么？让我来给你举个例子，1942年我11岁的时候买了我的第一支股票，在那之前我一直焦虑，严格来说你认为从1942年到现在哪一年的股票市场最好？嗯，毫无疑问你肯定不知道。

The answer is 1954. In 1954, the Dow … dividends was up 50%. Now if you look at 1954, we were in a recession a good bit of that time. The recession started in July of '53. Unemployment peaked in September of '54. So until November of '54 you hadn't seen an uptick in the employment figure. And the unemployment figure more than doubled during that period. It was the best year there was for the market.

答案是1954年，那一年道琼斯指数上涨了50%，但现在再看那一年，我们正处在经济衰退时期，衰退从1953年7月开始，1954年9月失业率达到最高点，到当年的11月都未见好转，那段时期失业率翻了整整一倍，但那是股票市场最好的一年。

So it's a terrible mistake to look at what's going on in the economy today and then decide whether to buy or sell stocks based on it. You should decide whether to buy or sell stocks based on how much you're getting for your money, long-term value you're getting for your money at any given time. And next week doesn't make any difference because next week, next week is going to be a week further away. And the important thing is to have the right long-term outlook, evaluate the businesses you are buying. And then a terrible market or a terrible economy is your friend.

所以用股票市场的好坏来判断经济状况是一种非常错误的方式。你买入或者卖出股票取决于你现在的经济状况和你投入的金钱在任何给定时间段中的长期收益。下一周会如何并不重要，因为这是一周后的事。当下最重要的事是要有一个长期的远景规划。评估你买入的生意，把糟糕的市场或者糟糕的经济当做你的朋友。

I don't care, in making a purchase of the Burlington Northern, I don't care whether next week, or next month or even next year there is a big revival in car loadings or any of that sort of thing. A period like this gives me a chance to do things. It's silly to wait. I wrote an article. If you wait until you see the robin, spring will be over.

在制定买入伯灵顿北方公司计划的时候我不在意车载物流行业之类的会不会在一周、一个月甚至一年后有起色。这段时间是一个让我有所作为的机会，等待是愚蠢的，一年之计在于春，如果你一直等，等到知更鸟出现，春天也该过完了。

当问及对股东为何对未来的经济和股票市场发展前景如此关心所阐释出的种种理由有什么看法时，Buffett回答：

I would say that at any given point in history, including when stocks were the cheapest, you could have found an equally impressive list of negatives. In ‘74, you could have written down all kinds of things that would show the future would be terrible.

我想说在历史上的任何给定时间点，包括股价最低廉的时期，你会发现有很多唱衰的呻吟存在，1974年的时候你能找出一大堆的理由来预测未来会一团糟。

We don’t pay any attention to this kind of thing. Our underlying premise is that this country will do very well and that businesses will do very well. We used nuclear bombs, endured the cold war, etc., but over time the opportunities have won out over the problems. I expect this will continue, barring use [against us of] weapons of mass destruction – it would be hard for businesses to win out over this.

对这种类似的行为我们毫不关心，我们所坚信的一个基本前提是我们相信国家和经济状况都会发展良好，我们扔过核弹，我们捱过冷战时期，随着时间推移，机遇总会战胜那些种种问题，我期待能够继往开来。除非有人对我们使用大规模杀伤性武器，那样的话商业生意什么的就玩完了。

Going back to ‘59, I can’t think of any discussions Charlie and I have had in which we’ve passed on something because of a view on macro conditions. It won’t be the economy that will do in investors; it will be investors themselves. If you’d just owned stocks over time, you’d do fine. We’re unaffected by the variables that you mentioned. Show us a good business tomorrow and we’ll jump.

让我们回看1959年，我能想起任何一场我和Charlie之间基于宏观条件的看法所展开的讨论。不是经济会对投资者做什么，而是投资者本身怎么做。如果你长时间持有股票，你可能会做的不错。我们完全不受那些所谓变量的影响。如果明天有一个好的商业机会摆在眼前，我们依旧会义无反顾出手。

[CM: We wouldn’t be surprised if professionally managed money in the US will have unimpressive returns relative to the high returns we had until three years ago.

CM：如果过去三年美国专业管理的基金绩效表现远低于我们，我们一点都不会感到讶异。

Our expectations were more modest than most three years ago [see Buffett’s Fortune article, Mr. Buffett on the Stock Market, 11/99]. We didn’t project the end of the world, but said anyone who thought they could sit at home and day trade to double digit returns was living in a fool’s paradise. It’s hard to understand how people could believe such things. To some extent, they’re sold these beliefs.

我们的期望比三年前更温和，我们的规划也没长远到世界末日，但是如果有人妄想在家坐着就把钱挣了的话那可谓痴人说梦。很难理解为什么会有人相信这些。在某种程度上说这种想法也算是被推销出去的。

What do you think of the current market? (2000)

您怎么看待当下的市场（2000年）

Can see anything in markets. Don't see any cases of incredible under valuation, if we did find it they probably will have been bought out.

着眼于市场中的所有事情，但不要纠结于那些过低的估值，如果有，它们可能是被买断了。

[CM: Present time is a very unusual period. Residential real estate and common stock value grew so quickly.]

CM：现阶段是一个非常时期，房地产和普通股价增长得真快。

Company's that themselves couldn't borrow 100 million and is worth billions. Most extreme time period, even including the 1920's.

价值数十亿的公司却借不来一个亿，历史上有这样的极端时期，甚至包括上世纪20年代。

[CM: I think it's the most extreme period since modern capitalism, the 30's created worst depression in 600 years. This time period is almost as extreme as 30's but in a different direction.]

CM：我觉得这是现代资本主义发展以来最极端的时期。上世纪30年代发生了600年中最严重的大萧条，现在的情况跟那时候差不多一样极端只不过角度不同。

Doesn't make it easy to predict an outcome. No question in last year the ability to monetize shareholder ignorance has been exceeded.

这并未使得预测结果变得简单。毫无疑问去年股东们赚钱的能力又增强了。

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