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I’ve watched and read all publicly available material to bring you the most important investment advice from Warren Buffett in 2019. And as usual, tons of wisdom which can help you improve your portfolio returns was delivered, as Buffett has: - Presented 3 instances when you should use debt for investments - Told us why he has never invested in an IPO - Explained that all smart investing is value investing; and - Given his opinion on the low interest rates, together with the views of Charlie Munger and Bill Gates This is the Swedish Investor, bringing you the best tips and tools for reaching financial freedom, through stock market investing.
Although Buffett often has said that debt is a four-letter word at Berkshire Hathaway, there are a few instances in which he has been using it throughout his investing career. First and foremost, let’s discuss why leverage, normally, is a dangerous instrument to use in your portfolio. It’s because, although using debt to boost equity returns is the correct move MOST of the time, it is sometimes drastically wrong.
Take the returns of the S&P500 during the last 40 years. When looking at this, you might be tempted to leverage your portfolio by using 50% of your own capital and 50% debt. That way, it looks like you’d get 100% greater returns during this period by just purchasing the S&P500. But, there’s a small problem.
During the financial crisis, the market dropped by more than 50%, which means that your account could have become totally wiped out. Even in elementary school, we learn that no matter how big a number, anything times zero is zero. In reality, your broker probably wouldn’t allow this to happen, but let’s just say that you’d take losses so huge that you’d never want to invest again.
Using too much debt is the equivalent of playing Russian roulette. Sure, most of the times you’ll win, but occasionally, you’ll blow your brains out. Buffett says that “rational people do not risk what they have and need for what they don’t have and don’t need” There are, however, a few instances when Buffett has used debt historically: 1.
He likes to defer taxes as much as possible, both on investment gains and on the corporate level. Using debt in this manner although this may differ depending on where you are from, is risk-free, as you only pay taxes on profits, and therefore you cannot go bankrupt doing it. Also, the interest paid on this debt is either 0 or very, very low.
2. In the insurance business of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett uses the income from premiums, called float, to invest. If the insurance business is competitive, this debt not only comes interest-free, but you can actually be paid to keep the money if premiums exceed claims over time. 3. Sometimes, he borrows a lot in subsidiary companies.
A parent company isn’t typically legally responsible to repay the debtholders of a subsidiary, so using debt in this manner is like taking leveraged bets with a limited downside. To the extent that you can, it could be useful to think about how you can use these three types of debt in your own portfolio, and perhaps later in your investing career, too.
One of Buffett’s most quoted lines is this one: “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful” How could it be that, out of all the thousands of investment opportunities that you are faced with on any given day in the stock market, the one that is being the most well-advertised would be the best one to invest in?
Well, the answer is that, it’s almost impossible for it to be. There are at least two problems with the idea of investing in an IPO for the long term: First, it’s an opportunity for the insiders and founders of a company to sell, and I can pretty much guarantee that when the people who knows the company the best are selling their shares, you are not getting them at a bargain price.
Secondly, the company is being promoted heavily by an underwriter, often an investment bank, who’s incentivized to sell as many shares as possible at the highest price possible. A successful IPO, for the underwriter, often leads to bonuses being paid out and it will probably also result in more business in the future.
Combine these two and you’ll understand that, on average and for the long-term investor, IPO’s should be avoided. Buffett eats his own cooking by the way. I’m not sure if he’s ever participated in an IPO himself. At least none of his more important deals where in IPOs. Please let me know in the comment section if you know of any exceptions.
And no, I don’t think that Berkshire’s recent investment in Snowflake counts, as that one was most likely made by Todd Combs who manages a much smaller portfolio at Berkshire than Buffett. Buffett is very fond of autonomy and delegation of responsibility. Going back to a 2018 annual shareholder letter, Buffett said this: “Each [Todd Combs and Ted Weschler], independently of me, manages more than $12 billion; I usually learn about decisions they have made by looking at monthly portfolio summaries.” In answering if Berkshire is moving away from its traditional value investing approach by buying shares in, for instance, Amazon, Buffett said that all investing is value investing.
You are buying something today expecting that it will yield more for you tomorrow. Forget about dividend investing, growth investing, dividend growth investing or whatever may be trending the best right now. There may be several different reasons for investing. Sometimes it’s because a company is expected to be able to distribute earnings efficiently, sometimes because it has exceptional growth prospects and at other times simply because it is sitting on lots of valuable assets.
No matter where this value stems from though, you will only be profitable when you are buying these prospects at a fair price. What you are paying will always determine if you made a successful investment or not. Heck, even See’s Candies and GEICO, companies which have returned billions of dollars for Buffett, could have been too expensive when he purchased them.
Therefore, all investing is value investing. In a once-in-a-lifetime CNBC interview, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and Bill Gates attended at the same time. Damn, that’s almost 0.16% of the total wealth of America gathered for the same interview. Anyways, they were discussing the historically low interest rates that we have right now and the effects that this may have on the stock market.
Bill Gates said: “I’m amazed at how high the valuations are if you look broadly” Charlie Munger said: “You can’t print money to solve all problems. Eventually you’ll end up with something like Venezuela.” Although he doesn’t think that this will happen anytime soon. Warren Buffett said: “I could not have conceived a world where you have almost full employment, a 5% budget deficit and a 30 year governmental bond at 3%” (it’s at 1.6% now by the way).
Buffett says that he would have said that this is impossible just a few years ago and if he finds something impossible, it usually can’t last very long. However, if we can continue to have this, then stocks are ridiculously cheap at the moment. Who in the world would be interested in a 30 year governmental bond at a measly 1.6% return when the FED has promised a 2% inflation?
Well, you can count me out. If you love to digest everything that the world’s greatest investor says just as much as I do, head over to this video where you’ll learn about the most important investment advice which he has delivered in 2020. Cheers guys, I’ll see you soon!
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