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2021-02-23

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‘Buffett Indicator’ is alarmingly bearish and this year’s Berkshire shareholder letter could reveal why<blockquote>巴菲特指标令人震惊地看跌，今年的伯克希尔股东信可能会揭示原因</blockquote>

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{"i18n":{"language":"zh_CN"},"detailType":1,"isChannel":false,"data":{"magic":2,"id":369583133,"tweetId":"369583133","gmtCreate":1614058682122,"gmtModify":1634551351146,"author":{"id":3574240097120980,"idStr":"3574240097120980","authorId":3574240097120980,"authorIdStr":"3574240097120980","name":"Jfzarn","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":11,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[],"wearingBadges":[],"fanSize":4,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"title":"","extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body>Please comment on my post&nbsp;</body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body>Please comment on my post&nbsp;</body></html>","text":"Please comment on my post","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":5,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://laohu8.com/post/369583133","repostId":1175924985,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1175924985","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1614058173,"share":"https://www.laohunote.com/m/news/1175924985?lang=zh_CN&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-02-23 13:29","market":"us","language":"en","title":"‘Buffett Indicator’ is alarmingly bearish and this year’s Berkshire shareholder letter could reveal why<blockquote>巴菲特指标令人震惊地看跌，今年的伯克希尔股东信可能会揭示原因</blockquote>","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1175924985","media":"MarketWatch","summary":"Berkshire Hathaway’s trailing 15-year return is now below the S&P 500\nShould investors continue to g","content":"Berkshire Hathaway’s trailing 15-year return is now below the S&amp;P 500<blockquote>伯克希尔哈撒韦公司过去 15 年的回报率现已低于标普500</blockquote> Should investors continue to give Warren Buffett the benefit of the doubt?<blockquote>投资者是否应该继续相信沃伦·巴菲特无罪？</blockquote> That is the big question for Berkshire Hathaway&nbsp;shareholders as they anticipate Buffett’s annual letter to company shareholders, which is expected to be released on Feb. 27. Berkshire’s annual meeting of shareholders, normally held in Omaha, Neb. but this year remotely, will be another occasion in which Buffett can address this question. The shareholder meeting is scheduled for May 1.<blockquote>对于伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司的股东来说，这是一个大问题，因为他们期待着巴菲特给公司股东的年度信，这封信预计将于 2 月 27 日发布。伯克希尔的年度股东大会，通常在内布拉斯加州奥马哈举行。但从某种意义上说，今年将是巴菲特可以解决这个问题的另一个场合。股东大会定于5月1日举行。</blockquote> This question wouldn’t be so urgent if 2020 — when Berkshire stock lagged the S&amp;P 500&nbsp;by 16 percentage points — was just an aberration. But it isn’t. The stock lagged the S&amp;P 500 by even more in 2019 (20 percentage points), and is now behind the S&amp;P 500 over the trailing five-, 10- and 15-year periods. Those are long-enough periods to satisfy at least many investors’ definition of the long term.<blockquote>如果 2020 年--伯克希尔股票落后标普500 16 个百分点--只是一个反常现象，那么这个问题就不会那么紧迫了。但它不是。该股在 2019 年进一步落后于标普500（20 个百分点），目前在过去 5 年、10 年和 15 年中落后于标普500。这些期限足够长，至少可以满足许多投资者对长期的定义。</blockquote> I have no idea whether Buffett will address the market-lagging performance of Berkshire stock in his letter or at the company’s annual meeting. My request for comment from the company has gone unanswered. But I would be surprised if he doesn’t address it, and in the rest of this column I want to provide some background information that will help us understand the significance of what he may have to say.<blockquote>我不知道巴菲特是否会在信中或在公司年会上谈到伯克希尔股票落后于市场的表现。我向该公司提出的置评请求没有得到回应。但如果他不谈及这个问题，我会感到惊讶，在本专栏的其余部分，我想提供一些背景信息，帮助我们理解他可能要说的话的意义。</blockquote> Will Buffett double down on his bearish stock market outlook?<blockquote>巴菲特会加倍看跌股市吗？</blockquote> Pay close attention to whether Buffett doubles down on the bearish posture with which he has approached the stock market in recent years. It’s largely because of that bearishness that Berkshire stock has lagged. At the beginning of last year’s third quarter, for example, the company was sitting on a huge pile of cash — $147 billion, in fact.<blockquote>密切关注巴菲特是否加倍了他近年来对待股市的看跌姿态。伯克希尔的股价落后很大程度上是因为这种看跌情绪。例如，在去年第三季度初，该公司拥有巨额现金--事实上是 1470 亿美元。</blockquote> Given the company’s conservative posture, it wouldn’t take much of a drop in the overall market for Berkshire stock to once again be ahead of the S&amp;P 500 over the trailing 15 years. In fact, I calculate that all it would take would be for the S&amp;P 500 to perform at least 3% worse than the company’s stock, which is quite likely to occur in a bear market. During the 2007-2009 bear market that accompanied the Great Financial Crisis, for example, Berkshire stock beat the S&amp;P 500 by a cumulative 15 percentage points.<blockquote>鉴于伯克希尔公司的保守立场，在过去 15 年中，伯克希尔的股票在整体市场下跌的情况下就能再次领先于标普500。事实上，我计算出，标普500的表现至少比公司股票差 3%，这在熊市中很有可能发生。例如，在伴随大金融危机的2007-2009年熊市期间，伯克希尔股票累计跑赢标普500 15个百分点。</blockquote> My guess is that Buffett will indeed double down on his bearishness. Consider the story told by the ratio of the stock market’s total market cap to U.S. GDP — the so-called Buffett Indicator. It got its name two decades ago when Buffett said that the ratio is “probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment.”<blockquote>我猜测巴菲特确实会加倍看空。考虑一下股市总市值与美国国内生产总值的比率--所谓的巴菲特指标--所讲述的故事。二十年前，巴菲特说，该比率 “可能是衡量任何特定时刻估值状况的最佳单一指标”，因此得名。</blockquote> This ratio is now higher (and therefore more bearish) than at any other time in U.S. market history, higher even than where it stood at the top of the late 1990s internet bubble — as you can see from the chart below.<blockquote>这一比率现在高于美国市场历史上的任何其他时期（因此也更加悲观），甚至高于 20 世纪 90 年代末互联网泡沫顶峰时的水平——如下图所示。</blockquote> <img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/588c144cbfb44b59031247a976215db3\" tg-width=\"1260\" tg-height=\"849\"><blockquote></blockquote> How big of a role has luck played?<blockquote>运气起了多大的作用？</blockquote> Another big question as you decide whether to continue giving Buffett the benefit of the doubt: Could mere bad luck account for Berkshire’s market-lagging return? That’s an especially important question to ask, since the stock’s long-term record is nothing short of outstanding — even taking the past 15 years into account. Since 1965, Berkshire stock has outperformed the S&amp;P 500 on a dividend-adjusted basis by the annualized margin of 20.1% to 10.2%. I’m aware of no other investor alive today who has come even close to doing as well as Buffett over this 56-year period.<blockquote>当你决定是否继续给予巴菲特无罪时，另一个大问题是：仅仅运气不好就能解释伯克希尔的回报落后于市场吗？这是一个特别重要的问题，因为即使考虑到过去 15 年，该股的长期记录也是出色的。自 1965 年以来，在股息调整后，伯克希尔股票的年化利润率为 20.1% 至 10.2%，优于标普500。据我所知，在这 56 年的时间里，没有其他投资者能像巴菲特一样做得如此出色。</blockquote> To calculate the role luck may have played in performance, I conducted the following Monte Carlo simulation: What if, in each of the next 15 calendar years, Buffett’s alpha (return relative to the S&amp;P 500) would be picked at random from his actual alphas over the past 56 years? And what if this experiment was run 10,000 times?<blockquote>为了计算运气在业绩中可能发挥的作用，我进行了以下蒙特卡罗模拟： 如果在未来 15 个日历年中，巴菲特的阿尔法（相对于标普500的回报率）是从他过去 56 年的实际阿尔法中随机选取的，会怎么样？如果这个实验运行10,000次呢？</blockquote> To put what I found in perspective, consider that Berkshire in fact has had negative alpha in five of the past 15 years. In 24.4% of my simulations, the company’s stock had negative alpha in at least that many years. One-out-of-four odds suggest there is nothing particularly unusual about the number of years in which the company’s stock actually has had negative alpha.<blockquote>为了正确看待我的发现，考虑一下伯克希尔实际上在过去 15 年中有 5 年的 alpha 为负。在我的模拟中，24.4% 的公司股票至少在那么多年里都是负阿尔法。四分之一的概率表明，该公司股票实际出现负阿尔法的年数并没有什么特别不寻常的。</blockquote> To be sure, it was less likely in my simulations for Berkshire to have a negative alpha over the entire 15-year period. But it still did happen — 2% of the time. So it’s possible that Buffett’s negative alpha over the past 15 years is due to nothing more than bad luck.<blockquote>可以肯定的是，在我对伯克希尔哈撒韦的模拟中，在整个 15 年期间出现负 alpha 的可能性较小。但它还是发生了——2%的时间。因此，巴菲特过去 15 年的负阿尔法可能只是运气不好造成的。</blockquote> My vote is to continue to give Buffett the benefit of the doubt. There is no reason to pay less attention to his shareholder letter this year than in any prior year.<blockquote>我的投票是继续给予巴菲特无罪。没有理由比往年更少关注他今年的股东信。</blockquote>","source":"market_watch","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>‘Buffett Indicator’ is alarmingly bearish and this year’s Berkshire shareholder letter could reveal why<blockquote>巴菲特指标令人震惊地看跌，今年的伯克希尔股东信可能会揭示原因</blockquote></title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 12.5px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\n‘Buffett Indicator’ is alarmingly bearish and this year’s Berkshire shareholder letter could reveal why<blockquote>巴菲特指标令人震惊地看跌，今年的伯克希尔股东信可能会揭示原因</blockquote>\n</h2>\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\nMarketWatch2021-02-23 13:29\n\n</h4>\n</header>\n<article>\nBerkshire Hathaway’s trailing 15-year return is now below the S&amp;P 500<blockquote>伯克希尔哈撒韦公司过去 15 年的回报率现已低于标普500</blockquote> Should investors continue to give Warren Buffett the benefit of the doubt?<blockquote>投资者是否应该继续相信沃伦·巴菲特无罪？</blockquote> That is the big question for Berkshire Hathaway&nbsp;shareholders as they anticipate Buffett’s annual letter to company shareholders, which is expected to be released on Feb. 27. Berkshire’s annual meeting of shareholders, normally held in Omaha, Neb. but this year remotely, will be another occasion in which Buffett can address this question. The shareholder meeting is scheduled for May 1.<blockquote>对于伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司的股东来说，这是一个大问题，因为他们期待着巴菲特给公司股东的年度信，这封信预计将于 2 月 27 日发布。伯克希尔的年度股东大会，通常在内布拉斯加州奥马哈举行。但从某种意义上说，今年将是巴菲特可以解决这个问题的另一个场合。股东大会定于5月1日举行。</blockquote> This question wouldn’t be so urgent if 2020 — when Berkshire stock lagged the S&amp;P 500&nbsp;by 16 percentage points — was just an aberration. But it isn’t. The stock lagged the S&amp;P 500 by even more in 2019 (20 percentage points), and is now behind the S&amp;P 500 over the trailing five-, 10- and 15-year periods. Those are long-enough periods to satisfy at least many investors’ definition of the long term.<blockquote>如果 2020 年--伯克希尔股票落后标普500 16 个百分点--只是一个反常现象，那么这个问题就不会那么紧迫了。但它不是。该股在 2019 年进一步落后于标普500（20 个百分点），目前在过去 5 年、10 年和 15 年中落后于标普500。这些期限足够长，至少可以满足许多投资者对长期的定义。</blockquote> I have no idea whether Buffett will address the market-lagging performance of Berkshire stock in his letter or at the company’s annual meeting. My request for comment from the company has gone unanswered. But I would be surprised if he doesn’t address it, and in the rest of this column I want to provide some background information that will help us understand the significance of what he may have to say.<blockquote>我不知道巴菲特是否会在信中或在公司年会上谈到伯克希尔股票落后于市场的表现。我向该公司提出的置评请求没有得到回应。但如果他不谈及这个问题，我会感到惊讶，在本专栏的其余部分，我想提供一些背景信息，帮助我们理解他可能要说的话的意义。</blockquote> Will Buffett double down on his bearish stock market outlook?<blockquote>巴菲特会加倍看跌股市吗？</blockquote> Pay close attention to whether Buffett doubles down on the bearish posture with which he has approached the stock market in recent years. It’s largely because of that bearishness that Berkshire stock has lagged. At the beginning of last year’s third quarter, for example, the company was sitting on a huge pile of cash — $147 billion, in fact.<blockquote>密切关注巴菲特是否加倍了他近年来对待股市的看跌姿态。伯克希尔的股价落后很大程度上是因为这种看跌情绪。例如，在去年第三季度初，该公司拥有巨额现金--事实上是 1470 亿美元。</blockquote> Given the company’s conservative posture, it wouldn’t take much of a drop in the overall market for Berkshire stock to once again be ahead of the S&amp;P 500 over the trailing 15 years. In fact, I calculate that all it would take would be for the S&amp;P 500 to perform at least 3% worse than the company’s stock, which is quite likely to occur in a bear market. During the 2007-2009 bear market that accompanied the Great Financial Crisis, for example, Berkshire stock beat the S&amp;P 500 by a cumulative 15 percentage points.<blockquote>鉴于伯克希尔公司的保守立场，在过去 15 年中，伯克希尔的股票在整体市场下跌的情况下就能再次领先于标普500。事实上，我计算出，标普500的表现至少比公司股票差 3%，这在熊市中很有可能发生。例如，在伴随大金融危机的2007-2009年熊市期间，伯克希尔股票累计跑赢标普500 15个百分点。</blockquote> My guess is that Buffett will indeed double down on his bearishness. Consider the story told by the ratio of the stock market’s total market cap to U.S. GDP — the so-called Buffett Indicator. It got its name two decades ago when Buffett said that the ratio is “probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment.”<blockquote>我猜测巴菲特确实会加倍看空。考虑一下股市总市值与美国国内生产总值的比率--所谓的巴菲特指标--所讲述的故事。二十年前，巴菲特说，该比率 “可能是衡量任何特定时刻估值状况的最佳单一指标”，因此得名。</blockquote> This ratio is now higher (and therefore more bearish) than at any other time in U.S. market history, higher even than where it stood at the top of the late 1990s internet bubble — as you can see from the chart below.<blockquote>这一比率现在高于美国市场历史上的任何其他时期（因此也更加悲观），甚至高于 20 世纪 90 年代末互联网泡沫顶峰时的水平——如下图所示。</blockquote> <img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/588c144cbfb44b59031247a976215db3\" tg-width=\"1260\" tg-height=\"849\"><blockquote></blockquote> How big of a role has luck played?<blockquote>运气起了多大的作用？</blockquote> Another big question as you decide whether to continue giving Buffett the benefit of the doubt: Could mere bad luck account for Berkshire’s market-lagging return? That’s an especially important question to ask, since the stock’s long-term record is nothing short of outstanding — even taking the past 15 years into account. Since 1965, Berkshire stock has outperformed the S&amp;P 500 on a dividend-adjusted basis by the annualized margin of 20.1% to 10.2%. I’m aware of no other investor alive today who has come even close to doing as well as Buffett over this 56-year period.<blockquote>当你决定是否继续给予巴菲特无罪时，另一个大问题是：仅仅运气不好就能解释伯克希尔的回报落后于市场吗？这是一个特别重要的问题，因为即使考虑到过去 15 年，该股的长期记录也是出色的。自 1965 年以来，在股息调整后，伯克希尔股票的年化利润率为 20.1% 至 10.2%，优于标普500。据我所知，在这 56 年的时间里，没有其他投资者能像巴菲特一样做得如此出色。</blockquote> To calculate the role luck may have played in performance, I conducted the following Monte Carlo simulation: What if, in each of the next 15 calendar years, Buffett’s alpha (return relative to the S&amp;P 500) would be picked at random from his actual alphas over the past 56 years? And what if this experiment was run 10,000 times?<blockquote>为了计算运气在业绩中可能发挥的作用，我进行了以下蒙特卡罗模拟： 如果在未来 15 个日历年中，巴菲特的阿尔法（相对于标普500的回报率）是从他过去 56 年的实际阿尔法中随机选取的，会怎么样？如果这个实验运行10,000次呢？</blockquote> To put what I found in perspective, consider that Berkshire in fact has had negative alpha in five of the past 15 years. In 24.4% of my simulations, the company’s stock had negative alpha in at least that many years. One-out-of-four odds suggest there is nothing particularly unusual about the number of years in which the company’s stock actually has had negative alpha.<blockquote>为了正确看待我的发现，考虑一下伯克希尔实际上在过去 15 年中有 5 年的 alpha 为负。在我的模拟中，24.4% 的公司股票至少在那么多年里都是负阿尔法。四分之一的概率表明，该公司股票实际出现负阿尔法的年数并没有什么特别不寻常的。</blockquote> To be sure, it was less likely in my simulations for Berkshire to have a negative alpha over the entire 15-year period. But it still did happen — 2% of the time. So it’s possible that Buffett’s negative alpha over the past 15 years is due to nothing more than bad luck.<blockquote>可以肯定的是，在我对伯克希尔哈撒韦的模拟中，在整个 15 年期间出现负 alpha 的可能性较小。但它还是发生了——2%的时间。因此，巴菲特过去 15 年的负阿尔法可能只是运气不好造成的。</blockquote> My vote is to continue to give Buffett the benefit of the doubt. There is no reason to pay less attention to his shareholder letter this year than in any prior year.<blockquote>我的投票是继续给予巴菲特无罪。没有理由比往年更少关注他今年的股东信。</blockquote>\n<div class=\"bt-text\">\n\n\n 来源：<a href=\"https://www.marketwatch.com/story/buffett-indicator-is-alarmingly-bearish-and-this-years-berkshire-shareholder-letter-could-reveal-why-11613780296?mod=home-page\">MarketWatch</a>\n为提升您的阅读体验，我们对本页面进行了排版优化\n\n\n</div>\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯",".SPX":"S&P 500 Index"},"source_url":"https://www.marketwatch.com/story/buffett-indicator-is-alarmingly-bearish-and-this-years-berkshire-shareholder-letter-could-reveal-why-11613780296?mod=home-page","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/599a65733b8245fcf7868668ef9ad712","article_id":"1175924985","content_text":"Berkshire Hathaway’s trailing 15-year return is now below the S&P 500\nShould investors continue to give Warren Buffett the benefit of the doubt?\nThat is the big question for Berkshire Hathaway shareholders as they anticipate Buffett’s annual letter to company shareholders, which is expected to be released on Feb. 27. Berkshire’s annual meeting of shareholders, normally held in Omaha, Neb. but this year remotely, will be another occasion in which Buffett can address this question. The shareholder meeting is scheduled for May 1.\nThis question wouldn’t be so urgent if 2020 — when Berkshire stock lagged the S&P 500 by 16 percentage points — was just an aberration. But it isn’t. The stock lagged the S&P 500 by even more in 2019 (20 percentage points), and is now behind the S&P 500 over the trailing five-, 10- and 15-year periods. Those are long-enough periods to satisfy at least many investors’ definition of the long term.\nI have no idea whether Buffett will address the market-lagging performance of Berkshire stock in his letter or at the company’s annual meeting. My request for comment from the company has gone unanswered. But I would be surprised if he doesn’t address it, and in the rest of this column I want to provide some background information that will help us understand the significance of what he may have to say.\nWill Buffett double down on his bearish stock market outlook?\nPay close attention to whether Buffett doubles down on the bearish posture with which he has approached the stock market in recent years. It’s largely because of that bearishness that Berkshire stock has lagged. At the beginning of last year’s third quarter, for example, the company was sitting on a huge pile of cash — $147 billion, in fact.\nGiven the company’s conservative posture, it wouldn’t take much of a drop in the overall market for Berkshire stock to once again be ahead of the S&P 500 over the trailing 15 years. In fact, I calculate that all it would take would be for the S&P 500 to perform at least 3% worse than the company’s stock, which is quite likely to occur in a bear market. During the 2007-2009 bear market that accompanied the Great Financial Crisis, for example, Berkshire stock beat the S&P 500 by a cumulative 15 percentage points.\nMy guess is that Buffett will indeed double down on his bearishness. Consider the story told by the ratio of the stock market’s total market cap to U.S. GDP — the so-called Buffett Indicator. It got its name two decades ago when Buffett said that the ratio is “probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment.”\nThis ratio is now higher (and therefore more bearish) than at any other time in U.S. market history, higher even than where it stood at the top of the late 1990s internet bubble — as you can see from the chart below.\n\nHow big of a role has luck played?\nAnother big question as you decide whether to continue giving Buffett the benefit of the doubt: Could mere bad luck account for Berkshire’s market-lagging return? That’s an especially important question to ask, since the stock’s long-term record is nothing short of outstanding — even taking the past 15 years into account. Since 1965, Berkshire stock has outperformed the S&P 500 on a dividend-adjusted basis by the annualized margin of 20.1% to 10.2%. I’m aware of no other investor alive today who has come even close to doing as well as Buffett over this 56-year period.\nTo calculate the role luck may have played in performance, I conducted the following Monte Carlo simulation: What if, in each of the next 15 calendar years, Buffett’s alpha (return relative to the S&P 500) would be picked at random from his actual alphas over the past 56 years? And what if this experiment was run 10,000 times?\nTo put what I found in perspective, consider that Berkshire in fact has had negative alpha in five of the past 15 years. In 24.4% of my simulations, the company’s stock had negative alpha in at least that many years. One-out-of-four odds suggest there is nothing particularly unusual about the number of years in which the company’s stock actually has had negative alpha.\nTo be sure, it was less likely in my simulations for Berkshire to have a negative alpha over the entire 15-year period. But it still did happen — 2% of the time. So it’s possible that Buffett’s negative alpha over the past 15 years is due to nothing more than bad luck.\nMy vote is to continue to give Buffett the benefit of the doubt. There is no reason to pay less attention to his shareholder letter this year than in any prior year.","news_type":1,"symbols_score_info":{".IXIC":0.9,".SPX":0.9,".DJI":0.9}},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":746,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"EN","currentLanguage":"EN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":21,"subscribersOnly":false,"subscribersOnlyAccessible":false,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ORIG"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"isTiger":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"url":"/m/post/369583133"}