1997年股东大会 · 巴菲特：我为何选择无风险收益率来折现 — 文稿

M10:00

第二个问题，算是回到你在七十年代后期写给 Fortune Magazine 的一篇文章，讲的是通货膨胀对股票价值之类那些东西的影响。

And the second question is, it kind of goes back to an article you wrote for Fortune Magazine back in the late '70s about the effect of inflation on equity values and that sort of thing.

你在那篇文章里主张，股票——还有企业——其实都很像债券。

And in it, you asserted that stocks were— and businesses were really like bonds.

只不过它们各自有自己的票面值。

They just had their own par.

而这个票面值，指的是公司平均下来的百分之十二净资产收益率。

And the par being the average 12% return on equity that companies have averaged.

你知道，一家公司如果做得比这个更好，它的资产价值就会远远高于一美元只值一美元面值那种水平。

You know, a company that does better than that has assets that are worth way more than 100 cents on the dollar.

如果一家公司做得更差，那价值相应就会更低。

A company does less, you know, will be less correspondingly.

对。

Yes.

我的问题是，当你把一家公司的现金流预测出来，作为一项潜在投资来评估的时候，为什么你会用当前这种无风险的 Treasury bills 利率来做折现呢？

My question is, when you're projecting cash flows of a company as a prospective investment, why would you use the going interest rate, you know, of risk-free Treasury bills?

为什么不用某种机会成本来折现，就像 Charlie 刚才提到的那种？

Why wouldn't you use the sort of opportunity cost to discount it that maybe Charlie was referring to?

比如说，普通公司平均百分之十二的净资产收益率，或者你们百分之十五的目标回报，或者拿 Coca-Cola 的净资产收益率来做比较。

Maybe 12% return on equity of average corporations, maybe, you know, your 15% goal, maybe Coca-Cola's return on equity as a comparison.

我的意思是，用那样的方法，会显著改变你正在评估的这家公司的价值，这一点你肯定也知道。

I mean, doing that would dramatically change the value of the company that you're, that you're, you know, evaluating, as I'm sure you know.

所以我的问题就是，为什么要用无风险利率？

Why would you use the risk-free rate is my question.

M21:10

无风险利率只是用来把一项东西和另一项东西放到同一个尺度上比较。

The risk-free rate is used merely to equate one item to another.

换句话说，我们要找的是最有吸引力的那个。

In other words, we're looking for whatever is the most attractive.

但是在给任何东西做现值计算的时候，我们总得——总得用一个数字。

But in, in terms of present valuing anything, we've got it— we're going to use a number.

而且很明显，我们随时都可以买 government bonds，所以那个就成了基准利率。

And, and obviously we can always buy the government bonds, so that, that becomes the yardstick rate.

这并不意味着我们想买 government bonds。

It doesn't mean we want to buy government bonds.

也不意味着，如果我们能找到的最好东西，算出来的现值只是比 government bond 每年高零点五个百分点，我们就会去买 government bonds。

It doesn't mean we want to buy government bonds if the best thing we can find is only— has a present value that works out at 0.5% a year better than the government bond.

但在我们看来，把它作为一个合适的标尺，去横向比较各种投资机会——油井、农场，不管是什么——这是合适的。

But it's the appropriate yardstick, in our view, to simply use to compare across all kinds of investment opportunities— oil wells, farms, whatever it may be.

当然，这里面还会涉及确定性的程度，不过——不过它——它就是那个标尺利率。

Uh, now it gets into degree of certainty too, but that— but it, it is— it's the yardstick rate.

这不是因为我们想买 government bonds，而是因为它确实能让整个估值过程里一直有一个固定不变的基准。

It's not, it's not because we want to buy government, government bonds, but it does, it does serve to make that a constant throughout the valuation process.