저자: BillAckman · 외국인
요약 보기
복리의 힘을 예시로 설명: 22세 1만 달러를 10% 수익률로 43년 굴리면 약 60만 달러, 15%면 약 400만 달러, 20%면 약 2,500만 달러. 큰 손실(12년마다 반토막)은 최종 자산을 크게 줄이므로 손실 회피가 핵심. 상장 기업, 이해 가능한 사업, 합리적 가격, 장기 보유 가능한 기업(코카콜라·맥도날드 예시)을 선호. 부채가 적고 진입장벽과 브랜드 충성도가 있으며 외부 변수(금리·환율·원자재)에 둔감한 기업이 좋다는 일반 원칙 제시.
다듬은 글
Let's assume at 22 you got a pretty good job. Instead of spending your money on gadgets or a fancy apartment or not so fancy apartment or going out and and drinking a fair amount, you put some money aside, you start investing money. Let's say you could save $10,000 at 22 and you can earn a 10% return on that money between now and the time you retire.
What would you have in 43 years? The answer is if you put aside $10,000, you don't save another penny and you invested it and you earn 10% on your money each year, you'd have $600,000 in [snorts] year 43. And the reason for that is, well, in year one, your $10,000 would become 11. In year two, your $11,000 would grow by 10%.
And so, you would be earning interest not just on your original principal, but you'd earn interest on the interest you'd earn in the previous year. And that compounding effect allows money to grow in an almost exponential fashion. Now, obviously, if you earn more than 10%. Uh, you can earn even higher returns.
Now, that's if you put $10,000 aside in 22, you have $600,000 in 43 years. That's pretty good. What if you had to wait until you were 32? The problem there is by year 33, you only have $232,000. Maybe that's not enough to retire. So, a key thing here is if you're going to be an investor, it's really one of the most valuable assets you have today as someone who's 18 or 19 years old is your youth.
You want to start early so that your money can grow over time. Now, what if you could earn 15%. Give you a better sense of how powerful compounding is. Remember, at 10% for 43 years, you'd have $600,000. That's pretty good. But if you earn 15%, you'd have over 4 million. Now, you're in a pretty good position.
And, uh, so obviously making smart decisions about where you put your money uh, has a huge difference in what your retirement assets are. Now, obviously, if you put aside more than $10,000, if you could put aside $10,000 each year, then your your your wealth would be, you know, quite enormous. Now, just for fun, if you were one of the world's great investors, uh Warren Buffett being a good example, if you could earn 20% per year for 43 years, you'd have $25 million.
Again, the original $10,000 investment would increase by 2500 times over that period of time just by earning a 20% return. Albert Einstein said the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest. So the key is start early, earn an attractive return, and avoid losing money, and you're going to have a very nice retirement.
Okay. Um, now let's talk about the risk of losing money. Now, let's assume that in order to try to get a 20% return, you took a lot of risk. And it turns out that every, you know, every 12 years, you lost half your money because you hit a bad patch in the market. You made dumb decisions. Well, your $25 million at 20% would now only be worth a million8 in 43 years.
So, a key success factor here is not just shooting for the fences, try to get the highest return. It's avoiding significant losses over the over the period. Okay. So, as Warren Buffett says, rule number one in investing is never lose money. And rule number two is never forget rule number one. So if you can avoid losses and [snorts] earn an attractive return over time, you're going to have a lot of money in many if you can stick at it for a long period of time.
Okay. So how do you be a successful investor? Now I'm assuming that you're not going to go into the business of investing. I'm assuming that you're going to be a doctor or a lawyer. You're going to pursue your passion, but you're going to have some money that you're going to save over time. And I'm going to give you my advice on the topic.
It's not necessarily definitive advice, but it's what the advice I would give my sister, my grandmother on what she should do if she were in the same position. I think that's probably the right way to think about it. So, number one, how do you avoid losing money? What are good places to invest? Avoid investing in startup businesses um where the prospects are not very well known because again, you don't need to make 100% a year to have a fortune.
You just need to invest at an attractive return. 10 15% over a long period of time, your money grows very significantly. So, how do you avoid the riskiest investments? I would, my advice would be to invest in public securities, invest in listed companies, companies that trade on the stock market. Why?
Because those businesses are tend to be more established. They have to meet certain hurdles before they go public. The stocks are liquid, so you can change your mind if you want to sell. If you invest in a private lemonade stand, it's hard to find someone to take you out of that investment unless that business becomes fabulously profitable.
So, that's piece of advice. Number one, invest in public companies. Number two, you want to invest in businesses that you can understand. What I mean by that is there are lots of businesses that you come in that you deal with in the course of your day and your personal life. Whether it's a retail store that you know because you like shopping there or it's a a product uh your your your iPad or that you know uh that you think is a great product, but you you have to understand how the company makes money.
The business is just too complicated. You don't understand how they make money. Even if they've had a great track record, I would avoid it. A lot of people thought Enron was an incredible business because it appeared to have a good track record, but very few people understood how they made money. It was good to avoid it.
Another very important criteria is you want to invest at a reasonable price. It could be a fabulous business that's done very well over a long period of time, but if you pay too much for it, you're not going to earn a very good return. The last bit is that you want to invest in a business that you could theoretically own forever.
The stock market were to close for 10 years, you wouldn't be unhappy. What do I mean by that? Now, again, if you're going to compound your money at at a 10 or 15% return over a 43 year period of time, you really want a business that you can own forever. You don't want to constantly have to be shifting from one business to the next.
And what are what are businesses that you can own forever. Well, there sort of meet that standard. Uh maybe a good example is Coca-Cola, right? What's good about Coca-Cola is it's relatively easy business to understand. You understand how Coke makes money, right? They sell a a formula uh syrup uh to bottlers and to retail establishments and they make a profit every time they serve a Coca-Cola.
People going to drunk a lot of Coca-Cola for a very long period of time. The world's population is growing. They sell in almost every country in the world and each year people drink a little bit more Coca-Cola. So, it's a pretty easy business to understand. It's also a business that I think is unlikely to be uh competed away as a result of technology or some other new product.
Right? It's been around long enough. People have grown used to the taste. Uh, you know, they they parents give it to their children and you can expect that it'll be around a long period of time. I think that's one good example. Another good example might be McDonald's. You may not love McDonald's hamburgers, but it's a business that it's been around for 50 years.
You understand how they make money. They open up these little build these little boxes. They rent them to the franchises. They charge them royalties in exchange for the name. And they sell hamburgers and French fries. And you know what? People have to eat. It's relatively lowc cost food. the quality is pretty good and they're grow they continue to grow every year.
So I think the consistent message here is try to find a business that you can understand uh that's not particularly complicated that has a successful long-term track record that makes a an attractive profit uh and can grow over time. So what are the key things to look for in a business as I say that lasts forever?
We want a b business that sells a product or a service that people need and that is somewhat unique and uh they they have a a loyalty to this particular brand or or or product and that people are willing to pay a premium for that. I mean a good another good example would be a candy business. Well, people are willing to buy generic versions of many kind of food products, you know, flour, sugar.
They don't need to have the branded product. When it comes to candy, people don't tend to like the Walmart version or the Kmart version. They want the, you know, the Hershey chocolate bar or the Cadbury chocolate bar or the Seas candy. They want the the brand and they're willing to pay a premium for that.
And um so that's a I think a key thing. You want the product to be unique. You you don't want it to be a commodity that everyone else can sell because when you sell a commodity, anyone can sell it and they can sell it at a at a better price and it's very hard to make a profit doing that. If you're investing for the long term, you want to invest in businesses that have very little debt.
So, if you can find a company that can earn attractive profits, that doesn't have a lot of debt, where they generate vastly more profits than they need to pay the interest on their debt, that's a safe place to put your money over a long period of time. You want businesses that have what people call barriers to entry.
You want a business where it's hard for someone tomorrow to set up a new company to compete with you and and put you out of business. I mean, like going back to the Coca-Cola example, Coca-Cola has such a strong market presence. You know, people have come to expect when they go to a restaurant, they can ask for a Coke and get a Coke.
It's very hard for someone else to break in. Now, of course, there's Pepsi and there are other soda brands, but Pepsi's been around a long time. Coca-Cola and Pepsi have continued to exist sidebyside over long periods of time. So, when you're thinking about choosing a company, make sure that they sell a product or a service that's it's hard for someone else to make a better one that you'll switch to tomorrow.
You also want businesses that are not particularly sensitive to outside factors, so-called extrinsic factors that you can't control. So, if a business uh will be affected dramatically if the price of a particular commodity goes up or if interest rates move up and down or if uh currency prices change, you want a company that's fairly immune to what's going on in the world.
And I'll I'll use my Coca-Cola example. I mean, if you think about Coca-Cola, it's a product that's been around probably 120 years. Over that period of time, there have been multiple world wars, development of nuclear weapons, all kinds of unfortunate events and tragedies and so on and so forth. But each year, the company pretty much makes a little bit more money than they made before and it's and they're going to be around.
And you can be confident based on the history that this is a business that's going to be around almost regardless of whether interest rates are at 14%. Whether the US dollar is uh, you know, not worth very much or the price of gold's up or down. Those are the kind of companies you want to invest in the long term. businesses that are extremely uh immune to the events that are going on in the
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