# BBC2 programme on Warren Buffett Monday 26th October



## Brendan Burgess (25 Oct 2009)

Monday 26th October   21.00 - 22.00
repeated
Tuesday 27th October  23.50

Evan Davis meets Warren Buffett who talks about his career.


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## smiley (25 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*

Oh great..thanks for letting us know about the program. I am a huge fan.


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## strmin (26 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*

After reading all books about him I might as well watch TV program.


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## Markjbloggs (26 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*

Don't get too carried away with Old Warren.  If you use the Bershire A-shares as a measure of his prowess, he has barely doubled in the past 10 years.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=...on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined

Good but not great, especially when you consider that many of his investements are procured at below-market prices (eg GS last year)


EDIT _ the chart did not link as I intended.  Adjust the tracker at the base of the chart to 1999 to see my point.


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## smiley (26 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*



Markjbloggs said:


> Don't get too carried away with Old Warren.
> 
> Good but not great, especially when you consider that many of his investements are procured at below-market prices (eg GS last year)



This has given me the best laugh ive had all day!


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## mathepac (26 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*



Markjbloggs said:


> ... Good but not great, especially when you consider that many of his investements are procured at below-market prices (eg GS last year) ...


The cheat - why can't he get with the programme we have in this country, buy high and wait for values to fall.

I'm penning a stiff letter to him as we speak, protesting his lack of fair play.


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## Brendan Burgess (27 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*

I don't think that Mark is saying that he is buying shares cheaply. 

I think he means that Buffett can use his reputation and huge cash to buy shares below the prices which the rest of us would have to pay. 

Let's say for some reason, Irish public companies in general were prepared to sell shares to me at 20% below the prices available to others, then I would expect to beat the average. 

Obviously, it's smart for Buffett to get himself into that position.

The other unusual feature of Buffett is that, for some years, he has been buying whole companies, rather than just buying shares.  He does seem to have an uncanny ability to buy large, profitable companies cheaply. 

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess (27 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*

I think it's like reading any of the literature on Buffett, it seems so easy. A few simple, obvious rules to follow and wait for the money to roll in. But you know that in reality, you will not be able to do it. 

What was most interesting for me was his total opposition to borrowing to invest. Does that apply to his investee companies as well? It probably does given the Berkshire has huge cash reserves. It makes more sense to invest them in subsidiaries than to have the subsidiaries borrow from third parties. 

His independence of thought really is extraordinary. 
Ignore the market evaluation of any share. 
Ignore any remotely conventional approach to relationships.
If you want to eat steak and double hash fries(?) and three bottles of cherry coke in the same diner every day of your life, do so.
Who needs a computer or a calculator.
There is absolutely no need for photographs on your website.


Brendan


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## Markjbloggs (27 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*



Brendan said:


> I don't think that Mark is saying that he is buying shares cheaply.
> 
> I think he means that Buffett can use his reputation and huge cash to buy shares below the prices which the rest of us would have to pay.
> 
> ...



Exactly - it would be a mistake to take his performance at face value.  If any of us had his charisma and charm to get little old ladies to sell us their furniture store for less than it was worth, our investment performance would look pretty good too, regardless of our business acumen.


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## Bronte (27 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*



Brendan said:


> .
> If you want to eat steak and double hash fries(?) and three bottles of cherry coke in the same diner every day of your life, do so.


 
He's beating the odds on obesity too, how come he's not more massive, the T bone would have fed a whole family.


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## ringledman (27 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*

Buffet is so different from any other investment manager. He doesn't care about his share value, even advising against buying his stock in the 90's when he thought it was overvalued. 

All that matters to him is increasing the firm's internal intrinsic value regardless of market pricing. How we could do with more managers like this who put the long term prospects of the shareholders over that of short term speculators and quarterly reporting. 

Closed ended Investment Trusts are the only thing that come close to such long term thinking. Unit funds nowhere near.


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## Chris (27 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*



Markjbloggs said:


> Don't get too carried away with Old Warren.  If you use the Bershire A-shares as a measure of his prowess, he has barely doubled in the past 10 years.
> 
> http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=...on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined
> 
> ...



I would suggest that you add comparisons to the chart link you posted, i.e. add the dow and s&p and then judge how the shares performed.





Brendan said:


> I don't think that Mark is saying that he is buying shares cheaply.
> 
> I think he means that Buffett can use his reputation and huge cash to buy shares below the prices which the rest of us would have to pay.
> 
> ...



There was a very good research paper published last year on copying Buffett's investments: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=806246


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## smiley (27 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*

Chris..excellent link...cheers....


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## Markjbloggs (28 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*



Chris said:


> I would suggest that you add comparisons to the chart link you posted, i.e. add the dow and s&p and then judge how the shares performed.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, I know he beats the benchmarks but there are lots of other investors who have had much better performance over long periods ( me included !!) .  All I'm saying is that he walks on water, not above it !!  People think of him as a god, which is reflected in the P/E of BRK-A (>50), which would probably mean that he hiself would not invest in his own company.

Thanks for the link to the analysis of his performance.


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## Howitzer (28 Oct 2009)

> A long, long time ago a friend said to me about leverage, 'If you're smart you don't need it, and if you're dumb, you got no business using it.'


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## smiley (28 Oct 2009)

howitzer..its a great line isn't it.

so simple and so true.


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## Duke of Marmalade (28 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*



ringledman said:


> How we could do with more managers like this who put the long term prospects of the shareholders over that of short term speculators and quarterly reporting.


It's called NAMA.


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## Chris (29 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*



Markjbloggs said:


> Yes, I know he beats the benchmarks but there are lots of other investors who have had much better performance over long periods ( me included !!) .  All I'm saying is that he walks on water, not above it !!  People think of him as a god, which is reflected in the P/E of BRK-A (>50), which would probably mean that he hiself would not invest in his own company.
> 
> Thanks for the link to the analysis of his performance.



Just wanted to point out that two fold increase in 10 years is comparatively a very good performance.
I agree on the fact that BRK was not the best investment of the last 10 years, and that Buffett himself would probably not invest in a company with similar price and ratios. 
He once pointed out the fact that he would have much better opportunities for higher percentage annual returns if he had an investment pot of less than a million $. The reason being that when BRK goes to buy shares, the amount of money involved makes it impossible to invest in small-cap companies.


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## Markjbloggs (30 Oct 2009)

*Re: BBC2 programme on Warrenn Buffett Monday 26th October*



Chris said:


> Just wanted to point out that two fold increase in 10 years is comparatively a very good performance.
> I agree on the fact that BRK was not the best investment of the last 10 years, and that Buffett himself would probably not invest in a company with similar price and ratios.
> He once pointed out the fact that he would have much better opportunities for higher percentage annual returns if he had an investment pot of less than a million $. The reason being that when BRK goes to buy shares, the amount of money involved makes it impossible to invest in small-cap companies.



But is that not the point - he cannot / will not invest in better yielding opportunities because of his size, and that these are the opportunities that should be most appealing to all of us observing his techniques?


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## Brendan Burgess (30 Oct 2009)

> He once pointed out the fact that he would have much better opportunities for higher percentage annual returns if he had an investment pot of less than a million $.



The odd thing is that he has been pointing this out for years and he still manages to perform well. 

I would guess that if he announces that he has bought a stake in a company, the share price rises.

Brendan


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