Investing tips from Warren Buffett, when he was worth only $500 million

0
238


Much has changed in the investing landscape over the past 33 years, but one thing hasn’t: Warren Buffett’s approach to navigating it.

Look no further than an interview from way back in 1985 with George Goodman, the late host of “Adam Smith’s Money World” on PBS (h/t/ Columbia business professor Michael Mauboussin).

Goodman, who hosted the show under his pseudonym, started by saying “if you’d had put $10,000 in Berkshire Hathaway












BRK.A, -0.62%











BRK.B, -0.61%










  in 1965, you’d have $1 million today.” Safe to say, you’d have a lot more if you kept holding.

From there, Buffett dispensed some of the wisdom that has helped him grow his net worth of $500 million at the time to today’s $80 billion.

Watch the interview:


He may have looked a lot younger, but his message hasn’t aged a bit. Here are a few of the nuggets from the chat:

“The first rule of investment is don’t lose. And the second rule of investment is don’t forget the first rule. And that’s all the rules there are.”

“If you buy things for far below what they’re worth, and you buy a group of them, you basically don’t lose money.”

“It’s a temperamental quality, not an intellectual quality [that makes for a good investment manager]. You don’t need tons of IQ in this business.”

“I would rather value a stock or a business first and not even know the price so that I’m not influenced by the price in establishing my valuation.”

“If I were on Wall Street I’d probably be a lot poorer. You get overstimulated on Wall Street. You may shorten your focus and a short focus is not conducive to long profits. The less static there is… the better off you are.”

“[My approach] would bore most people, and, certainly, boredom is a problem with most professional money managers.”

If you’ve been following Buffett’s career, most of that has to sound familiar — a testament to the Oracle’s consistency over the years.

Of note, here’s footage from an even younger Buffett in an interview on KMTV in Omaha, but there are some doubts as to whether this segment aired:






Source : MTV