Frases de Warren Buffett

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“No puedes hacer un buen trato con una mala persona.”

“Las cadenas del hábito son demasiado ligeras para sentirse hasta que son demasiado pesadas para romperse.”

“Si has estado jugando póker durante media hora y aún no sabes quién es el idiota, tú eres el idiota.”

“Cuando combina ignorancia y apalancamiento, obtiene resultados bastante interesantes.”

“El riesgo proviene de no saber lo que estás haciendo.”

“No intente predecir la dirección del mercado de valores, la economía, los tipos de interés o las elecciones.”

“Si no puede ver caer un 50% de su inversión sin pánico, no invierta en el mercado de valores.”

“Nunca cuente con hacer una buena venta.”

“Mientras más absurdo sea el comportamiento del mercado, mejor será la oportunidad para el inversor metódico.”

“Busque compañías con gran capacidad de generación de efectivo y que, una vez en marcha, no necesiten grandes reinversiones.”

“También son interesantes algunas compañías con marcas consolidadas pero que están infravaloradas por dificultades transitorias. Para buscar estas oportunidades, deben aprovecharse los mercados bajistas.”

“Busque empresas con mercados amplios, fuerte imagen de marca y consumidores fieles, como Gillete o Coca Cola.”

“Compre un negocio, no alquile las acciones.”

“Invierta siempre a largo plazo.”

“Céntrese en el retorno de la inversión (no en las ganancias por acción), el nivel de endeudamiento y los márgenes de beneficio.”

“Un inversor necesita hacer muy pocas cosas bien si evita grandes errores. No es necesario hacer algo extraordinario para conseguir resultados excelentes.”

“Gran parte de éxito puede atribuirse a la inactividad. La mayoría de los inversores no resiste la tentación de comprar y vender constantemente, pero la piedra angular debe ser el letargo, bordeando la pereza.”

“El optimismo es el enemigo del comprador racional.”

“Sea temeroso cuando otros son codiciosos y viceversa.”

“Compre compañías con buen historial de beneficios y posición dominante de mercado.”

“La vida es como una bola de nieve. Lo importante es encontrar nieve húmeda y una colina muy larga.”

“Compre un negocio, no alquile acciones.”

“Look for integrity, intelligence and energy.”

“Success in investing doesn't correlate with I. Q. once you're above the level of 25. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.”

“Just because Charlie and I can clearly see dramatic growth ahead for an industry does not mean we can judge what its profit margins and returns on capital will be as a host of competitors battle for supremacy. At Berkshire we will stick with businesses whose profit picture for decades to come seems reasonably predictable. Even then, we will make plenty of mistakes.”

“Our future rates of gain will fall far short of those achieved in the past. Berkshire's capital base is now simply too large to allow us to earn truly outsized returns. If you believe otherwise, you should consider a career in sales but avoid one in mathematics (bearing in mind that there are really only three kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who can't).”

“If I was running $1 million today, or $10 million for that matter, I'd be fully invested. Anyone who says that size does not hurt investment performance is selling. The highest rates of return I've ever achieved were in the 1950s. I killed the Dow. You ought to see the numbers. But I was investing peanuts then. It's a huge structural advantage not to have a lot of money. I think I could make you 50% a year on $1 million. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.”

“Management's objective is to achieve a return on capital over the long term which averages somewhat higher than that of American industry generally — while utilizing sound accounting and debt policies.”

“In a bull market, one must avoid the error of the preening duck that quacks boastfully after a torrential rainstorm, thinking that its paddling skills have caused it to rise in the world. A right-thinking duck would instead compare its position after the downpour to that of the other ducks on the pond.”

“There's a whole bunch of things I don't know a thing about — I just stay away from those. So, I stay within what I call my circle of competence.”

“I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.”

“Love is the greatest advantage a parent can give.”

“We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.”

“Size seems to make many organizations slow-thinking, resistant to change and smug.”

“The strategy we've adopted precludes our following standard diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the strategy must be riskier than that employed by more conventional investors. We disagree. We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it. In stating this opinion, we define risk, using dictionary terms, as "the possibility of loss or injury."”

“People will always try to stop you doing the right thing if it is unconventional.”

“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”

“When returns on capital are ordinary, an earn-more-by-putting-up-more record is no great managerial achievement. You can get the same result personally while operating from your rocking chair. Just quadruple the capital you commit to a savings account and you will quadruple your earnings. You would hardly expect hosannas for that particular accomplishment. Yet, retirement announcements regularly sing the praises of CEOs who have, say, quadrupled earnings of their widget company during their reign — with no one examining whether this gain was attributable simply to many years of retained earnings and the workings of compound interest.”

“I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. … It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty.”

“I've reluctantly discarded the notion of my continuing to manage the portfolio after my death — abandoning my hope to give new meaning to the term "thinking outside the box."”

“Buy a business, don’t rent stocks.”

“More than 99% of my wealth will go to philanthropy during my lifetime or at death. Measured by dollars, this commitment is large. In a comparative sense, though, many individuals give more to others every day.
Millions of people who regularly contribute to churches, schools, and other organizations thereby relinquish the use of funds that would otherwise benefit their own families. The dollars these people drop into a collection plate or give to United Way mean forgone movies, dinners out, or other personal pleasures. In contrast, my family and I will give up nothing we need or want by fulfilling this 99% pledge.
Moreover, this pledge does not leave me contributing the most precious asset, which is time. Many people, including — I’m proud to say — my three children, give extensively of their own time and talents to help others. Gifts of this kind often prove far more valuable than money.”

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.”

“You're dealing with a lot of silly people in the marketplace; it's like a great big casino and everyone else is boozing. If you can stick with Pepsi, you should be O.K.”

“Never bet against the United States of America”

“The greater the potential for reward in the value portfolio, the less risk there is.”

“I'm convinced that there is much inefficiency in the market.”