저자: CharlieMunger · 외국인
요약 보기
워런 버핏·찰리 멍거는 현대 포트폴리오 이론식 과도한 분산투자를 비판하며, 능력 있는 투자자는 소수의 훌륭한 기업에 집중해야 하고 분산은 무지에 대한 보호장치라고 주장한다. 3개의 훌륭한 기업이면 충분히 부자가 될 수 있고 그런 기업이 더 안전하다고 본다. 역사적으로 미국 경제는 수많은 침체를 겪었지만 자본주의의 회복력으로 장기적으로 성장해 왔다고 낙관한다. 애플은 버크셔가 보유한 뛰어난 소비자 지배력 기업으로 언급되며, 개별 종목 가격 예측은 포함되지 않았다.
다듬은 글
Diversification is for the know-nothing investor. It's not for the professional. If you find three wonderful businesses in your life, you'll get very rich. Yeah, what he's saying is that much of what is taught in modern corporate finance courses is twaddle. Know the edge of your own ability pretty well.
The Munger family's in two or three things only. Diversification is my idea of not something I have practically no interest in. A lot of people who are geniuses on IQ tests think they're a lot smarter than they are. And what they are is dangerous. We're not so smart, but we kind of know where the edge of our smartness is.
That is a very important part of practical intelligence. One of the inane things that's taught in modern university education is that a vast diversification is absolutely mandatory in investing in common stocks. The whole secret of investment is to find places where it's safe and wise to non-diversify.
It's just that simple. Diversification is for the know-nothing investor. It's not for the professional. And there's nothing wrong with the know-nothing investor practicing it. It's exactly what they should practice. It's exactly what a good professional investor should not practice. But that's you know, there's no contradiction in that.
It uh a know-nothing investor will get decent results as long as they know they're a know-nothing investor. Diversify as to time they purchase their equities and as to the equities they purchase. That's crazy for somebody that really knows what they're doing. And uh you will find opportunities that if you put 20% of your net worth in it you've wasted the opportunity of a lifetime, you know, in terms of not really loading up.
And uh we've had the chance to do that way, way in our past when we were working with small sums of money. We'll never get a chance to do that working with the kinds of money that Berkshire does. We try to load up on things. Uh uh and there will be markets when we get a chance to from time to time, but very seldom do we get to buy as much of any good idea as we would like to.
We think diversification is uh as practiced generally makes very little sense for anyone that knows what they're doing. Uh they diversification is a protection against ignorance. I mean, if you want to make sure that nothing bad happens to you relative to the market, you own everything. There's nothing wrong with that.
I mean, that that's a perfectly sound approach for somebody who who does not feel they know how to analyze businesses. If you know how to analyze businesses and value businesses, it's crazy to own 50 stocks or 40 stocks or 30 stocks, probably. Uh because there aren't that many wonderful businesses at that are understandable to a single human being in all likelihood.
And it and to have some super wonderful business and then put money in number 30 or 35 on your list of attractiveness and and forego putting more money into number one just strikes Charlie and me as as as madness. And it it's conventional practice and it it it may uh you know, if all you have to achieve is is average uh it it's uh it it's uh may preserve your job, but it's it's a confession in our view that you don't really understand the businesses that you own.
Um you know, I base I mean, I was on a personal portfolio basis, you know, I own one stock. You know, it but it's a business I know. It and and it leaves me very comfortable. Uh So, you know, do I do I need to own 28 stocks in order, you know, have proper diversification, you know, and uh be nonsense.
And within Berkshire, I could pick out three of our businesses and I would I would be very happy if they were the only businesses we owned and I had all my money in Berkshire. Now, I love it the fact that we can find more than that and that we keep adding to it. But, three wonderful businesses is more than more than you need in this life to do very well.
And uh uh the average the average person isn't going to run into that. I mean, if you look at how the fortunes were built in this country, uh they weren't built out of a portfolio 50 companies. They were They were built by someone who who identified with a with a wonderful business. Coca-Cola's a great example.
A lot of fortunes have been built on that. And there aren't 50 Coca-Colas. There aren't 20. If there were, be fine. We could all go out and diversify like crazy among that group and and get results that would be equal to owning the really wonderful one. But, you're not going to find it. And uh and the truth is you don't need it.
I mean, if you If you had a really wonderful business is very well protected against against the vicissitudes of the economy over time and and and competition. I mean, you know, we're talking about businesses that are resistant to effective competition. And three of those will be better than a hundred average businesses.
And And they'll be safer, incidentally. I mean, they There is less risk in owning three easy to identify wonderful businesses that are than there is in owning 50 um well-known big businesses. And uh uh It's amazing what has been taught over the years in finance classes about that. But, uh uh I can assure you that that uh I would rather pick If If I had to bet the next 30 years on the fortunes of uh of my family that would be dependent upon the income from a given group of businesses, I would rather pick three businesses from those we own than own a diversified group of 50 of them.
Yeah, what he's saying is that much of what is taught in modern corporate finance courses is twaddle. You want to elaborate on that, Charlie? [clears throat] You cannot believe this stuff. I mean It It's a modern portfolio theory and Yeah, it's it's It has no utility. What I mean it it it You know, it will tell you how to do average, but you know, I I I I think anybody can figure out how to do average in fifth grade.
I mean it just not that difficult and it's it's elaborate and you know, there's lots of little Greek letters and all kinds of things to make you feel that you're in the big leagues, but it uh there is no value added. I have [clears throat] great difficulty with it because I am something of a student of dementia and I have
We hang around a lot together. get ordinarily classified dementia you know, on some uh theory structure of models, but the modern portfolio theory uh it involves a type of dementia I just can't even classify. Something very strange is going on. If you find If you find three wonderful businesses in your life, you'll get very rich.
And and if you understand them bad things aren't going to happen to that those three. I mean that that's the characteristic of it. It uh By the way, maybe that's the reason there's so much dementia. If you believe what Warren said, you teach the whole course in about a week. Yeah, and the high priest wouldn't have any edge over the lay people and that that never sells well.
Right. Basically, the Munger family's in two or three things only. Uh diversification is my idea of not something I have virtually no interest in except as it happens automatically in a big place like Berkshire. I rejoiced the day I got rid of a quote you know, a stock quoting machine. I like this buy and hold investing.
It's a lovely way to live a life and you deal with a better class of people and and it's worked pretty well for all of us. So, and I don't think you need to worry about worry Warren's side investments his investments through Berkshire are so huge and those are so small relatively that if that's your main problem in life, you have a very favored life.
When I got out of school in 19 in 1951, the two people I admired the most in the world, my dad and Ben Graham, both said, "You know, you've got a good future, but don't start in stocks now because there's never been a year when the Dow Jones average has not ended up uh below 200 and it's above 200 now.
It's much too high and if you start now selling stocks to people, they're going to have bad experiences. And so, why don't you go wait a while go work in the Omaha National Bank or do something. Park yourself on the sidelines." Uh there's always negatives. Uh the country always faces problems. I mean, this country went through you know, it went through a civil war.
You know, it it it's gone through all kinds of things. But, what happens? You know, we have a few lousy years from time to time. I mean, we've had probably 15 recessions since the country started. And we will always have a list of 10 or 15 things at the start of the year that will tell you why you know, this country can't possibly work well.
But, all I can tell you is that it doesn't do it in a straight line. But, the the power of capitalism uh is incredible. I mean, you know, that's that's what is bringing us out of this recession. I mean, monetary and fiscal policy uh has some utility and certainly in the fall of 2008, the government was needed in a huge huge way.
It could do what was it was the only one that could do what was needed. But, if you look at the history of the United States, you know, probably half of our recessions have occurred during uh we'll say in the 19th century when people didn't even know what fiscal or monetary policy was. I mean, what happened was that excesses would come in and then the the resuscitative power of capitalism would would uh set the country back on the right on on a stronger growth pattern.
And that's happened time after time after time. And the game isn't over. What has happened is the rest of the world has caught on to some extent, so you're seeing, you know, some state capitalism in places like China and they're they're turning economies loose that have been dormant for centuries, uh but it's not because the people are smarter, it's not because they work harder, it's just because they have tapped into a system that works marvelously over time.
And I will tell you in the next 100 years, you're going to have probably 15 maybe maybe as many as 20 lousy years, but we will be so far ahead of where we are now that that we'll be unrecognizable. Charlie? Well, I think you can go back a lot farther than that, you know, Europe survived the Black Death where about a third of the people died.
Uh the world is going to go on. That's wildly optimistic for Charlie. Huh? Have you got anything more encouraging than that to say, Charlie? I don't know. I kind of I understand a little bit of Dick Holland's point of view. By the way, I've known him a long time. He aced me out of any hope of being a chief candle snuffer at the Unitarian Church.
He was so damn good at it. Anyway, uh What was the question? Can you Can you bring yourself to say anything optimistic? Well, I have a little bit of of uh a twist on that. And so, I would say that you can be cheerful even if things are slightly deteriorating. And that's a very good quality to have. I have a personal saying that that is always amusing me.
I say the politicians are never so bad you don't live to want them back. Apple is not 35% of of Berkshire's portfolio. Berkshire's portfolio includes the railroad, [snorts] the energy business, the animals, you name it, See's Candy. They're all businesses. And uh you know, the the the good thing about Apple is that we we can go up.
They buy in their stock and instead of owning 5.6%, you know, they got down to They got about 15 billion 700 and some [clears throat] million shares outstanding. They get down to 15 and a quarter billion without us doing anything, we got 6%. So, we can't own more than 100% of the BNSF. We can't own more than 100% of Garanimals or See's Candy.
And it'd be nice. We'd love to own 200%, but that just isn't doable. But, they're all the same. They're good businesses. And to think that our criterion our criteria for Apple is different than the other businesses we own. It just happens to be a better business than any we own. And we put a a fair amount of money in it, but we haven't got more money in it than we've got in the railroad.
And Apple is a better business Our railroad is a what very good business, but it's not remotely as good as Apple's business. But uh uh Apple you know, has a position with consumers where they're paying [clears throat] you know, maybe they pay 1,500 bucks or whatever it may be for a phone and these same people pay $35,000 for having a second car.
And if they had to give up a second car or give up their iPhone, they'd give up their second car. I mean, it's it's an extraordinary product. We don't have anything like that that we own 100% of. But we're very, very, very happy to have 5.6 or whatever it may be percent and we're delighted every tenth of a percent that goes up.
It's like having $100 million to our earnings. I mean, our share of the earnings. And they use their earnings to buy out our partners, which we're glad to see them sell out, too. The index funds have to sell out. They bring the number of shares down. And uh you know, I it we went up slightly last year and I made a mistake a couple years ago when I sold some shares when I had certain certain reasons why uh gains were useful to take that year from a tax standpoint, but having heard having heard me say that it was a dumb decision.
Uh but we do not have 35% of Berkshire's portfolio. Berkshire's portfolio is the funds we have to work with. And we want to own good businesses, and we also want to have plenty of liquidity. And beyond that, you know, we the sky's the limit or or our mistakes, who knows what the bottom is. It's not that easy to have a vast plethora of good opportunities that are easily identified.
And if you've only got three, I'd rather be in my best ideas instead of my worst. And now, some people can't tell their best ideas from their worst. And in the act of deciding that an investment already is good, they they get to thinking it's better than it is. I think we make fewer mistakes like that than other people.
And that is a blessing to us. We're not so smart, but we kind of know where the edge of our smartness is. That is a very important part of practical intelligence. And a lot of people who are geniuses on IQ tests think they're a lot smarter than they are. And what they are is dangerous. And and but but if you know the edge of your own ability pretty well, you should ignore most of the notions of our experts about what I call de-worsification of portfolio.
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