저자: 워런버핏 · 외국인
요약 보기
버핏은 2016년 주주총회를 앞두고 인터뷰하며 낮은 금리가 자산가치를 끌어올리는 중력 같은 효과를 낸다고 설명했다. 미국 부채 문제는 큰 위험이 아니며 국내총생산(GDP) 대비 비율보다 미래 소득창출 능력이 중요하다고 주장했다. 1분기 GDP 0.5%는 매우 느린 성장이지만 경기가 붕괴하거나 가속하는 상황은 아니라고 봤다. 소비는 양호하고 철도 물동량은 석탄 감소로 약세라고 언급했다. 기업 실적은 역대급으로 좋았다고 평가했으나 최근 가이던스는 다소 하향됐다고 언급했다. 장기 낙관론은 10점 만점이라고 밝혔고 단기 시장 움직임은 신경 쓰지 않는다고 말했다. 브렉시트가 현실화돼도 사업이나 주식 보유 방식을 바꾸지 않겠다고 밝혔다. 구체적인 종목 가격 방향 예측이나 목표가는 제시하지 않았다.
다듬은 글
How are you doing ahead of the meeting? Uh, just the usual routine. No, I I I don't do anything. A lot of other people are working, but I'm just sitting there reading the paper and drinking cherry coke. You know, one of the biggest differences this year is going to be that the meeting's live streamed.
You've never done that before. Um, how do you think it changes the meeting? Well, it's it's interesting. I thought a little bit about the fact that Charlie and I probably say a lot of things that are not initially very intelligible in English and by the time they get translated I'm not sure what'll happen.
You know it there's all kinds of colloquialisms that I'm sure won't translate very well but I don't think I don't think we'll rise to the occasion and be able to make sure that our speech is better than normal. Uh it it's going to be fun. Oh yeah. I have no idea how many people will watch or where they'll be.
What about uh in terms of attendance this year? How many are how many you expect to come? I think it will be our second largest, but a fair amount probably close to 10% less than last year. Last year was up a lot. And based on everything we've seen so far, I would guess that whereas we were in the low to mid4s last year, we'll be in the high 30s to maybe 40,000 this year.
You think that's because last year was the 50th and you had a bigger turnout? You think that's partially because of the live streaming? I think it's I think it's more the live streaming actually than the 50th. I uh uh as I look at the the uh ticket requests, the further the distance from Omaha, the more the falloff and and you know, it's just more expensive for people to come in.
Yeah. You you're talking international visitors. Internationals down about a quarter uh some not quite a quarter, but almost a quarter. And California and some places like that will be off a fair amount. Okay. Um We watched the stock market today and uh the market ended down towards the lows of its session of the session after Carl Icon started making some comments.
He said a few things that he's extremely cautious on the US market. He thinks that we could be in for days of reckoning um largely because the Fed has kept interest rates so low for so long that he thinks potentially we're building up some pretty tremendous bubbles. What do you think about that? Well, there were probably uh this is the most wild of guesses, there were probably 50,000 people or more that bought stocks today.
50,000 people have sold. So, I don't know that I would pick out any one of them and put too much weight in what they did. No, I it it it uh I have no idea what the market will do dayto-day or why it did what it did today or yesterday or do you share any of his sentiment when it comes to worrying about bubbles that could be inflated just by this low interest rate environment?
Well, low interest rates, interest rates act on asset values like gravity acts on physical matter. And and uh if you had zero interest rates and you knew you were going to have them forever, stocks should sell, you know, 100 times earnings or 200 times earnings. I mean, if your alternative is absolutely zero and you know it will last forever.
So when interest rates were 15% with vulker uh you know that was an enormous gravitational pull on the value of all assets not just stocks because an investment is something where you lay out money now to get more money later on. And if you can get 15% it makes the choices way different than if you get zero.
So and we've had low interest rates now for longer than most people expected. And to some extent it's changed people's expectancy about interest rates. Well, the 30-year bond reflects people's view about 30-year money. What about negative interest rates in places like Japan and in Europe? Yeah. What does that do?
Uh, I hope I learn live to find out. I have no idea. You can read Adam Smith, you can read Ganes, you can read anybody and you can't find a word to my knowledge on on prolonged zero interest rates. I mean, that is a phenomenon nobody dreamt would ever happen. and uh uh and I think it's uncharted territory.
That doesn't mean I think it's the end of the world when it ends, but I don't think anybody knows exactly what the full implications are of low interest rates, and I certainly don't. One thing that Carl Icon said today that I thought was pretty interesting is that he'd like to see more fiscal spending.
He thinks that the Republicans in Congress, and he's long been a Republican, but he thinks the Republicans in Congress right now are almost obsessed with the deficit to a point that he called almost pathological. Um what do you think about the deficit? How big of a problem it is and whether we should be spending more um as a nation right now?
Well, the deficit is not a big problem. The the national debt, which is a function of the deficits that you have over a long period of years, but the national debt as a percentage of GDP is a little higher than I would like it. But the main thing is not to have it galloping upward. And we've had a national debt that was 120% of GDP in 1945 and six when we came out of World War II and people thought that was the end of the world and of course it did it was somewhat inflationary for a while but it you know we had enormous prosperity after that and there are countries around with much greater debt to to GDP ratio than we have.
What we have is not dangerous. It's people talk about it in gross terms. Bergkshire had no debt perhaps in 1965 when we took it over. If we' borrowed three million, we would have been in big trouble. But we've have more earning power now. And this country has incredibly more earning power than it had 30, 40, 50 years ago.
And debt can only be evaluated in relation to future income producing uh capabilities. And the country's income producing capabilities have never been larger and they keep growing. Let's talk about GDP because the first quarter numbers that came in today stunk 0.5%. That was the weakest growth in two years.
Does this feel like a 0.5% GDP economy? Something like that. Yeah, it it's not it's certainly not accelerating and it it isn't declining, but it's it's very slow growth and of course, as you would expect when the number is very low, it's irregular in various parts of the economy, but the economy is not booming.
On the other hand, it's not falling apart in any way, shape, or form either. So economists who say that the quarter that we're in right now already feels like it's better one and a half to 2%. You don't think so from where you stand? Well, I I wouldn't know, but they don't know either. You might know.
You have a lot of businesses that I don't know. I don't see them accelerating. I don't see them accelerating. One thing that struck me from the GDP numbers today was that the consumer really hung in there. Consumer spending was very strong. And you think about that in the context of lower prices at the gas pump.
Sure. Um, as we're watching oil prices pick up, should we worry that that is going to hurt the consumer? that maybe we've taken for granted all of this extra spending they've been doing because of low gas prices. Yeah. Well, but they're still low. I mean, and sure, if it goes back to $100 a barrel, that's a difference.
But not only are not only are uh gas prices low, but interest rates are low. So, people borrowing money on cars have a lower payment than they would have to make if rates were quite a bit higher. And certainly on homes, mortgage payments have dropped dramatically. So, people have more money to spend on other things.
And employment is not bad. What do you see just in terms of the economy through a lot of different sectors and and you have so many businesses and so many reads that you get on this. How do you think the consumers doing right now? Well, I think consumers doing pretty well, but I can tell you as one who owns one, the railroads aren't doing very well.
Well, let's talk about that. Railroad shipments. I mean, part of that is coal. What else do you see? A very big part of it coal. Coal is really down, way more than people anticipated. Now, the winter was very mild and coal stockpiles were already very large at utilities going into the winter and and then having a very mild winter.
There was no more electricity produced last year than the year before. And uh so the coal stock piles remain high. So the fall off in coal production has been a lot more than any of the railroads anticipated, including ours. If you stripped out coal, would you be thinking that railroad shipments were doing pretty well or is there weakness across the board?
No. If you look at I think when I get the figures every week it there's about 25 categories or something of the sort and a very significant percentage of those are disappointing. When you think about the industrial economy that was what we were so worried about at the beginning of the year. Um you've got a lot of industrial businesses too.
How does it look from that perspective? Well they they do okay but they're not accelerating it. No they the the economy is not is is not but it's not getting worse. I don't want to give that impression in the least. And and as you pointed out, the consumer is in better shape than before. So the the world's not falling apart, but we're not seeing a lot of buoyancy either.
Is is I mean, what's causing it? What do you think? I don't know. I don't know. But uh uh not have trouble trying to figure out what's happened, let alone not what the why is harder is harder. Earning season's been a little disappointing. um lower numbers and um lower guidance from a lot of companies too.
Well, earnings have been so high. Corporate earnings have never been better. You know, I mean, as a return on tangible equity, American business has never had it so good, you know, as a percent profits as a percentage of GDP. I mean, it profit margins up and down the line. Business has been very very good.
Now, you can the steel business has been terrible. I mean you can pick out a few areas but uh so it's not surprising that if the economy is not galloping forward and you already have earnings at this level I don't see them you know jumping a lot from this level. You're always an optimistic guy. Um how would you put yourself on a scale of optimism at this point though?
How do you long-term optimism? I I'm a 10. What about short term? Shortterm I don't I don't worry that much about it. But but I really don't because I if if if I feel like a 10 on long-term optimism, why should I get depressed? Because I got a cold today or something, right? Um Warren, in the list of things you worry about, I know it's next to nothing, but if you had to look at something out there, do you in the shorter term, let's say, I know that CNBC your whole thing that you worry about, but shorter term, what about a Brexit?
Would that create a big problem if the British actually leave the EU? Well, I don't think it's a good thing, but I don't I wouldn't I wouldn't do a thing differently tomorrow in terms of our businesses or our stocks if Cameron told me and he told me he was going to come out for it tomorrow strongly.
So, it wouldn't change anything I did. I wouldn't sell the farm I own. I wouldn't sell the real estate I own. I wouldn't sell my house. I wouldn't buy a different kind of car. And I certainly wouldn't change my investment in businesses. But I I I hope they don't do it. So, what are you most looking forward to this weekend?
Oh, I I just have a terrific time. I mean, it's fun seeing everybody that comes in. We got all our managers. I meet him tomorrow at lunchtime and and we got some new exhibits. And the biggest thing I really look forward to is hearing what Charlie has to say. He he never fails to surprise me. And I've never sat down with him.
I learned something from him and I've always been entertained. So, uh it's it's fun being up there with Charlie. All right. Well, we'll let you get into play bridge. We really appreciate your time today. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Take care.
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