Born on Aug. 30, 1930, Warren Buffett's got 94 years' worth of life experience -- and 83 years worth of investment experience, given the "Oracle of Omaha" bought his first stock aged 11, according to biographer Roger Lowenstein.
Buffett, one of the world's most accomplished investors, is most known for making hundreds of billions of dollars buying shares in what he believes to be undervalued companies, and holding them for a long time. His investment company Berkshire Hathaway, which he took control over in 1965, became only the ninth company in history to close at a market valuation above $1 trillion on Wednesday.
When Buffett bought the stock in the 1960s, it traded at around $8 a share. As of July this year, its Class A shares -- which have never undergone a stock split -- traded at more than $620,000 a piece.
When it comes to creating value the Oracle of Omaha has some experience heading up Berkshire over the past six decades. Barron's has identified five top Buffett investment strategies to mark the billionaire's birthday.
1. Losing Is Just a Part of Winning.
Nobody gets to 94 without taking their fair share of L's. But one of the defining features of Buffett's career has been his ability to roll with the punches and move on from mistakes.
Berkshire has made several blunders in recent years -- it ditched its entire stake in General Motors in late 2023 to call time on a disappointing investment, and appeared to have timed its second-quarter sale of Apple stock badly, with the iPhone maker's shares up nearly 20% over the past three months.
But Buffett's biggest-ever wins -- think Geico, or American Express, or Coca-Cola -- have massively outweighed those losses. Berkshire's Class A shares are up 17% on an annualized basis over the past 40 years, compared with an 11% gain for the benchmark S&P 500 index over the same period.
It's a reminder that to make significant wealth investing, you often only have to be right a little more than 50% of the time.
2. Cash Isn't King -- But Don't Be Afraid Of It.
In the past, Buffett hasn't been afraid to criticize the idea that holding cold hard cash is a viable investment strategy.
"When people talk about cash being king, it's not king if it just sits there and never does anything," he said in a 2008 interview with Charlie Rose on PBS.
But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to just invest for the sake of it -- by blindly buying stocks or other assets you're not totally happy with.
Buffett himself has shown that sometimes it's OK to sit out periods of market turbulence -- this year is a good example. Berkshire is currently sitting on a record cash pile of nearly $200 billion. "I don't think anybody sitting at this table has any idea of how to use it effectively, and therefore we don't use it," he said at the company's annual shareholder meeting Saturday.
3. It's OK to Change Your Mind.
While Buffett does praise owning stocks for a long time, he's also an advocate for changing tactics when a situation calls for it. For example, he's historically railed against investment banks and not been overly keen to invest in them. But he then bailed out Bank of America, buying $5 billion worth of preferred stock in the then-ailing banking giant in 2011. As of late, he's been offloading BofA shares again.
He also changed his mind about Apple and sold over 50% of his stake in the company this year (just before Berkshire hit the $1 trillion market value mark).
4. Buy Businesses, Not CEOs.
Here's another pearl of wisdom. Buffett thinks "You should invest in a business that even a fool can run, because someday a fool will."
The accomplished investor won't buy stocks that are reliant on excellent managers to succeed -- and believes that even a great CEO can't resurrect a business with poor fundamentals.
It's a lesson that feels extra important today, when some megacap companies' bosses -- think would-be cage fighter Mark Zuckerberg, or leather jacket lover Jensen Huang -- have become celebrities in their own right.
Lots of investors see buying Tesla shares as a means to invest in the electric car maker's boss Elon Musk -- but Buffett would probably tell them to focus on the company's fundamentals, instead.
5. Don't Buy Art Like the Mona Lisa, Invest Instead.
The quote by Buffett from 1996 "if you aren't willing to hold a stock for 10 years, don't even think about holding it for 10 minutes" sheds some light on another life lesson. It speaks to the power of compound interest.
He calls it his "Mona Lisa" whereby he uses the famous painting to show that if French King Francis, instead of buying the portrait for 4,000 gold crowns ($20,000) in the 16th century, had invested the amount with a modest 6% annual return rate instead, France's coffers would have been $1 quadrillion richer by 1963. That's 3,000 times the country's national debt.
The Mona Lisa, meanwhile, was insured at "only" $100 million in 1962.
The "Psychology of Money" author Morgan Housel noted that Buffett has made most of his money since his 60s, mainly due to the simple math of compound investing.
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