Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is arguably the world’s most well-known investor. Even as a child, the legend was a stock market enthusiast. He even started investing in equities when he was a kid. There are only five billionaires in the world, and Warren Buffett is one of them. Berkshire Hathaway is his company’s CEO and largest shareholder. The company helped the millionaire become a billionaire on multiple occasions. Apple Inc. now has Berkshire Hathaway’s largest holding. Since 2016, the fund has been steadily increasing its holdings, and it now owns more than $100 billion in stock. Buffett is a long-term value investor who prefers to hold his investments. Buffett has given his stockholders an annualized return of about 20.5 percent throughout his 54 years at the top of the investment game.
Insider Monkey takes a look at some of the best quotes from Warren Buffett over the past many years.
- “Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years”
You must be really focused on your thinking and investment motivations.
- “Success in investing doesn’t correlate with IQ. What you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.”
Controlling those urges and investing with your thinking is what distinguishes great investors from the rest.
- “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”
Things may appear to be going well for a firm, but if it is overvalued, it may suddenly find itself entirely exposed when unforeseen circumstances arise.
- “Predicting rain doesn’t count, building the ark does.”
Predicting an occurrence isn’t important; what matters is taking action to control the occurrence after it occurs.
- “Too-big-to-fail is not a fallback position at Berkshire. Instead, we will always arrange our affairs so that any requirements for cash we may conceivably have will be dwarfed by our own liquidity.”
The federal government bailed out many banks in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession for billions of dollars, and Buffett does not want Berkshire Hathaway to incur the same fate.
- “The one thing I will tell you is the worst investment you can have is cash. Everybody is talking about cash being king and all that sort of thing. Cash is going to become worthless over time. But good businesses are going to become worth more over time.”
The value of currency declines as inflation happens, which is why it is critical to invest the money you have.
- 24. “Never invest in a business you cannot understand.”
This is why Warren Buffett avoids investing in IT and biotech companies because he prefers to invest in firms that he understands. Get more quotes, click 30 Best Quotes from Warren Buffett.
