1997年股东大会 · 巴菲特：什么情况下你需要更大的安全边际 — 文稿

F10:00

对，我叫 Jingting Wang。

Yes, my name is Jingting Wang.

我来自 New Mexico，我是一名股东。

I'm from New Mexico and I'm a shareholder.

我有两个问题。

I have 2 questions.

第一个，在你一九九一年那封信里，你写过，投资者最终还是会重复他们的错误。

First, that in your '91 letter, you wrote that investors eventually repeat their mistakes.

所以，你是怎么让自己不犯同样的错误第二次的？

So what do you do to keep yourself from making the same mistake twice?

第二个问题是，在你一九九二年那封信里，你写过，你会用两种方式来处理未来盈利这个问题。

And the second question is, in your '92 letter, you wrote that you attempt to deal with the problem of future earnings in 2 ways.

第一是你能理解的企业，第二是安全边际。

First is the business you understand and the second is the margin of safety.

你还说，这两者同样重要。

And you said they are equally important.

但是，如果你找不到那种理想的组合，也就是高增长同时又有低 P/E，那么你觉得哪一个更重要？

But if you cannot find the happy combination of faster growth at a low P/E, which one do you think is more important?

更快的增长，还是更低的 P/E？

Faster growth or low P/E?

我的两个问题就是这些。

That's my 2 questions.

M10:55

刚才有某个更高权威告诉了我们，哪一个更重要。

We were told by some higher authority which one was more important there for a second.

嗯，它们，它们，它们是绑在一起的。

Well, they're, they're, they're bound together.

很显然——如果你能完全理解一家企业，呃，理解这家企业的未来，那你对安全边际的要求就会非常少。

I obviously— if you understood a business perfectly, uh, the future of a business, you would need very little in the way of a margin of safety.

所以，一家企业未来的各种可能性波动越大，前提是你仍然想投资它，你需要的安全边际就越大。

So the more volatile the business's possibilities are, assuming you still want to invest in it, the larger the margin of safety.

不过，前提还是你仍然想投资它，那么安全边际就要更大。

But assuming you still want to invest in it, the larger the margin of safety.

我想，在 Graham and Dodd 那本书的第一版里，如果我没记错的话，他举的是 J.I. Case 的例子，说，你知道，它可能值三十美元到一百一十美元之间，或者类似这么个数字。

I think in that first edition of Graham and Dodd, if I remember right, it was a J.I. Case he used and said, you know, maybe it was worth somewhere between $30 and $110 or some number.

他说，嗯，这个，你知道，听起来——你知道它值三十到一百一十美元之间，这对你到底有多大帮助呢？

He said, well, that, you know, that sounds— how much good does that do you to know that it's worth between $30 and $110?

嗯，如果它的成交价低于三十美元，或者高于一百一十美元，那还是有点帮助的。

Well, it does you some good if it's selling below $30 or above $110.

而这就是——你需要很大的安全边际。

And that's— you need a large margin of safety.

如果你开着一辆卡车过桥，桥上写着它能承重一万磅，而你的车重九千八百磅，你知道，如果那座桥离它下面跨过去的裂缝只有大概六英寸高，你可能会觉得还行。

Well, if you're driving a truck across a bridge that says it holds 10,000 pounds and you've got a 9,800-pound vehicle, you know, if the bridge is about 6 inches above the crevice that it covers, you may feel okay.

但如果它是，你知道，架在 Grand Canyon 上面，那你可能就会觉得，最好要更大的安全边际，比如只开一辆四千磅的卡车过去，或者类似这样。

But if it's, you know, over the Grand Canyon, you may feel you want a little larger margin of safety in terms of only driving a 4,000-pound truck or something across.

所以，这取决于底层风险的性质。

So it depends on the nature of the underlying risk.

比如说，我们现在拿不到像一九七三到一九七四年那个时期那样的安全边际。

We don't get the margin of safety now that we got in the 1973-74 period, for example.

最重要的事情就是理解企业。

The biggest thing to do is understand the business.

如果你理解这个企业，而且进入的是那种天生就很少出现意外的企业类型。

If you understand the business and get into the kind of businesses where surprises— by their nature, surprises are few.

而我们认为，我们大体上就在这种类型的企业里。

And we think we're largely in that type of business.