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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":369517541,"tweetId":"369517541","gmtCreate":1614058434483,"gmtModify":1634551353528,"author":{"id":3570519374633708,"idStr":"3570519374633708","authorId":3570519374633708,"authorIdStr":"3570519374633708","name":"nakazatous","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9ac34656b654252df0f82999785e92ae","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":11,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[],"fanSize":16,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body>Like my comment&nbsp;</body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body>Like my comment&nbsp;</body></html>","text":"Like my comment","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":5,"commentSize":2,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://laohu8.com/post/369517541","repostId":1175924985,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1175924985","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1614058173,"share":"https://www.laohu8.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>Berkshire Hathaway过去15年的回报率目前低于标普500</blockquote> Should investors continue to give Warren Buffett the benefit of the doubt?<blockquote>投资者应该继续相信沃伦·巴菲特吗？</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股东来说，这是一个大问题，因为他们预计巴菲特将于2月27日发布致公司股东的年度信。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。但今年将是巴菲特解决这个问题的又一次机会。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——伯克希尔股价落后标普500 16个百分点——只是一个异常，这个问题就不会那么紧迫。但事实并非如此。该股在2019年落后于标普500更多（20个百分点），目前在过去5年、10年和15年期间落后于标普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答复。但如果他不解决这个问题，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前景吗？</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会加倍押注他近年来对待股市的看跌姿态。伯克希尔股票的表现落后很大程度上是因为这种看跌情绪。例如，去年第三季度初，该公司坐拥巨额现金——事实上为1,470亿美元。</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>鉴于伯克希尔的保守姿态，在过去15年里，伯克希尔的股票不需要整体市场大幅下跌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%，这在熊市中很可能发生。例如，在2007-2009年伴随大金融危机的熊市期间，伯克希尔股价累计跑赢标普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>我的猜测是，巴菲特确实会加倍看跌。考虑一下股市总市值与美国GDP的比率——所谓的巴菲特指标——所讲述的故事。二十年前，巴菲特表示，该比率“可能是衡量任何特定时刻估值水平的最佳单一指标”，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>这一比率现在比美国市场历史上的任何其他时期都要高（因此更加看跌），甚至高于20世纪90年代末互联网泡沫顶部的水平——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>当你决定是否继续相信巴菲特时，另一个大问题是：仅仅是运气不好就能解释伯克希尔落后于市场的回报吗？这是一个特别重要的问题，因为即使考虑到过去15年，该股的长期记录也非常出色。自1965年以来，伯克希尔股票在股息调整后的年化收益率为20.1%至10.2%，优于标普500。据我所知，在这56年的时间里，没有其他在世的投资者能比得上巴菲特。</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扮演的角色，我进行了下面的蒙特卡罗模拟：如果在接下来的15个日历年中，巴菲特的阿尔法（相对于标普500的回报率）都是从巴菲特过去56年的实际阿尔法中随机挑选出来的，会怎么样？如果这个实验运行10,000次会怎么样？</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，请考虑一下伯克希尔哈撒韦公司实际上在过去15年中有5年的阿尔法值为负。在我模拟的24.4%中，公司股票至少有这么多年的情况是负阿尔法。四分之一的几率表明，该公司股票实际阿尔法值为负的年份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，在我的模拟中，伯克希尔哈撒韦公司在整个15年期间出现负阿尔法的可能性较小。但它仍然发生了——2%的时间。因此，巴菲特过去15年的负阿尔法可能只不过是运气不好。</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>我的投票是继续假定巴菲特是无辜的。今年没有理由比往年更少关注他的股东信。</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>Berkshire Hathaway过去15年的回报率目前低于标普500</blockquote> Should investors continue to give Warren Buffett the benefit of the doubt?<blockquote>投资者应该继续相信沃伦·巴菲特吗？</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股东来说，这是一个大问题，因为他们预计巴菲特将于2月27日发布致公司股东的年度信。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。但今年将是巴菲特解决这个问题的又一次机会。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——伯克希尔股价落后标普500 16个百分点——只是一个异常，这个问题就不会那么紧迫。但事实并非如此。该股在2019年落后于标普500更多（20个百分点），目前在过去5年、10年和15年期间落后于标普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答复。但如果他不解决这个问题，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前景吗？</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会加倍押注他近年来对待股市的看跌姿态。伯克希尔股票的表现落后很大程度上是因为这种看跌情绪。例如，去年第三季度初，该公司坐拥巨额现金——事实上为1,470亿美元。</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>鉴于伯克希尔的保守姿态，在过去15年里，伯克希尔的股票不需要整体市场大幅下跌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%，这在熊市中很可能发生。例如，在2007-2009年伴随大金融危机的熊市期间，伯克希尔股价累计跑赢标普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>我的猜测是，巴菲特确实会加倍看跌。考虑一下股市总市值与美国GDP的比率——所谓的巴菲特指标——所讲述的故事。二十年前，巴菲特表示，该比率“可能是衡量任何特定时刻估值水平的最佳单一指标”，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>这一比率现在比美国市场历史上的任何其他时期都要高（因此更加看跌），甚至高于20世纪90年代末互联网泡沫顶部的水平——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>当你决定是否继续相信巴菲特时，另一个大问题是：仅仅是运气不好就能解释伯克希尔落后于市场的回报吗？这是一个特别重要的问题，因为即使考虑到过去15年，该股的长期记录也非常出色。自1965年以来，伯克希尔股票在股息调整后的年化收益率为20.1%至10.2%，优于标普500。据我所知，在这56年的时间里，没有其他在世的投资者能比得上巴菲特。</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扮演的角色，我进行了下面的蒙特卡罗模拟：如果在接下来的15个日历年中，巴菲特的阿尔法（相对于标普500的回报率）都是从巴菲特过去56年的实际阿尔法中随机挑选出来的，会怎么样？如果这个实验运行10,000次会怎么样？</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，请考虑一下伯克希尔哈撒韦公司实际上在过去15年中有5年的阿尔法值为负。在我模拟的24.4%中，公司股票至少有这么多年的情况是负阿尔法。四分之一的几率表明，该公司股票实际阿尔法值为负的年份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，在我的模拟中，伯克希尔哈撒韦公司在整个15年期间出现负阿尔法的可能性较小。但它仍然发生了——2%的时间。因此，巴菲特过去15年的负阿尔法可能只不过是运气不好。</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>我的投票是继续假定巴菲特是无辜的。今年没有理由比往年更少关注他的股东信。</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":{".DJI":"道琼斯",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".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":266,"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":13,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ORIG"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"isTiger":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"url":"/m/post/369517541"}