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Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) has released its 2017 Letter to Shareholders. Instead of reading various media coverage about one aspect, I recommend reading the entire thing straight from the source. It’s only 17 pages long and (as always) written in a straightforward and approachable fashion. Even if you aren’t interested in BRK stock at all, reading the letter can be educational for individual investors of any experience level. Here are my personal notes with quoted exceprts.

Never use borrowed money to invest (leverage).

Our aversion to leverage has dampened our returns over the years. But Charlie and I sleep well. Both of us believe it is insane to risk what you have and need in order to obtain what you don’t need. We held this view 50 years ago when we each ran an investment partnership, funded by a few friends and relatives who trusted us. We also hold it today after a million or so “partners” have joined us at Berkshire.

There is simply no telling how far stocks can fall in a short period. Even if your borrowings are small and your positions aren’t immediately threatened by the plunging market, your mind may well become rattled by scary headlines and breathless commentary. And an unsettled mind will not make good decisions.

Lack of acquisitions. Berkshire hates paying too much for a company. They are also quite patient. Right now, there are many other competing buyers willing to pay high prices, so that is why their cash hoard keeps growing.

The less the prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we must conduct our own.

Cash (Treasury Bills) is king.

During the 2008-2009 crisis, we liked having Treasury Bills – loads of Treasury Bills – that protected us from having to rely on funding sources such as bank lines or commercial paper. We have intentionally constructed Berkshire in a manner that will allow it to comfortably withstand economic discontinuities, including such extremes as extended market closures.

At yearend Berkshire held $116.0 billion in cash and U.S. Treasury Bills (whose average maturity was 88 days), up from $86.4 billion at yearend 2016. This extraordinary liquidity earns only a pittance and is far beyond the level Charlie and I wish Berkshire to have. Our smiles will broaden when we have redeployed Berkshire’s excess funds into more productive assets.

Be patient.

The light can at any time go from green to red without pausing at yellow.

Wells Fargo and Bank of America stock. If you’re looking for individual stock ideas, many people copycat the holdings of Berkshire Hathaway.

Charlie and I view the marketable common stocks that Berkshire owns as interests in businesses, not as ticker symbols to be bought or sold based on their “chart” patterns, the “target” prices of analysts or the opinions of media pundits.

I would also consider the overlap between the holdings of Berkshire Hathaway and Daily Journal Corporation (Chairman Charles Munger). Both have significant stakes in Wells Fargo and Bank of America in an approximate 3:2 ratio. (Both also own a much smaller amount of US Bancorp.) Keep in mind these are bought for the long run:

Stocks surge and swoon, seemingly untethered to any year-to-year buildup in their underlying value. Over time, however, Ben Graham’s oft-quoted maxim proves true: “In the short run, the market is a voting machine; in the long run, however, it becomes a weighing machine.”

Hedge fund bet. As expected, the S&P 500 index fund won against a group of actively-managed hedge funds, but there were some interesting details in the final results. Something to discuss further in a separate post.

Risk vs. time horizon.

Investing is an activity in which consumption today is foregone in an attempt to allow greater consumption at a later date. “Risk” is the possibility that this objective won’t be attained.

I want to quickly acknowledge that in any upcoming day, week or even year, stocks will be riskier – far riskier – than short-term U.S. bonds. As an investor’s investment horizon lengthens, however, a diversified portfolio of U.S. equities becomes progressively less risky than bonds, assuming that the stocks are purchased at a sensible multiple of earnings relative to then-prevailing interest rates.

Past shareholder letters.

• 1977-2017 are free on the Berkshire Hathaway website (PDF). 1965-2016 are $2.99 at Amazon (Kindle). Three bucks seems pretty reasonable for a permanent copy with the ability to make searchable highlights using Kindle software.
• 2016 Annual Letter touched on the rarity of skilled-stock pickers and some insight on his own stock-picking practices.
• 2015 Annual Letter discussed his optimism in America and his “Big 4” stock holdings.
• 2014 Annual Letter discussed the power of owning shares of productive businesses (and not just bonds).
• 2013 Annual Letter included Buffett’s Simple Investment Advice to Wife After His Death.

It is well-known that the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) is Warren Buffett, and that its long-term performance has crushed the S&P 500. This is usually illustrated with an impressive chart like this one from Business Insider:

I’m currently reading A Man for All Markets by Edward Thorp. Among his many impressive accomplishments, Thorp even managed to be an early investor in Berkshire Hathaway. However, an ongoing theme in the book is that edges don’t last forever. He includes a chart in his book about how the performance gap between BRK and the S&P 500 has narrowed over time (I added the pink highlighting):

The book states that the dates were chosen when “the price graphs suggested that they were natural divisions”. Now, even Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have stated upfront that future returns for Berkshire will be much more modest than in the past. Their current asset size is simply too large. Of course, they still maintain they’ll do just fine, otherwise they’d just give up (or at least pay a dividend). It will be interesting how their edge holds up in the future.

Disclosure: My investment portfolio is predominantly invested in indexed and low-cost funds, but I do hold some Berkshire Hathaway shares in my 5% “play money” portfolio of individual stocks and marketplace real-estate investments. I still want to go to a BRK shareholder meeting in Omaha one of these years.

Do you think you’re a below-average driver? I didn’t think so. In the same vein, Jason Zweig had a funny tweet the other day that hit home:

Admit it: You do it, too.https://t.co/DaI0DON3XK pic.twitter.com/S9F3ILMiNz

— Jason Zweig (@jasonzweigwsj) October 2, 2017

His linked article ends with this advice:

Put 90% of your money in low-cost index funds and lock yourself in by adding a fixed amount every month through an electronic transfer from your bank. […] Speculate with just the remaining 10%, and use a checklist of buying criteria to make sure you never buy a stock purely because it has been going up.

This coincided with me reading stuff about the Kelly Criterion, a mathematical formula used to determine the optimal size of a series of bets. Basically, the greater your “edge”, the greater your bet size should be. If you have zero edge, then you should bet nothing. If you have negative edge, you should theoretically bet against yourself (if only casinos allowed that).

Here’s an interesting example that involved a special coin where you have the advance knowledge that it has a 60% chance of heads and 40% chance of tails. In short, with this edge you should consistently bet 20% of your bankroll each time. That’s it! If the coin was 52.5% heads/47.5% tails, you should only bet 5% of your bankroll. Most people do not find this intuitive.

What’s your own edge? Consider that some folks think that only 5% of Active Investment Managers Will Add Value. This is where I insert a couple of Charlie Munger quotes:

I think it is roughly right that the market is efficient, which makes it very hard to beat merely by being an intelligent investor. But I don’t think it’s totally efficient at all. And the difference between being totally efficient and somewhat efficient leaves an enormous opportunity for people like us to get these unusual records. It’s efficient enough, so it’s hard to have a great investment record. But it’s by no means impossible. Nor is it something that only a very few people can do. The top three or four percent of the investment management world will do fine.

If you stop to think about it, civilized man has always had soothsayers, shamans, faith healers, and God knows what all. The stock picking industry is four or five percent super rational, disciplined people, and the rest of them are like faith healers or shamans. And that’s just the way it is, I’m afraid. It’s nice that they keep an image of being constructive, sensible people when they’re really would-be faith healers. It keeps their self respect up.

Bottom line. In stock market investing, most of us lack an edge and thus should stick with index funds. But we all like to think we have some edge, so maybe a 5% or 10% fun money allocation is acceptable. Anything higher would be claiming to have some crazy, unreasonable edge. I would say it also depends on how aggressively your fun money is managed. Berkshire Hathaway stock is relatively low risk. Mine is invested in short-term loans backed by real estate with conservative loan-to-value ratios and a target return of 7%. The latest cryptocurrency promoted by celebrities on social media? Not low risk.

People always argue about how “efficient” the market truly is. Only academic, ivory-tower geeks believe in efficient markets right? My longstanding opinion is that no, markets are not 100% efficient, but it’s a tough, cutthroat world out there. Especially over the long run. Here’s yet another reminder to put in the anecdote folder.

This WJS article (paywall) talks about Jack Meyer, a superstar manager of the Harvard endowment that went on to run a high-profile hedge fund called Convexity Capital. Unfortunately, his hedge fund has lost over a billion dollars (!) of client money recently, in fact losing money every one of the last 5 straight years.

This recent bout of poor performance has altered Mr. Meyer’s worldview… of other managers (emphasis mine):

Mr. Meyer has often told smaller endowments and foundations that ask for advice to index 75% of their assets and use board connections to access world-class active managers for a sliver of their portfolios. He says he used to think 80% of active managers didn’t add value but now thinks it is closer to 95%.

Convexity is in that remaining 5%, he said.

Matt Levine of Bloomberg has a funny yet wise take on this:

I assert that 100 percent of active managers believe that only 5 percent of active managers add value, and that 100 percent of active managers believe that they are in that 5 percent, or at least say so in interviews. Otherwise why come to work every day? But that means that 95 percent of them are wrong. If you’re looking for the ones who are wrong, I guess one place to start would be among the ones who lose money five years in a row.

That 5% number reminded me of this quote from Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway (source):

I think it is roughly right that the market is efficient, which makes it very hard to beat merely by being an intelligent investor. But I don’t think it’s totally efficient at all. And the difference between being totally efficient and somewhat efficient leaves an enormous opportunity for people like us to get these unusual records. It’s efficient enough, so it’s hard to have a great investment record. But it’s by no means impossible. Nor is it something that only a very few people can do. The top three or four percent of the investment management world will do fine.

As Josh Brown puts it, edges are ephemeral. Okay, so somewhere around 4 out of 100 people *whose job it is to add value*… will actually add value. Sounds like a tough job, but something to consider when they come asking for your money.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) released its 2016 Letter to Shareholders [pdf] over the weekend. Although the financial media will create some catchy headlines, I recommend reading it for yourself. It is only roughly 30 pages long and is always written in a straightforward and approachable fashion. Even if you aren’t interested in BRK stock at all, reading the letter can be educational for individual investors of any experience level. Here are my personal notes and comments.

Bullish on America. This is a repeated theme from past shareholder letters.

From a standing start 240 years ago – a span of time less than triple my days on earth – Americans have combined human ingenuity, a market system, a tide of talented and ambitious immigrants, and the rule of law to deliver abundance beyond any dreams of our forefathers.

[…] This economic creation will deliver increasing wealth to our progeny far into the future. Yes, the build-up of wealth will be interrupted for short periods from time to time. It will not, however, be stopped. I’ll repeat what I’ve both said in the past and expect to say in future years: Babies born in America today are the luckiest crop in history.

Berkshire Performance. Another topic that has been touched upon before is that Berkshire is huge and you shouldn’t expect the amazing results from when they were much smaller (19% annualized over the last 50+ years). However, they still plan on beating the S&P 500 over the long-term. If they didn’t, they’d tell their shareholders to move their money elsewhere.

As for Berkshire, our size precludes a brilliant result: Prospective returns fall as assets increase. Nonetheless, Berkshire’s collection of good businesses, along with the company’s impregnable financial strength and owner-oriented culture, should deliver decent results. We won’t be satisfied with less.

According to Morningstar as of 2/24/17, the trailing 10-year total return for BRKA is 9.1% annualized. The trailing 10-year total return for the S&P 500 index is 7.5% annualized. Not bad. (I should also disclose here that I own Berkshire (BRKB) shares in my separate “self-directed” portfolio which is a small percentage of net worth.)

Berkshire Fair Price. Another repeated theme. Buffett is authorized to repurchase large amounts of Berkshire shares at 120% or less of book value. In other words, 1.2x book price is a significant discount to Berkshire’s intrinsic value. If you’re getting close to that number, BRK is probably a “good deal”.

Stock holdings: Not necessarily buy-and-hold forever. This year, Buffett chose to emphasize that he has never promised to hold any particular stocks forever. (It does have no interest in selling its wholly-owned and controlled businesses.) Perhaps it is because he just bought shares of American, Delta, Southwest, and United Continental airlines. The airline industry has quite a rocky performance history. Perhaps it also to explain him selling all of his Wal-Mart shares.

Hedge Fund Bet. You’ve probably heard about this 10-year bet between the S&P 500 and a bunch of hedge funds. Here is my 2016 hedge fund bet update. The short version is that with 9 years down and 1 left to go, the S&P Index fund is up 85%. Of the 5 hedge funds (of funds), the worst hedge fund is up only 3%. The best hedge fund up only 63%. Buffett and the S&P 500 are very likely to win this bet.

I found it noteworthy that Buffett focused on the fact that no other hedge fund manager wanted to take the bet at all. Think about that. Only one guy was brave enough to step up, and how he’s getting bad publicity.

Subsequently, I publicly offered to wager $500,000 that no investment pro could select a set of at least five hedge funds – wildly-popular and high-fee investing vehicles – that would over an extended period match the performance of an unmanaged S&P-500 index fund charging only token fees. I suggested a ten-year bet and named a low-cost Vanguard S&P fund as my contender. I then sat back and waited expectantly for a parade of fund managers – who could include their own fund as one of the five – to come forth and defend their occupation. After all, these managers urged others to bet billions on their abilities. Why should they fear putting a little of their own money on the line?

What followed was the sound of silence. Though there are thousands of professional investment managers who have amassed staggering fortunes by touting their stock-selecting prowess, only one man – Ted Seides – stepped up to my challenge. Ted was a co-manager of Protégé Partners, an asset manager that had raised money from limited partners to form a fund-of-funds – in other words, a fund that invests in multiple hedge funds.

Buffett used to run a partnership where he would take a zero management fee and 25% of profits above a 6% annual return. Hedge fund managers today take 2% of assets annually no matter what and 20% of all positive returns. As usual, in this WSJ article Munger tells it straight:

When Mr. Buffett ran his investment partnerships in the 1960s, he charged no management fees and only took 25% of investment gains after the first 6%. Berkshire Vice Chairman Charles Munger praised that fee model earlier this month at the annual meeting of Daily Journal Corp., where Mr. Munger is chairman.

“I think it is fair and I wish it was more common,” he said of Mr. Buffett’s fee formula. “If it’s a bad stretch, why should you scrape money off the top?”

Rarity of skilled stock pickers. If anyone could identify another good stock picker, it would be Warren Buffett. I don’t recall seeing this claim before:

There are, of course, some skilled individuals who are highly likely to out-perform the S&P over long stretches. In my lifetime, though, I’ve identified – early on – only ten or so professionals that I expected would accomplish this feat.

Best book of 2016. I am currently listening to the Audible version of Shoe Dog by Phil Knight and it’s quite good so far. I’m only at the beginning where he bootstraps his shoe business from his parents’ basement and has the guts to fly all the way to Japan in the 1960s to ask for import rights in person. This book works really well as an audiobook.

The best book I read last year was Shoe Dog, by Nike’s Phil Knight. Phil is a very wise, intelligent and competitive fellow who is also a gifted storyteller.

Shareholder letters from 1977 to 2016 are available free to all on the Berkshire Hathaway website. You can also purchase all of the Shareholder letters from 1965 to 2015 for only $2.99 in Amazon Kindle format. Three bucks is a very reasonable price to have an official copy forever stored in electronic format. (Updated paperback will be re-stocked in mid-April for about $20. Don’t overpay for a stale physical copy.)

The 2015 Annual Letter discussed his optimism in America and his “Big 4” stock holdings. The 2014 Annual Letter discussed the power of owning shares of productive businesses (and not just bonds). The 2013 Annual Letter included Buffett’s Simple Investment Advice to Wife After His Death.