저자: JoelGreenblatt · 외국인
요약 보기
그린블랫은 주식투자의 핵심을 기업가치 대비 싸게 사는 것(벤저민 그레이엄식 안전마진)에 두고, 버핏식 보완으로 투하자본수익률이 높은 기업을 고르라고 설명한다. 초기 10년 운용에서 6~8종목이 포트폴리오의 80%를 차지하는 집중투자로 높은 수익을 냈으나, 2~3년마다 순자산의 20~30%씩 손실이 반복됐다고 말한다. 현재 운용은 수백 개 롱·숏 분산 방식이며 일반 투자자에게는 변동성이 완만한 장기 복리 전략이 낫다고 강조한다.
다듬은 글
So there's one question around what you were doing in in the first 10 years of investing when I think you averaged 40 to 50% annual uh gains after fees if if correct me if I'm wrong. Uh what what was the strategy that you and Rob Goldstein were following in those days and what parts of that are actionable for for the individual investor compared to the index plus strategy you know?
Sure. So stock investing is figuring out what a business is worth and and paying less. And so that hasn't changed. What makes a company uh worth something and what makes it cheap relative to that. It's pretty straightforward. Uh we're sort of, you know, that's sort of Ben Graham. Figure out what it's worth, pay a lot less, leave a large margin of safety between those two.
Uh Warren Buffett added a a little twist that made him one of the richest people in the world. Uh he simply said if you can buy a good business cheap, even better. Um if you read through Buffett's letters, it's very clear what he's looking for. Uh first thing he's looking for anyway, is uh businesses that are in high returns.
We call it on tangible capital. And that just means every business needs working capital. Every business needs fixed assets. How well does it convert its working capital fixed assets into earnings? So the example I used in the little book which I really wrote to explain these kind of concepts to my kids.
I said imagine you're building a store and you have to buy the land, build the store, set up the display, stock it with inventory and all that cost you $400,000 and every year the store spins out 200,000 in profits. That's a 50% return on tangible capital. Maybe I should open more stores. Not so many places I can reinvest my money at those rates.
Uh then I compared it to another store. Remember I wrote this for my kids and I called that store just broccoli. It's a store that just sells broccoli and it's not a very good idea. Uh unfortunately still have to buy the land, build the store, set up the display, stock it with inventory. That's still going to cost you roughly $400,000.
Uh but because it's kind of a stupid idea just to sell broccoli in your store, maybe it only earns $10,000 a year. That's a 2.5% return on tangible capital. And all I'd simply say is I'd much prefer to own the business that can reinvest its money, all things being equal, much prefer to own the business that can reinvest its money at high rates of return than much lower rates of return.
Um, and so that's sort of the Buffett twist that uh we incorporate uh in the companies that we invest in by being very tough on the way companies uh earn and spend their money. Uh so we tend to get a a a group of companies that are not only cheap but also uh deploy capital well and and that's really what we're uh looking for.
So we've always done that. Uh the little book was more of a way to systematize that. But in you can be a stock market genius which uh you know what did we do in the first 10 years? I wrote a book about it and it was uh you can be a stock market genius was looking for off the-beaten path, more complicated uh things that other people weren't looking at.
Something strange or different was going on. I showed people nooks and crannies in the market where they could look for those. The issue there uh and there is no issue. It's a it's a it's a great business, but our portfolios were six or eight names were 80% of our portfolio. uh we returned half our capital uh outside capital after 5 years.
We returned all our outside capital after 10 years between uh 85 and 94. We were lucky enough to uh have enough money to keep our staff and continue to run our money uh thereafter. Uh you know, Warren Buffett said the um uh a fat wallet's the enemy of uh high investment returns. Uh and so when you have a very concentrated portfolio and you're looking off the beaten path where there are kind of smaller situations and things that are more obscure, you're very liquidity constrained.
That's why we kept uh returning money. Uh but that's not why we're doing what we're doing now. Uh if you're going to run other people's money, uh this is what I'll tell you. with a portfolio that has six or eight names that are 80% of your portfolio. Every two to three years, usually within two, uh Rob and I, uh my partner Rob Goldstein and I would wake up and uh we'd find out we just lost 20 or 30% of our net worth.
Uh and that happened like clockwork every two, three years. Just always happened. It has to happen with a concentrated portfolio. Either because we were wrong Mhm. on one or two of our picks or uh you know market they were out of favor for some period of time and maybe it bothered us maybe it didn't if we just had to be patient uh but I would say for outside uh you know when I was talking about people going in and out of funds and and losing the return that is not conducive for other people especially if they're not doing the work it was okay for us uh and I think it was it was it was good for us cuz we knew what we owned And so as long as the facts hadn't changed and as long as we uh believed in our thesis, we we could take that.
I wouldn't say it was easy, but we could take that. Now our bad days, we have hundreds of stocks on the long side and hundreds of stocks on the short side. We're trying to be right on average. We're buying cheap good companies. We're shorting uh companies that are either destroying capital or losing money or whatever it is.
And over time, that pays off. And but our bad days with hundreds of stocks on the side are 20 or 30 basis points of underperformance, not 20 or 30% of our net worth. Uh and so I think for most people it's a smoother ride. And um one of the great lessons that uh young investors and a lot of you guys are still very young uh can learn are the compound interest tables.
You know, if you can make mid- teen returns, wouldn't make 40 or 50% annualized returns, but in mid- teens returns, uh if you know compound interest tables, you could do very well over uh you know, with a smoother ride over a long period of time. uh one of the uh uh the best examples when I when I taught those ninth graders, I actually put on the outside of their notebooks.
I handed them notebooks and on the outside I had a compound interest table and it had the example of uh starting investing uh $2,000 a year when you're 19 uh you know in your IRA uh until you're 26. uh so 7 years of putting away 2,000 and never putting another nickel in again or starting when you're 26 and putting in 2,000 a year uh for 40 years until you're 65.
So uh the people who put in 2,000 a year from age 19 to 26 and never put in another nickel ended up with more money if you earn 10% a year on that money. uh they ended up with more money with those seven payments than the people who started 26 and put in 40 payments till they were 65. You end up with more money uh the the 19 to 26.
Just a very important lesson to learn about starting early. I know all of you are over 19 so I'm sorry I didn't tell you this but but these kids these kids weren't. And so uh compound interest uh tables are important. So, uh, you're young. Uh if you if you stay with a very methodical investment strategy that makes sense over time, uh you can all still do very very
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