These days, the thing to say if you want to sound smart about Warren Buffett is that the Oracle of Omaha’s crystal ball has cracked. In mid-October, headlines blared that Buffett had lost $2 billion in just two days on Coke and IBM IBM 0.03% .Nevermind that Buffett has said those investements are long-term holdings, that he hasn’t sold a share of either company’s stock, and that he would prefer it if IBM’s shares stayed cheap, for now. It seemed to reinforce the notion that the world’s great stock picker had lost it.
最近在談論巴菲特時,如果你想一鳴驚人,那就說“奧馬哈先知的水晶球失靈”好了。10月中旬,巴菲特在短短兩天內就在可口可樂公司(Coke)和IBM身上損失了20億美元,這一消息一度搶占了各大媒體的頭條。而巴菲特已經表態,對這兩家公司的股權投資是長期的而且他絲毫沒有減持。他甚至還表示,希望IBM的股價短期內仍保持這么廉價。這一切似乎讓人更加確信這位世界上最偉大的選股大師已經喪失靈敏了。
Last year, the book value of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway badly trailed the S&P 500, increasing less than the broad market index over the past five years for the first time in history. Buffett has acknowledged that his hand picked successors Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, have done better in recent years than he has. (Combs’ and Weschler’s market beating performance was the subject of a recent Fortune story.) Earlier this year, The New York Times highlighted a recent study that found Buffett’s ability to do better than the market has mostly disappeared.
去年,巴菲特執掌的伯克希爾哈撒韋公司(Berkshire Hathaway)賬面價值升幅嚴重落后于標準普爾500指數,史上第一次出現五年漲幅落后于該大市指數的情況。巴菲特承認,最近幾年他的表現不如自己親自挑選的繼任者托德•庫姆斯和泰德•威施勒。【《財富》(Fortune)雜志最近一篇文章的主題正是庫姆斯和威施勒獲得強于大市的表現。】今年早些時候,《紐約時報》(The New York Times)援引最近的一項研究報道稱,巴菲特跑贏大市的能力已基本消失。