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Authors: Super UserLegendary investor Warren Buffett says he enjoys teaching.
And as is his wont, he brings in his wisdom from years of experience in investing even to respond to common questions around current issues and Berkshire's own affairs and investment decisions.
As he held court with Berkshire shareholders at Omaha on Saturday, Buffett liberally doled out gems of wisdom on investing, on life lessons and on affairs of the world around us.
He started the session sharing a personal experience with an investment decision to differentiate between trading and investing.
Buffett cited how he took advantage of the resultant weak market to buy a stock in March 1942.
“The purchase would have been a five-bagger plus eventually, only if he hadn’t sold it early for a less than 5 per cent gain!"
In investing, it is important to have a philosophy that you would stick to, said the Seer of Omaha.
About mistakes and making amends, Buffett said even the biggest companies make errors.
What is important is how they come back.
"We do a lot of dumb things in this world.
It is important and it is possible to come out stronger," he said.
He insisted it is important to start saving early.
"It is more important than IQ," said the Oracle of Omaha.
He said index funds are the best form of equity investing.
"If you consistently stick with them over decades, they will do wonders.
We have not invested our cash holding in ETF because we would rather like to buy an entire business."
On Bitcoin, he said in an earlier interview, "When you buy Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency, you are just hoping that the next guy will pay more.
It will not produce profit itself.
That is not investing, that is one kind of game.
If you go for a non-productive asset over a productive asset, you would never make big money."
On the investing principle at Berkshire, Buffett said: "At Berkshire, we will always be shareholder-oriented.
We will look at shareholders as partners.
We will do with shareholder money what we do with our own money."
On investing beyond the US, he said: "We want to invest money smartly.
Big economies and growing economies will do well.
China will become big, but it's a long way off.
Because they started with a lower base."
On emerging markets, Buffett said: "There are far more opportunities to do with smaller amounts of money than we can do.
Our problem is size, not geography.
But the first choice even with a smaller corpus would be to comb the USA.
Charlie says he has meaningful investments in China."
At a time when US bond yields are rising steeply, Buffett called long-term bonds a terrible investment.
"At these rates, long-term bond rates are ridiculous," he said.
Asked how he would like to be remembered, he said: "I would want to be remembered as a teacher; for teachings of all kinds.
That will be really flattering.
Teaching is an important activity.
I really enjoy it."
