imagine a CEO using this line to urge his board to sell a star
subsidiary? In our view, what makes sense in business also makes
sense in stocks: An investor should ordinarily hold a small piece
of an outstanding business with the same tenacity that an owner
would exhibit if he owned all of that business.
有趣的是企业经理人在认定何者才是自己本业时，从来就不会搞不清楚情况，母
公司是不会单纯因为价格因素就将自己旗下最优秀的子公司给卖掉，公司总裁一
定会问，为什么要把我皇冠上的珠宝给变卖掉，不过当场景转换到其个人的投资
组合时，他却又会毫不犹豫地，甚至是情急地从这家公司换到另一家公司，靠的
不过是股票经纪人肤浅的几句话语，其中最烂的一句当属，你不会因为获利而破
产，你能想象要是一家公司的总裁用类似的方式建议董事会将最有潜力的子公司
给卖掉时，就我个人的观点，适用于企业经营的原则也同样适用于股票投资，投
资人在持有一家公司的股票所展现的韧性应当与一家公司的老板持有公司全部
的股权一样。
Earlier I mentioned the financial results that could have been
achieved by investing $40 in The Coca-Cola Co. in 1919. In 1938,
more than 50 years after the introduction of Coke, and long after
the drink was firmly established as an American icon, Fortune did
an excellent story on the company. In the second paragraph the
writer reported: "Several times every year a weighty and serious
investor looks long and with profound respect at Coca-Cola's
record, but comes regretfully to the conclusion that he is looking
too late. The specters of saturation and competition rise before
him."
先前我曾经提到若是在1919年以40美元投资可口可乐会获得怎样的成果，
1938年在可乐问世达50年且早已成为代表美国的产品之后，财富杂志对该公
司做了一次详尽的专访，在文章的第二段作者写到：每年都会有许多重量型的投
资人看好可口可乐，并对于其过去的辉煌记录表示敬意，但也都做下自己太晚发
现的结论，认为该公司已达巅峰，前方的道路充满了竞争与挑战。
Yes, competition there was in 1938 and in 1993 as well. But
it's worth noting that in 1938 The Coca-Cola Co. sold 207 million
cases of soft drinks (if its gallonage then is converted into the
192-ounce cases used for measurement today) and in 1993 it sold
about 10.7 billion cases, a 50-fold increase in physical volume
from a company that in 1938 was already dominant in its very major
industry. Nor was the party over in 1938 for an investor: Though
the $40 invested in 1919 in one share had (with dividends
reinvested) turned into $3,277 by the end of 1938, a fresh $40 then
invested in Coca-Cola stock would have grown to $25,000 by yearend
1993.
没错，1938年确实充满了竞争，而1993年也是，不过值得注意的是1938年
可口可乐一年总共卖出二亿箱的饮料(若是将当时加仑装改成现在192盎斯的箱
子)，但是到了1993年该公司一年卖出饮料高达107亿箱，对这家当时已经成
为市场领导者的公司，在后来将近50的期间总共又成长了50倍，对于1938
年加入的投资者来说，Party根本还没有结束，虽然在1919年投资40美元在
可口可乐股票的投资人(含将所收到的股利再投资)，到了1938年可获得3,277
美元，但是若是在1938年重新以40美元投资可口可乐股票，时至1993年底，
还是照样可以成长到25,000美元。
I can't resist one more quote from that 1938 Fortune story:
"It would be hard to name any company comparable in size to Coca-
Cola and selling, as Coca-Cola does, an unchanged product that can
point to a ten-year record anything like Coca-Cola's." In the 55
years that have since passed, Coke's product line has broadened
somewhat, but it's remarkable how well that description still fits.
我忍不住想要在引用1938年财富杂志的报导，「实在是很难在找到像可口可乐
这样规模而且又能持续十年保持不变的产品内容」，如今又过了55个年头，可
口可乐的产品线虽然变得更广泛，但令人印象深刻的是这种形容词还依旧适用。
Charlie and I decided long ago that in an investment lifetime
it's just too hard to make hundreds of smart decisions. That
judgment became ever more compelling as Berkshire's capital
mushroomed and the universe of investments that could significantly
affect our results shrank dramatically. Therefore, we adopted a
strategy that required our being smart - and not too smart at that
- only a very few times. Indeed, we'll now settle for one good
idea a year. (Charlie says it's my turn.)
查理跟我老早以前便明了要一个人的投资生涯中，做出上百个小一点投资决策是
件很辛苦的一件事，这种想法随着Berkshire资金规模日益扩大而益形明显，而
放眼投资世界中，可以大幅影响本公司投资成效的机会已越来越少，因此我们决
定采取一种只要求自己在少数的时候够聪明就好，而不是每回都要非常的聪明，
所以我们现在只要求每年出现一次好的投资主意就可以了，(查理提醒我今年该
轮到我)。
The strategy we've adopted precludes our following standard
diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the
strategy must be riskier than that employed by more conventional
investors. We disagree. We believe that a policy of portfolio
concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should,
both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business
and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics
before buying into it. In stating this opinion, we define risk,
using dictionary terms, as "the possibility of loss or injury."
我们采取的这种策略排除了依照普通分散风险的教条，许多学者便会言之凿凿说
我们这种策略比起一般传统的投资风险要高的许多，这点我们不敢苟同，我们相
信集中持股的做法同样可以大幅降低风险，只要投资人在买进股份之前，能够加
强本身对于企业的认知以及对于竞争能力熟悉的程度，在这里我们将风险定义，
与一般字典里的一样，系指损失或受伤的可能性。
Academics, however, like to define investment "risk"
differently, averring that it is the relative volatility of a stock
or portfolio of stocks - that is, their volatility as compared to
that of a large universe of stocks. Employing data bases and
statistical skills, these academics compute with precision the
"beta" of a stock - its relative volatility in the past - and then
build arcane investment and capital-allocation theories around this
calculation. In their hunger for a single statistic to measure
risk, however, they forget a fundamental principle: It is better
to be approximately right than precisely wrong.
然而在学术界，却喜欢将投资的风险给予不同的定义，坚持把它当作是股票价格
相对波动的程度，也就是个别投资相较于全体投资波动的幅度，运用数据库与统
计方法，这些学者能够计算出一只股票"精确"的Beta值，代表其过去相对波动
的幅度，然后根据这项公式建立一套晦涩难解的投资与资金分配理论，为了渴望
找出可以衡量风险的单一统计值，但他们却忘了一项基本的原则，宁愿大概对，
也不要完全错。
For owners of a business - and that's the way we think of
shareholders - the academics' definition of risk is far off the
mark, so much so that it produces absurdities. For example, under
beta-based theory, a stock that has dropped very sharply compared
to the market - as had Washington Post when we bought it in 1973 -
becomes "riskier" at the lower price than it was at the higher
price. Would that description have then made any sense to someone
who was offered the entire company at a vastly-reduced price?
对于企业的所有权人来说，这是我们认为公司股东应该有的想法，学术界对于风
险的定义实在是有点离谱，甚至于有点荒谬，举例来说，根据Beta理论，若是
有一种股票的价格相对于大盘下跌的幅度更高，就像是我们在1973年买进华盛
顿邮报股份时一样，那么其风险远比原来高股价时还要更高，那么要是哪天有人
愿意以极低的价格把整家公司卖给你时，你是否也会认为这样的风险太高，而予
以拒绝呢?
In fact, the true investor welcomes volatility. Ben Graham
explained why in Chapter 8 of The Intelligent Investor. There he
introduced "Mr. Market," an obliging fellow who shows up every day
to either buy from you or sell to you, whichever you wish. The
more manic-depressive this chap is, the greater the opportunities
available to the investor. That's true because a wildly
fluctuating market means that irrationally low prices will
periodically be attached to solid businesses. It is impossible to
see how the availability of such prices can be thought of as
increasing the hazards for an investor who is totally free to
either ignore the market or exploit its folly.
事实上，真正的投资人喜欢波动都还来不及，班哲明．葛拉汉在智能型投资人一
