巴菲特1984年在哥伦比亚大学的著名演讲.doc

编者：“格雷厄姆多德都市的超级投资者们”作为巴菲特最著名的演讲名留青史，广为流传。巴菲特在中国十周年纪念八，从英文原版入手，尽可能罗列相关资料推出此次中英文对照的饕餮盛宴。敬请各位入席。格雷厄姆-多德都市的超级投资者们THE SUPERINVESTORS OF GRAHAM-AND-DODDSVILLE巴菲特1984年在哥伦比亚大学的著名演讲（上）blogbuffett 编辑年在庆祝格雷罕姆与多德合著的证券分析发行周年大会上，巴菲特这位格雷厄姆在哥伦比亚大学的投资课上唯一给了“A”的最优秀的学生进行了一次题为“格雷厄姆-多德都市的超级投资者们” (The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville)”的演讲，在他演讲中回顾了50年来格雷厄姆的追随者们采用价值投资策略持续战胜市场的无可争议的事实，总结归纳出价值投资策略的精髓，在投资界具有非常大的影响力。THE SUPERINVESTORS OF GRAHAM-AND-DODDSVILLETilsonfunds EDITORS NOTE: This article is an edited transcript of a talk given at Columbia University in 1984 commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Security Analysis , written by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd. This specialized volume first introduced the ideas later popularized in The Intelligent Investor . Buffetts essay offers a fascinating study of how Grahams disciples have used Grahams value investing approach to realize phenomenal success in the stock market. Is the Graham and Dodd look for values with a significant margin of safety relative to prices approach to security analysis out of date? Many of the professors who write textbooks today say yes. They argue that the stock market is efficient; that is, that stock prices reflect everything that is known about a companys prospects and about the state of the economy. There are no undervalued stocks, these theorists argue, because there are smart security analysts who utilize all available information to ensure unfailingly appropriate prices. Investors who seem to beat the market year after year are just lucky. If prices fully reflect available information, this sort of investment adeptness is ruled out, writes one of todays textbook authors. 格雷厄姆与多德追求“价值远超过价格的安全保障”，这种证券分析方法是否已经过时?目前许多撰写教科书的教授认为如此。他们认为，股票市场是有效率的市场；换言之，股票价格已经充分反应了公司一切己知的事实以及整体经济情况：这些理论家认为，市场上没有价格偏低的股票，因为聪明的证券分析师将运用全部的既有资讯，以确保适当的价格。投资者能经年累月地击败市场，纯粹是运气使然。“如果价格完全反应既有的资讯，则这类的投资技巧将不存在。”一位现今教科书的作者如此与写道。Well, maybe. But I want to present to you a group of investors who have, year in and year out, beaten the Standard & Poors 500 stock index. The hypothesis that they do this by pure chance is at least worth examining. Crucial to this examination is the fact that these winners were all well known to me and pre-identified as superior investors, the most recent identification occurring over fifteen years ago. Absent this condition - that is, if I had just recently searched among thousands of records to select a few names for you this morning - I would advise you to stop reading right here. I should add that all of these records have been audited. And I should further add that I have known many of those who have invested with these managers, and the checks received by those participants over the years have matched the stated records. 或许如此！但是，我要提供一组投资者的绩效供各位参考，他们长期的表现总是超越史坦普500种股价指数。他们的绩效即使纯属巧合，这项假说至少也值得我们加以审查。审查的关键事实是，我早就熟识这些赢家，而且长年以来便视他们为超级投资者，最近的认知也有十五年之久。缺少这项条件换言之，如果我最近才从成千上万的记录中挑选几个名字，并且在今天早上提供给各位我建议各位立即停止阅读本文。我必须说明，所有的这些记录都经过稽核。我必须再说明，我认识许多上述经理人的客户，他们长年以来所收取的支票确实符合既有的记录。 Before we begin this examination, I would like you to imagine a national coin-flipping contest. Lets assume we get 225 million Americans up tomorrow morning and we ask them all to wager a dollar. They go out in the morning at sunrise, and they all call the flip of a coin. If they call correctly, they win a dollar from those who called wrong. Each day the losers drop out, and on the subsequent day the stakes build as all previous winnings are put on the line. After ten flips on ten mornings, there will be approximately 220,000 people in the United States who have correctly called ten flips in a row. They each will have won a little over $1,000.在进行审查之前，我要各位设想场全国性的掷铜板大赛。让我们假定，全美国225亿的人口在明天早晨起床时都掷出一枚一美元的铜板。早晨太阳升起时，他们都走到门外掷铜板，并猜铜板出现的正面或反面。如果猜对了，他们将从猜错者的手中赢得一美元。每大都有输家遭到淘汰，奖金则不断地累积。经过十个早晨的十次投掷之后，全美国约有22万人连续十次猜对掷铜板的结果。每人所赢得的资金约超过1000美元。 Now this group will probably start getting a little puffed up about this, human nature being what it is. They may try to be modest, but at cocktail parties they will occasionally admit to attractive members of the opposite sex what their technique is, and what marvelous insights they bring to the field of flipping. 现在，这群人可能会开始炫耀自己的战绩，此乃人的天性使然。他们可能保持谦虚的态度，但在鸡尾酒宴会中，他们偶尔会以此技巧吸引异性的注意，并炫耀其投掷铜板的奇异洞察力。 Assuming that the winners are getting the appropriate rewards from the losers, in another ten days we will have 215 people who have successfully called their coin flips 20 times in a row and who, by this exercise, each have turned one dollar into a little over $1 million. $225 million would have been lost, $225 million would have been won. 假定赢家都可以从输家手中得到适当的奖金，再经过十天，约有215个人连续二十次猜对掷铜板的结果，每个人并赢得大约100万美元的奖金。输家总共付出225亿美元，赢家则得到225亿美元。 By then, this group will really lose their heads. They will probably write books on How I turned a Dollar into a Million in Twenty Days Working Thirty Seconds a Morning. Worse yet, theyll probably start jetting around the country attending seminars on efficient coin-flipping and tackling skeptical professors with, If it cant be done, why are there 215 of us? 这时候，这群人可能完全沉迷在自己的成就中：他们可能开始著书立说：“我如何每天早晨工作30秒，而在二十天之内将美元变成100万美元。”更糟的是，他们会在全国各地参加讲习会，宣扬如何有效地投掷铜板，并且反驳持怀疑态度的教授说，“如果这是不可能的事，为什么会有我们这215个人呢?” By then some business school professor will probably be rude enough to bring up the fact that if 225 million orangutans had engaged in a similar exercise, the results would be much the same - 215 egotistical orangutans with 20 straight winning flips. 但是，某商学院的教授可能会粗鲁地提出项事实，如果225亿只猩猩参加这场大赛，结果大致上也是如此有215只自大的猩猩将连续赢得20次的投掷。 I would argue, however, that there are some important differences in the examples I am going to present. For one thing, if (a) you had taken 225 million orangutans distributed roughly as the U.S. population is; if (b) 215 winners were left after 20 days; and if (c) you found that 40 came from a particular zoo in Omaha, you would be pretty sure you were on to something. So you would probably go out and ask the zookeeper about what hes feeding them, whether they had special exercises, what books they read, and who knows what else. That is, if you found any really extraordinary concentrations of success, you might want to see if you could identify concentrations of unusual characteristics that might be causal factors. 然而，我必须说明，前述事例和我即将提出的案例，两者之间存在着若干重大差异。旨先，如果(a)你所选择的225亿只猩猩的分布状况大致上和美国的人口分布相同；如果(b)经过20天的竞赛，只剩下215只赢家；如果(c)你发现其中有40只猩猩来自于奥玛哈的某个动物园，则其中必有蹊跷。于是，你会询问猩猩管理员各种问题，它们吃什么饲料、是否做特殊的运动、阅读什么书籍换言之，如果你发现成功案例有非比寻常的集中现象，则你希望判定此异常的特色是否是成功的原因。 Scientific inquiry naturally follows such a pattern. If you were trying to analyze possible causes of a rare type of cancer - with, say, 1,500 cases a year in the United States - and you found that 400 of them occurred in some little mining town in Montana, you would get very interested in the water there, or the occupation of those afflicted, or other variables. You know its not random chance that 400 come from a small area. You would not necessarily know the causal factors, but you would know where to search. 科学的调查也遵循此一形态。如果你试图分析某种罕见的癌症原因例如，美国每年只有1500个病例而你发现蒙大拿州的某个矿区小镇便产生400个病例，则你必然对当地的饮水、病患的职业或其他种种变数产生兴趣。你知道，在个小镇中发生400个病例，绝不是随机因素所造成。虽然你未必了解病因，但你知道从哪里着手调查。 I submit to you that there are ways of defining an origin other than geography. In addition to geographical origins, there can be what I call an intellectual origin. I think you will find that a disproportionate number of successful coin-flippers in the investment world came from a very small intellectual village that could be called Graham-and-Doddsville. A concentration of winners that simply cannot be explained by chance can be traced to this particular intellectual village. 除了地理国家，还有其他方式可以界定起源。除了地理的起源，还有我所谓“智力的起源”。我认为各位将在投资领域发现，不成比例的铜板投掷赢家来自于一个极小的智力村庄它可以称为“格雷厄姆一多德都市”。这个特殊智力村存在着许多赢家这种集中现象绝非巧合所能够解释。 Conditions could exist that would make even that concentration unimportant. Perhaps 100 people were simply imitating the coin-flipping call of some terribly persuasive personality. When he called heads, 100 followers automatically called that coin the same way. If the leader was part of the 215 left at the end, the fact that 100 came from the same intellectual origin would mean nothing. You would simply be identifying one case as a hundred cases. Similarly, lets assume that you lived in a strongly patriarchal society and every family in the United States conveniently consisted of ten members. Further assume that the patriarchal culture was so strong that, when the 225 million people went out the first day, every member of the family identified with the fathers call. Now, at the end of the 20-day period, you would have 215 winners, and you would find that they came from only 21.5 families. Some naive types might say that this indicates an enormous hereditary factor as an explanation of successful coin-flipping. But, of course, it would have no significance at all because it would simply mean that you didnt have 215 individual winners, but rather 21.5 randomly distributed families who were winners.在某些情况下，即使非比寻常的集中现象也可能不重要。或许有100个只是模仿某一位极具说服力的领导者，而依其主张来猜测铜板的投掷结果。当他猜正面，100个追随者也会自动地做相同的猜测。如果这一位领导者是属于最后215位赢家之一，则这100也便属于同一个智力起源，这项事实便不具有任何意义，因为100个案例实际上只代表一个案例。同理，假定你生活在一个父权结构极为严密的社会，而美国每一个家庭都恰好以父亲马首是瞻。20天之后，你将发现215位赢家是来自于215个家庭。若干天真的分析师可能因此而认为，成功地猜测钢板投掷的结果，其中具有高度的遗传因素。当然，这实际上不具有任何意义，因为你所拥有的不是215位个别赢家，而只是215个随机分布的家庭。 In this group of successful investors that I want to consider, there has been a common intellectual patriarch, Ben Graham. But the children who left the house of this intellectual patriarch have called their flips in very different ways. They have gone to different places and bought and sold different stocks and companies, yet they have had a combined record that simply cannot be explained by the fact that they are all calling flips identically because a leader is signaling the calls for them to make. The patriarch has merely set forth the intellectual theory for making coin-calling decisions, but each student has decided on his own manner of applying the theory. 我所要考虑的这一群成功投资者，共有一位共同的智力族长本杰明格雷厄姆。但是，这些离开此智力家族的孩童，都是依据非常不同的方法猜测他们自己的“铜板”。他们各自前往不同的地方，买卖不同的股票和企业，但他们的综合绩效绝对无法用随机因素加以解释。他们做相同的猜测，并不是因为领导者下达某一项指令，因此也无法用这种方式解释他们的表现。族知只提供了猜测铜板的智力理论，每位学生都必须自行决定如何运用这项理论。 The common intellectual theme of the investors from Graham-and-Doddsville is this: they search for discrepancies between the value of a business and the price of small pieces of that business in the market. Essentially, they exploit those discrepancies without the efficient market theorists concern as to whether the stocks are bought on Monday or Thursday, or whether it is January or July, etc. Incidentally, when businessmen buy businesses, which is just what our Graham & Dodd investors are doing through the purchase of marketable stocks - I doubt that many are cranking into their purchase decision the day of the week or the month in which the transaction is going to occur. If it doesnt make any difference whether all of a business is being bought on a Monday or a Friday, I am baffled why academicians invest extensive time and effort to see whether it makes a difference when buying small pieces of those same businesses. Our Graham & Dodd investors, needless to say, do not discuss beta, the capital asset pricing model, or covariance in returns among securities. These are not subjects of any interest to them. In fact, most of them would have difficulty defining those terms. The investors simply focus on two variables: price and value. 来自“格雷厄姆一多德都市”的投资者所具备的共同智力结构是：他们探索企业的价值与该企业市场价格之间的差异。事实上，他们利用其间的差异，却不在意效率市场理论家所关心的问题：股票究竟在星期一或星期：买进，或是在一月份或七月份买进。当企业家买进某家公司时这正是格雷厄姆一多德都市的投资者透过上市股票所从事的行为我怀疑有多少人会在意交易必须发生于某个月份或某个星期的第一天。如果企业的买进交易发生在星期一或星期五没有任何差别，则我无法了解学术界人士为何要花费大量的时间和精力，探讨代表该企业部分股权的交易发生时的差异。毋庸多说，格雷厄姆一多德都市的投资者并不探讨bate、资本资产定价模型、证券投资报酬本的变异数。这些都不足他们所关心的议题。事实上，他们大多数难以界定上述学术名词。他们只在乎两项实数：价格与价值。 I always find it extraordinary that so many studies are made of price and volume behavior, the stuff of chartists. Can you imagine buying an entire business simply because the price of the business had been marked up substantially last week and the week before? Of course, the reason a lot of studies are made of these price and volume variables is that now, in the age of computers, there are almost endless data available about them. It isnt necessarily because such studies have any utility; its simply that the data are there and academicians have worked hard to learn the mathematical skills needed to manipulate them. Once these skills are acquired, it seems sinful not to use them, even if the usage has no utility or negative utility. As a friend said, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. 面对图形分析师所研究的价量行为，我始终感觉惊讶。你是否会仅仅因为某家公司的市场价格在本周或前一周剧扬便决定购买该企业呢?在日前电脑化的时代，人们之所以会大量研究价格与成交量的行为，理由是这两项变数拥有了无数的资料。研究未必是因为其具任何功用；而只是因为资料既然存在，学术界人士便必须努力学习操作这些资料所需要的数学技巧。旦拥有这些技巧，不去运用它们便会带来罪恶感，即使这些技巧的运用没有任何功用，或只会带来负面功用也在所不惜。如同一位朋友所说的，对一位持铁锤的人来说，每样事看起来都像是钉子。 I think the group that we have identified by a common intellectual home is worthy of study. Incidentally, despite all the academic studies of the influence of such variables as price, volume, seasonality, capitalization size, etc., upon stock performance, no interest has been evidenced in studying the methods of this unusual concentration of value-oriented winners.我认为，这一群具有共同智力起源的投资者非常值得我们研究。虽然学术界不断地对价格、成交量、季节性、资本规模以及其他变数，研究它们对股票绩效的影响，但这群以价值为导向赢家的方法却毫不受人关心。 I begin this study of results by going back to a group of four of us who worked at Graham-Newman Corporation from 1954 through 1956. There were only four - I have not selected these names from among thousands. I offered to go to work at Graham-Newman for nothing after I took Ben Grahams class, but he turned me down as overvalued. He took this value stuff very seriously! After much pestering he finally hired me. There were three partners and four of us as the peasant level. All four left between 1955 and 1957 when the firm was wound up, and its possible to trace the record of three.关于这一项绩效的研究，我首先要追溯到从1954年到1956年间，工作于GrehamNewman公司的四位伙伴。我们总共四个人我并不是从数以千计的对象中挑选这四个人。在我选修本杰明格雷厄姆的课程之后，我要求进人GrahamNewman公司担任无给职的工作，但格雷厄姆却以价值高估而拒绝了我的要求。他对价值看得非常严重！经我不断地恳求，他最后答应雇我。当时公司有三位合伙股东，以及我们四位“学徒”。公司结束经营之后，我们四个人陆续在1955年到1957年间离开公司，目前只能够追踪其中三个人的投资记录。 The first example (see Table 1*正文不附表格，可参考查询文末所附的英文PDF文件) is that of Walter Schloss. Walter never went to college, but took a course from Ben Graham at night at the New York Institute of Finance. Walter left Graham-Newman in 1955 and achieved the record shown here over 28 years. Here is what Adam Smith - after I told him about Walter - wrote about him in Supermoney (1972):第一个案例（*正文不附表格，可参考查询文末所附的英文PDF文件）是华特史洛斯。华特从来没有念过大学，但他在纽约金融协会参加了本杰明葛雷厄姆的夜间课程。华特在1955年离开GrehamNewman公司。以下是“亚当史密斯”在我和他谈论有关华特的事迹之后在超级金钱(Supermoney，1972年) 一书中对他所做的描述： He has no connections or access to useful information. Practically no one in Wall Street knows him and he is not fed any ideas. He looks up the numbers in the manuals and sends for the annual reports, and thats about it.他从来不运用或接触有用的资讯。在华尔街几乎没有人认识他，所以没有人提供他有关投资的观念。他只参考手册上的数字，并要求企业寄年报给他，情况便是如此。 In introducing me to (Schloss) Warren had also, to my mind, described himself. He never forgets that he is handling other peoples money, and this reinforces his normal strong aversion to loss. He has total integrity and a realistic picture of himself. Money is real to him and stocks are real - and from this flows an attraction to the margin of safety principle.当华特介绍我们认识时，他曾经描述“他从来没有忘记自己是在管理别人的资金，这进一步强化了他对于风险的厌恶。”他有高尚的品格并以务实的态度自持。对他来说金钱是真实的，股票也真实的并从此而接受了“安全边际”的原则。 Walter has diversified enormously, owning well over 100 stocks currently. He knows how to identify securities that sell at considerably less than their value to a private owner. And thats all he does. He doesnt worry about whether it its January, he doesnt worry about whether its Monday, he doesnt worry about whether its an election year. He simply says, if a business is worth a dollar and I can buy it for 40 cents, something good may happen to me. And he does it over and over and over again. He owns many more stocks than I do - and is far less interested in the underlying nature of the business; I dont seem to have very much influence on Walter. Thats one of his strengths; no one has much influence on him.华特的投资组合极为分散，目前拥有的股票远越过100支。他了解如何选股，将价格远低于其价值者出售给私人投资者。这便是他所做的一切。他不担心目前是不是一月份，不在乎今天是不是星期一，也不关心今年是不是大选年。他的想法非常单纯，如果某家公司值一美元，若我能够以40美分买进，我迟早会获利。他便是如此不断地行动：他所持有的股票种类远比我的多而且比我更不关心企业的本质；我对华特似乎没有太大的影响力。这是他的长处之，没有人能够对他产生足够的影响力。 The second case is Tom Knapp, who also worked at Graham-Newman with me. Tom was a chemistry major at Princeton before the war; when he came back from the war, he was a beach bum. And then one day he read that Dave Dodd was giving a night course in investments at Columbia. Tom took it on a noncredit basis, and he got so interested in the subject from taking that course that he came up and enrolled at Columbia Business School, where he got the MBA degree. He took Dodds course again, and took Ben Grahams course. Incidentally, 35 years later I called Tom to ascertain some of the facts involved here and I found him on the beach again. The only difference is that now he owns the beach!第二个案例是汤姆科纳普，他曾经和我一起在GrehamNewman公司工作。汤姆于大战之前曾在普林斯顿大学主修化学，大战结束之后，他经常在海滩游荡。某一天，他得知大卫多德将在可伦比亚大学开夜间投资课程。汤姆以旁听方式选修该课程，之后他对投资学科产生了浓厚的兴趣，于是正式注册进入哥伦比亚大学商学院，并且获得了MBA学位。35年之后，我拨电话给汤姆，确定某些有关此一主题的事，我发现他仍然在海滩游荡。惟的差别是他目前拥有一片海滩！In 1968, Tom Knapp and Ed Anderson, also a Graham disciple, along with one or two other fellows of similar persuasion, formed Tweedy, Browne Partners, and their investment results appear in Table 2. Tweedy, Browne built that record with very wide diversification. They occasionally bought control of businesses, but the record of the passive investments is equal to the record of the control investme