M10:00
我是来自 Minnesota 州 North Oaks 的 Tom Nelson。
I'm Tom Nelson from North Oaks, Minnesota.
你对非法的 naked short selling 这个问题怎么看？
What are your thoughts on the issue of illegal naked short selling?
这个嘛，你也知道，我——你可能也知道，我有个朋友在这个问题上一直说得挺直白的。就我们自己的立场来说，任何人做空 Berkshire，我们都完全不反对。
Well, as you know, I— you may know I have a friend that's been fairly outspoken on that, and we, from our standpoint, we have no objection to anybody selling Berkshire short at all.
做空的人越多越好，因为他们以后总得把股票买回去。
The more shorts, the better, because they have to buy the stock later on.
而且我们有些股东还可能通过出借股票赚点钱。
And some of our shareholders may make some money lending.
Charlie 和我自己不能这么做，不过如果法律允许的话，没有什么会比把我的股票借给做空的人、让他们为此付我一点费用，更让我高兴的了。
We can't— Charlie and I can't do it, but there's nothing I would love better, if it were legal, than to lend my stock to shorts and have them pay me something for doing it.
当然，在某些情况下，我可能还想先把钱预收了。
I might want to get prepaid in certain cases.
在我看来，卖空这件事本身并没有什么邪恶之处。
There's nothing evil per se about, in my view, about selling things short.
不过我要说，靠这个谋生是非常、非常难的一条路。
I would say that it's a very, very tough way to make a living.
它不光在财务上经常很痛苦，在情绪上也非常折磨人。因为一只你二十块买入的股票，最多也就是跌二十个点；但一只你在二十块做空的股票，却可能无限地往上涨。
It's not only often painful financially, it's very painful emotionally because a stock that you sell short— a stock that you buy at 20 can go down 20 points, and a stock that you sell short at 20 can go up an infinite amount.
你平时不会去想这个，直到你真的做空了，它又涨了十个点、十五个点，那时候你晚上就睡不好觉了。
And you don't think about that until you've gone short and it goes up about 10 or 15 points, and then you don't sleep very well.
所以说，靠这个讨生活，真的是非常艰难。
So it's a, it's a very tough way to make a living.
做空这一边，确实有些人会做一些事，试图把股价压下去，其中有些做法是合适的，有些则不合适。
There are people on the short side that have done and that do things to try to make stocks go down, some of which are appropriate and some of which are inappropriate.
做多那一边也有人干过同样的事——同样性质的事情两边都会发生。
There are people on the long side that have done the same exact— the same sort of things go on.
所以我不觉得——我对 short sellers 一点都没有成见，也完全不是在针对他们。
So I don't see any— I, I have no, no axe to grind in the least against, against short sellers.
至于他们说的 naked shorting，你——这个意思就是说，你并没有先把可供借入的股票安排好，这样就可能会出现一大堆 fails to deliver 之类的问题。
And in terms of what they call naked shorting, which you— which means that you, you don't have the stock lined up to be borrowed, then maybe you have a whole bunch of fails to deliver and that sort of thing.
但我对这个——我也没有什么特别大的意见。
I don't have— I don't, I don't have a great, a great problem with that.
如果有人想拿 Berkshire 这么干，尽管来，我完全支持他们去试。
If anybody wants to do that with Berkshire, you know, they— more power to them.
那些空头仓位特别巨大的情况，很多时候——而且是很多很多时候——后来都被证明是诈骗，或者半诈骗。
Short sellers— the situations in which there have been huge short interests very often, very often have been later revealed to be frauds or semi-frauds.
当然，我那位朋友经营的那个完全不是。
Now, the one my friend runs is not at all.
不过从命中率来看——我是说，这些年来，我大概想过一百个应该被做空的标的，而且我会说，几乎每一个后来都证明我是对的。
But the batting average— I mean, I've, over the years, I probably had 100 ideas of things that should be shorted, and I would say that almost every one of them have turned out to be correct.
但我敢打赌，如果我真的去做、想靠这个赚钱，我很可能反而会亏钱。
And I'll bet if I'd tried to do it and make money out of it, I probably would have lost money.
我不仅不会从中得到任何乐趣，而且机会成本会像 Charlie 说的那样，大得惊人。因为如果有人在运作某种半诈骗的东西，那他们多半很擅长这个，他们是全职在干这个，而且已经成功运作了一阵子，也可能还会继续成功下去。
I would have had no fun, and the opportunity cost, as Charlie said, would have been enormous because if somebody's running something that's semi-fraudulent, they're probably pretty good at it, and they're working full-time at it, and they've succeeded for a while, and they may keep succeeding.
如果他们继续成功，而你在 X 的价位做空，结果它涨到五倍的 X，那你过一阵子能盼的，也不过就是它再跌回 X，或者差不多那样。
And if they succeed and you go in at X and it goes to 5X, you know, all you're hoping after a while is that it goes back to X again or something of the sort.
这真的是一种在心理上非常难玩的游戏。
It's a, it's a very tough psychological game to play.
也许有少数人天生就适合干这个。
A few people may be well suited for it.
我自己绝不会把钱交给一个 short fund 去管理，但不是因为我觉得那在道德上有问题。
I would never put any money with a short fund, but not because I would think it would be ethically wrong.
我只是觉得，他们不太可能赚到钱。
I just think that they're unlikely to make money.
Charlie，你对 short selling 或者 naked short selling 有什么看法吗？
Charlie, do you have any thoughts on short selling or naked short selling?