与其灌水，不如读巴菲特致股东信之2007年（上）# Stock
t*o
1 楼
大家好，我是牛叔，今天给大家解读一下2007年巴菲特致股东的信。
老样子，先看前五年的表现。
2003 .................................................... 21.0 28.7
2004 .................................................... 10.5 10.9
2005 .................................................... 6.4 4.9
2006 .................................................... 18.4 15.8
2007 .................................................... 11.0 5.5
第一列是Berkshire，第二列是SP500。巴老师依然吊打他们。
2007年的信里面有不少金句，大家仔细看。
You may recall a 2003 Silicon Valley bumper sticker that implored, “Please,
God, Just One More
Bubble.” Unfortunately, this wish was promptly granted, as just about all
Americans came to believe that
house prices would forever rise. That conviction made a borrower’s income
and cash equity seem
unimportant to lenders, who shoveled out money, confident that HPA – house
price appreciation – would
cure all problems. Today, our country is experiencing widespread pain
because of that erroneous belief.
As house prices fall, a huge amount of financial folly is being exposed. You
only learn who has been
swimming naked when the tide goes out – and what we are witnessing at some
of our largest financial
institutions is an ugly sight.
自打2003年后，其实老巴希望在来一次大危机，他好抄底。这哥们手里一直有一百多亿
美元时刻准备抄底。大家可以回想一下2007年，这封信写的时候，没有人相信房价会跌
。联想起国内房价，是不是有相关性呢？其实我觉得差的还挺多，国内的房子一是风控
严格银行贷款审批比这里严多了；二是投资没地方去，只能是房子。米国2007年那时候
，银行房贷都不看收入了，疯狂贷款，broker们赚的盆满钵满。只有当人们突然还不上
了，资金链断了，流动性没了，大银行机构就傻眼了。
于是，巴老师就来了那句著名的：“只有退潮后才知道谁在裸泳”。说的就是那些不看
风险乱放贷的。
That party is over. It’s a certainty that insurance-industry profit margins
, including ours, will fall
significantly in 2008. Prices are down, and exposures inexorably rise. Even
if the U.S. has its third
consecutive catastrophe-light year, industry profit margins will probably
shrink by four percentage points
or so. If the winds roar or the earth trembles, results could be far worse.
So be prepared for lower
insurance earnings during the next few years.
保险公司赚钱的盛宴结束了。老巴预见2008年，整个保险行业利润会下降，即便没有什
么自然灾害这这一年。为啥，经济危机，很多公司破产，没钱买保险了。而且保险公司
很多险种跟贷款、贸易、上市有关，比如financial line相关保险等，一旦整个市场动
荡，卖这些保险的公司就会陪，这些就是Property&Casualty公司，比如老巴旗下的
General Re。
Berkshire has two major areas of value. The first is our investments: stocks
, bonds and cash
equivalents. At yearend these totaled $141 billion (not counting those in
our finance or utility operations,
which we assign to our second bucket of value).
3
Insurance float – money we temporarily hold in our insurance operations
that does not belong to
us – funds $59 billion of our investments. This float is “free” as long
as insurance underwriting breaks
even, meaning that the premiums we receive equal the losses and expenses we
incur. Of course, insurance
underwriting is volatile, swinging erratically between profits and losses.
Over our entire history, however,
we’ve been profitable, and I expect we will average breakeven results or
better in the future. If we do that,
our investments can be viewed as an unencumbered source of value for
Berkshire shareholders.
Berkshire’s second component of value is earnings that come from sources
other than investments
and insurance. These earnings are delivered by our 66 non-insurance
companies, itemized on page 76. In
our early years, we focused on the investment side. During the past two
decades, however, we have put
ever more emphasis on the development of earnings from non-insurance
businesses.
Berkshaire旗下有两大块。第一款是投资，包括股票债券现金等价物等。共141billion
。这其中包括大量的保险公司float，意思是我们暂时踢人代持的资金，也就是保费收
入。毕竟保费一次性收入后，需要一段时间来赔付，在这过程中，这部分钱可以拿来投
资，巴菲特把这部分叫做float。保险公司作为募集资金的工具，在这里得到了体现。
这种是0成本持有资金，现在大家都学会了。比如安邦等。
Berkshire旗下另一块资产是非投资收入，也就是旗下直接拥有的公司运营收入。共有
66家公司。近些年，老巴精力集中在这一块上，如何提高这66家公司的运营收入。这些
公司，他很多次提到。里面大部分都是非上市公司，我们买不到股票，而很多都是非常
棒的公司。所以买点BRK就相当于简介拥有了这些公司。这些公司里很多都比上市公司
强。
Berkshire’s past record can’t be duplicated or even approached. Our base
of assets and earnings is now far too large for us to make outsized gains in
the future.
现在很多人说老巴资产太多了，没法实现高增长。是从这里来的，他承认，Berkshire
已经太大，过去那种辉煌无法重复。
我在思考：为什么？
可能有俩原因：市场上的好公司且价格合理的，已经被人挖干净了，很难再发现这样的
公司，除非像风投那样广撒网；其次，Berkshire这么大手笔的收购，就会引起市场的
波动，价格随之上涨，就不存在优惠的价格了。
肯定还有别的原因，大家可以各抒己见。
In our efforts, we will be aided enormously by the managers who have joined
Berkshire. This is
an unusual group in several ways. First, most of them have no financial need
to work. Many sold us their
businesses for large sums and run them because they love doing so, not
because they need the money.
Naturally they wish to be paid fairly, but money alone is not the reason
they work hard and productively.
4
A second, somewhat related, point about these managers is that they have
exactly the job they
want for the rest of their working years. At almost any other company, key
managers below the top aspire
to keep climbing the pyramid. For them, the subsidiary or division they
manage today is a way station – or
so they hope. Indeed, if they are in their present positions five years from
now, they may well feel like
failures.
Conversely, our CEOs’ scorecards for success are not whether they obtain
my job but instead are
the long-term performances of their businesses. Their decisions flow from a
here-today, here-forever
mindset. I think our rare and hard-to-replicate managerial structure gives
Berkshire a real advantage.
这段写的很好。先翻译一下：
高管们（尤指ceo）加入Berkshire后，给我们带来了大量的增长力。首先是因为他们已
经财务自由，不再为了钱而工作，而是因为喜欢这个业务喜欢这个公司，对公司有感情
。第二，这些ceo们在干的事情就是他们的余生想要干的事。在很多其他公司，高管们
在不断的往上爬，对他们来说，目前的职位只是临时的一站，要是待上5年以上，他么
会觉得很失败。相反的是，在Berkshire，ceo们更注重长期公司发展，而非当成跳板临
时的瞎折腾。
这一点我还是很佩服Berkshire的，可能跟他们的收购方式有关。他们收购的很多公司
都是家族企业，好几代人把生意做大，出于各种原因卖给了Berkshire，即便没有多少
股权了，但是感情还在，还是想好好干；另外，巴菲特在收购时，注重管理层是否靠谱
，像Costco这种，ceo从基层一路赶上来，一辈子都在Costco干，肯定对公司有感情，
打心底里愿意好好经营公司。
美国大公司发展到今天，上市以后股权分散到各个持股人手里，人人持股相当于人人都
不在乎。ceo为代表的高管们只是以打工的心态在干活，他们的目标就是让公司账面好
看，以顺利拿到年终奖，即便是不利于公司长远发展的决策，只要短期能让公司业绩好
看，也毫不犹豫去做。只要能拿到上千万的年终奖，管他身后洪水滔天，就算第二年把
他们炒了，钱已经顺利拿到了。在大公司工作过的，估计都有这个体会。只要业绩不好
看，立马裁员，而且裁的还都是能干活的，不该走的走了，该走的没走。研发这种长期
收益短期亏损的部门都砍掉，节约大量开支，但企业也就没了后劲。试想Amazon当年如
果是职业经理人掌舵，会顶着若干年不盈利的巨大压力砸钱搞AWS？估计早就被董事会
炒了，自己的什么bonus也没影了。京东物流砸了这么多年钱，依然大量亏损，可就是
因为这个，才让他有巨大的想象空间和竞争优势。试想不是刘强东而是什么职业经理人
，哪有魄力做这个决定。
因此，大家买股票，不妨试试这个策略，凡是职业经理人尤其是出身MBA商学院的，做
ceo的公司，就不要去碰，只买ceo仍然是founder的公司，比如Amazon、facebook，比
如BAT等。不是我对商学院和MBA有偏见，我们对事不对人。这类人群他们自身很优秀，
但是问题在于越是优秀，就越是能让公司战略上注重短期忽略长期，越是能把自己经营
的很棒，公司却越来越垮。力量越大，责任越大；力量越大，造成的破坏也越大。个人
想法，不构成投资建议。
Charlie and I look for companies that have a) a business we understand; b)
favorable long-term
economics; c) able and trustworthy management; and d) a sensible price tag.
We like to buy the whole
business or, if management is our partner, at least 80%. When control-type
purchases of quality aren’t
available, though, we are also happy to simply buy small portions of great
businesses by way of stockmarket
purchases. It’s better to have a part interest in the Hope Diamond than to
own all of a rhinestone.
这里讲到了巴菲特买公司的四个原则：
a）他们懂这个公司的业务
b）面向长期的收益
c）靠谱的管理层
d）价格较合理
他们希望控股，收购80%以上股权。如果不能，或者公司太大，那就通过市场收购大量
股票。俗话说的好：只拥有钻石的一小部分，也好过拥有大量的普通石头。
老样子，先看前五年的表现。
2003 .................................................... 21.0 28.7
2004 .................................................... 10.5 10.9
2005 .................................................... 6.4 4.9
2006 .................................................... 18.4 15.8
2007 .................................................... 11.0 5.5
第一列是Berkshire，第二列是SP500。巴老师依然吊打他们。
2007年的信里面有不少金句，大家仔细看。
You may recall a 2003 Silicon Valley bumper sticker that implored, “Please,
God, Just One More
Bubble.” Unfortunately, this wish was promptly granted, as just about all
Americans came to believe that
house prices would forever rise. That conviction made a borrower’s income
and cash equity seem
unimportant to lenders, who shoveled out money, confident that HPA – house
price appreciation – would
cure all problems. Today, our country is experiencing widespread pain
because of that erroneous belief.
As house prices fall, a huge amount of financial folly is being exposed. You
only learn who has been
swimming naked when the tide goes out – and what we are witnessing at some
of our largest financial
institutions is an ugly sight.
自打2003年后，其实老巴希望在来一次大危机，他好抄底。这哥们手里一直有一百多亿
美元时刻准备抄底。大家可以回想一下2007年，这封信写的时候，没有人相信房价会跌
。联想起国内房价，是不是有相关性呢？其实我觉得差的还挺多，国内的房子一是风控
严格银行贷款审批比这里严多了；二是投资没地方去，只能是房子。米国2007年那时候
，银行房贷都不看收入了，疯狂贷款，broker们赚的盆满钵满。只有当人们突然还不上
了，资金链断了，流动性没了，大银行机构就傻眼了。
于是，巴老师就来了那句著名的：“只有退潮后才知道谁在裸泳”。说的就是那些不看
风险乱放贷的。
That party is over. It’s a certainty that insurance-industry profit margins
, including ours, will fall
significantly in 2008. Prices are down, and exposures inexorably rise. Even
if the U.S. has its third
consecutive catastrophe-light year, industry profit margins will probably
shrink by four percentage points
or so. If the winds roar or the earth trembles, results could be far worse.
So be prepared for lower
insurance earnings during the next few years.
保险公司赚钱的盛宴结束了。老巴预见2008年，整个保险行业利润会下降，即便没有什
么自然灾害这这一年。为啥，经济危机，很多公司破产，没钱买保险了。而且保险公司
很多险种跟贷款、贸易、上市有关，比如financial line相关保险等，一旦整个市场动
荡，卖这些保险的公司就会陪，这些就是Property&Casualty公司，比如老巴旗下的
General Re。
Berkshire has two major areas of value. The first is our investments: stocks
, bonds and cash
equivalents. At yearend these totaled $141 billion (not counting those in
our finance or utility operations,
which we assign to our second bucket of value).
3
Insurance float – money we temporarily hold in our insurance operations
that does not belong to
us – funds $59 billion of our investments. This float is “free” as long
as insurance underwriting breaks
even, meaning that the premiums we receive equal the losses and expenses we
incur. Of course, insurance
underwriting is volatile, swinging erratically between profits and losses.
Over our entire history, however,
we’ve been profitable, and I expect we will average breakeven results or
better in the future. If we do that,
our investments can be viewed as an unencumbered source of value for
Berkshire shareholders.
Berkshire’s second component of value is earnings that come from sources
other than investments
and insurance. These earnings are delivered by our 66 non-insurance
companies, itemized on page 76. In
our early years, we focused on the investment side. During the past two
decades, however, we have put
ever more emphasis on the development of earnings from non-insurance
businesses.
Berkshaire旗下有两大块。第一款是投资，包括股票债券现金等价物等。共141billion
。这其中包括大量的保险公司float，意思是我们暂时踢人代持的资金，也就是保费收
入。毕竟保费一次性收入后，需要一段时间来赔付，在这过程中，这部分钱可以拿来投
资，巴菲特把这部分叫做float。保险公司作为募集资金的工具，在这里得到了体现。
这种是0成本持有资金，现在大家都学会了。比如安邦等。
Berkshire旗下另一块资产是非投资收入，也就是旗下直接拥有的公司运营收入。共有
66家公司。近些年，老巴精力集中在这一块上，如何提高这66家公司的运营收入。这些
公司，他很多次提到。里面大部分都是非上市公司，我们买不到股票，而很多都是非常
棒的公司。所以买点BRK就相当于简介拥有了这些公司。这些公司里很多都比上市公司
强。
Berkshire’s past record can’t be duplicated or even approached. Our base
of assets and earnings is now far too large for us to make outsized gains in
the future.
现在很多人说老巴资产太多了，没法实现高增长。是从这里来的，他承认，Berkshire
已经太大，过去那种辉煌无法重复。
我在思考：为什么？
可能有俩原因：市场上的好公司且价格合理的，已经被人挖干净了，很难再发现这样的
公司，除非像风投那样广撒网；其次，Berkshire这么大手笔的收购，就会引起市场的
波动，价格随之上涨，就不存在优惠的价格了。
肯定还有别的原因，大家可以各抒己见。
In our efforts, we will be aided enormously by the managers who have joined
Berkshire. This is
an unusual group in several ways. First, most of them have no financial need
to work. Many sold us their
businesses for large sums and run them because they love doing so, not
because they need the money.
Naturally they wish to be paid fairly, but money alone is not the reason
they work hard and productively.
4
A second, somewhat related, point about these managers is that they have
exactly the job they
want for the rest of their working years. At almost any other company, key
managers below the top aspire
to keep climbing the pyramid. For them, the subsidiary or division they
manage today is a way station – or
so they hope. Indeed, if they are in their present positions five years from
now, they may well feel like
failures.
Conversely, our CEOs’ scorecards for success are not whether they obtain
my job but instead are
the long-term performances of their businesses. Their decisions flow from a
here-today, here-forever
mindset. I think our rare and hard-to-replicate managerial structure gives
Berkshire a real advantage.
这段写的很好。先翻译一下：
高管们（尤指ceo）加入Berkshire后，给我们带来了大量的增长力。首先是因为他们已
经财务自由，不再为了钱而工作，而是因为喜欢这个业务喜欢这个公司，对公司有感情
。第二，这些ceo们在干的事情就是他们的余生想要干的事。在很多其他公司，高管们
在不断的往上爬，对他们来说，目前的职位只是临时的一站，要是待上5年以上，他么
会觉得很失败。相反的是，在Berkshire，ceo们更注重长期公司发展，而非当成跳板临
时的瞎折腾。
这一点我还是很佩服Berkshire的，可能跟他们的收购方式有关。他们收购的很多公司
都是家族企业，好几代人把生意做大，出于各种原因卖给了Berkshire，即便没有多少
股权了，但是感情还在，还是想好好干；另外，巴菲特在收购时，注重管理层是否靠谱
，像Costco这种，ceo从基层一路赶上来，一辈子都在Costco干，肯定对公司有感情，
打心底里愿意好好经营公司。
美国大公司发展到今天，上市以后股权分散到各个持股人手里，人人持股相当于人人都
不在乎。ceo为代表的高管们只是以打工的心态在干活，他们的目标就是让公司账面好
看，以顺利拿到年终奖，即便是不利于公司长远发展的决策，只要短期能让公司业绩好
看，也毫不犹豫去做。只要能拿到上千万的年终奖，管他身后洪水滔天，就算第二年把
他们炒了，钱已经顺利拿到了。在大公司工作过的，估计都有这个体会。只要业绩不好
看，立马裁员，而且裁的还都是能干活的，不该走的走了，该走的没走。研发这种长期
收益短期亏损的部门都砍掉，节约大量开支，但企业也就没了后劲。试想Amazon当年如
果是职业经理人掌舵，会顶着若干年不盈利的巨大压力砸钱搞AWS？估计早就被董事会
炒了，自己的什么bonus也没影了。京东物流砸了这么多年钱，依然大量亏损，可就是
因为这个，才让他有巨大的想象空间和竞争优势。试想不是刘强东而是什么职业经理人
，哪有魄力做这个决定。
因此，大家买股票，不妨试试这个策略，凡是职业经理人尤其是出身MBA商学院的，做
ceo的公司，就不要去碰，只买ceo仍然是founder的公司，比如Amazon、facebook，比
如BAT等。不是我对商学院和MBA有偏见，我们对事不对人。这类人群他们自身很优秀，
但是问题在于越是优秀，就越是能让公司战略上注重短期忽略长期，越是能把自己经营
的很棒，公司却越来越垮。力量越大，责任越大；力量越大，造成的破坏也越大。个人
想法，不构成投资建议。
Charlie and I look for companies that have a) a business we understand; b)
favorable long-term
economics; c) able and trustworthy management; and d) a sensible price tag.
We like to buy the whole
business or, if management is our partner, at least 80%. When control-type
purchases of quality aren’t
available, though, we are also happy to simply buy small portions of great
businesses by way of stockmarket
purchases. It’s better to have a part interest in the Hope Diamond than to
own all of a rhinestone.
这里讲到了巴菲特买公司的四个原则：
a）他们懂这个公司的业务
b）面向长期的收益
c）靠谱的管理层
d）价格较合理
他们希望控股，收购80%以上股权。如果不能，或者公司太大，那就通过市场收购大量
股票。俗话说的好：只拥有钻石的一小部分，也好过拥有大量的普通石头。
