书的第八章便有所解释，他引用了市场先生理论，市场先生每天都会出现在你面 .8
我们分别在1967年买进国家产险公司、1972年买下喜斯糖果、1977年买下
水牛城日报、1983年买下内布拉斯加家具店、1986年买下史考特飞兹，而我
们都是趁它们难得求售时才得以买进，当然也因为它们的开价我们认为可以接
受，当初在评估每个案子时，我们关心的不是道琼指数的走势、联准会的动向或
是总体经济的发展，而是这些公司本身未来的前景；而如果我们觉得这样的方式
适用于买下整家公司的话，那么每当我们决定要透过股市买进一些好公司部份的
股权时，为什么就必须采取不一样的做法呢?
Before looking at new investments, we consider adding to old
ones. If a business is attractive enough to buy once, it may well
pay to repeat the process. We would love to increase our economic
interest in See's or Scott Fetzer, but we haven't found a way to
add to a 100% holding. In the stock market, however, an investor
frequently gets the chance to increase his economic interest in
businesses he knows and likes. Last year we went that direction by
enlarging our holdings in Coca-Cola and American Express.
在寻找新的投资标的之前，我们选择先增加旧有投资的部位，如果一家企业曾经
好到让我们愿意买进，我想再重复一次这样的程序应该也是相当不错的，若是能
够我们很愿意再增加在喜斯糖果或是史考特飞兹的持股，但要增加到100%的比
例实在是有困难，不过在股票市场中，投资人常常有很多的机会可以增加他有兴
趣的公司持股，像是去年我们就扩大了我们在可口可乐与美国运通的持股数。
Our history with American Express goes way back and, in fact,
fits the pattern of my pulling current investment decisions out of
past associations. In 1951, for example, GEICO shares comprised
70% of my personal portfolio and GEICO was also the first stock I
sold - I was then 20 - as a security salesman (the sale was 100
shares to my Aunt Alice who, bless her, would have bought anything
I suggested). Twenty-five years later, Berkshire purchased a major
stake in GEICO at the time it was threatened with insolvency. In
another instance, that of the Washington Post, about half of my
initial investment funds came from delivering the paper in the
1940's. Three decades later Berkshire purchased a large position
in the company two years after it went public. As for Coca-Cola,
my first business venture - this was in the 1930's - was buying a
six-pack of Coke for 25 cents and selling each bottle for 5 cents.
It took only fifty years before I finally got it: The real money
was in the syrup.
我们投资美国运通的历史可以追溯到相当早的时期，而事实上也符合个人过去的
经验，举个例子在1951年，当时我还是年仅二十岁的股票业务员，GEICO保
险占我个人投资组合的70%，同时它也是我第一次卖掉的股票，我将100股的
GEICO股份卖给我的阿姨Alice，基本上只要是我建议的她都照单全收，二十五
年后，趁着该公司面临倒闭的危机，Berkshire买下GEICO一大部分的股份，
另一个例子就是华盛顿邮报，1940年代，我的第一笔投资资金有一半是来自发
送该报的收入，三十年后，Berkshire趁该公司上市两年后的股价低档买下一大
部分的股权，至于可口可乐，可以算得上是我生平从事的第一笔商业交易，1930
年当我还是个小孩子的时候，我花了25美元买了半打的可乐，然后再以每罐5
美分分售出去，而直到五十年后，我才终于搞懂真正有赚头的还是那糖水。
My American Express history includes a couple of episodes: In
the mid-1960's, just after the stock was battered by the company's
infamous salad-oil scandal, we put about 40% of Buffett Partnership
Ltd.'s capital into the stock - the largest investment the
partnership had ever made. I should add that this commitment gave
us over 5% ownership in Amex at a cost of $13 million. As I write
this, we own just under 10%, which has cost us $1.36 billion.
(Amex earned $12.5 million in 1964 and $1.4 billion in 1994.)
我个人在美国运通的投资历史包含好几段插曲，在1960年代中期，趁着该公司
为色拉油丑闻所苦时，我们将巴菲特合伙企业40%的资金压在这只股票上，这
是合伙企业有史以来最大的一笔投资，总计花了1,300万美元买进该公司5%的
股份，时至今日，我们在美国运通的持股将近10%，但帐列成本却高达13.6亿
美元，(美国运通1964年的获利为1,250万美元，1994年则增加至14亿美
元)。
My history with Amex's IDS unit, which today contributes about
a third of the earnings of the company, goes back even further. I
first purchased stock in IDS in 1953 when it was growing rapidly
and selling at a price-earnings ratio of only 3. (There was a lot
of low-hanging fruit in those days.) I even produced a long report
- do I ever write a short one? - on the company that I sold for $1
through an ad in the Wall Street Journal.
我对美国运通IDS部门的投资可以追溯更早，该部门目前占公司整体获利来源的
三分之一，我在1953年第一次买进成长快速的IDS股份，当时的本益比只有三
倍(在那个年代，结实累累的果子垂手可得)，为此我甚至还特别写了一篇长篇报
告(不过印象中我好象没有写过短的)，并在华尔街日报刊登广告，以一美元对外
公开销售。
Obviously American Express and IDS (recently renamed American
Express Financial Advisors) are far different operations today from
what they were then. Nevertheless, I find that a long-term
familiarity with a company and its products is often helpful in
evaluating it.
当然很显然的美国运通与IDS(最近已更名为美国运通财务顾问)今日的营运模式
与过去已有很大的不同，但是我还是发现对于该公司与其提供的产品内容长久以
来的熟悉度，仍然有助于我们的评估。
Mistake Du Jour
新鲜出炉的错误
Mistakes occur at the time of decision. We can only make our
mistake-du-jour award, however, when the foolishness of the
decision become obvious. By this measure, 1994 was a vintage year
with keen competition for the gold medal. Here, I would like to
tell you that the mistakes I will describe originated with Charlie.
But whenever I try to explain things that way, my nose begins to
grow.
错误通常在做决策时就已经造成，不过我们只能将新鲜错误奖颁给那些很明显的
愚蠢决策，照这种标准，1994年可算是竞争相当激烈的一年，在这里我必须特
别指出以下大部分的错误都是查理造成的，不过每当我这样说时，我的鼻子就会
跟着开始变长。
And the nominees are . . .
获得提名的有. . .
Late in 1993 I sold 10 million shares of Cap Cities at $63; at
year-end 1994, the price was $85.25. (The difference is $222.5
million for those of you who wish to avoid the pain of calculating
the damage yourself.) When we purchased the stock at $17.25 in
1986, I told you that I had previously sold our Cap Cities holdings
at $4.30 per share during 1978-80, and added that I was at a loss
to explain my earlier behavior. Now I've become a repeat offender.
Maybe it's time to get a guardian appointed.
1993年底，我将1,000万股资本城股份以每股63美元卖出，不幸的是到了
1994年底，该公司股价变成85.25美元，(我可以直接告诉各位我们损失了
2.225亿美元的差价，如果你心痛到不愿去算的话)；而当我们在1986年以每
股17.25美元买进该公司股份时，就曾经向各位报告，在更早之前，也就是在
1978年到1980年间，我就曾经以每股4.3美元卖掉该公司股份，并强调对于
个人这样的行为感到心痛，没想到现在我却又明知故犯，看起来我似乎应该要找
个监护人来好好监管一下。
Egregious as it is, the Cap Cities decision earns only a
silver medal. Top honors go to a mistake I made five years ago
that fully ripened in 1994: Our $358 million purchase of USAir
preferred stock, on which the dividend was suspended in September.
In the 1990 Annual Report I correctly described this deal as an
"unforced error," meaning that I was neither pushed into the
investment nor misled by anyone when making it. Rather, this was a
case of sloppy analysis, a lapse that may have been caused by the
fact that we were buying a senior security or by hubris. Whatever
the reason, the mistake was large.
更不幸的是，资本城一案只能得到银牌，金牌的得主要算是我在五年前就犯下的
一项错误，但直到1994年才爆发出来，那就是我们在美国航空3.58亿美元的
特别股投资，去年九月，该公司宣布停止发放特别股股息，早在1990年，我就
很准确地形容这项交易属于非受迫性的失误，意思是说，没有人强迫我投资，同
时也没有人误导我，完全要归咎于我个人草率的分析，这项挫败导因于我们过于
自大的心态，不论如何，这是一项重大的错误。
Before this purchase, I simply failed to focus on the problems
that would inevitably beset a carrier whose costs were both high
and extremely difficult to lower. In earlier years, these lifethreatening
costs posed few problems. Airlines were then protected
from competition by regulation, and carriers could absorb high
costs because they could pass them along by way of fares that were
also high.
在做这项投资之前，我竟然没有把注意力摆在一直为航空深深所苦、居高不下的
成本问题之上，在早年，高成本还不致构成重大的威胁，因为当时航空业受到法
令的管制，航空业者可以将成本反映在票价之上转嫁给消费者。
When deregulation came along, it did not immediately change
the picture: The capacity of low-cost carriers was so small that
the high-cost lines could, in large part, maintain their existing
fare structures. During this period, with the longer-term problems
largely invisible but slowly metastasizing, the costs that were
non-sustainable became further embedded.
在法令松绑的初期，产业界并未立即反应此状况，主要是由于低成本的业者规模
尚小，所以大部分高成本的主要业者仍然勉力维持现行的票价结构，不过随着时
间慢慢地发酵，在长久以来隐而未见的问题逐渐浮现的同时，旧有业者完全无竞
争力的高成本结构却早已积重难返。
As the seat capacity of the low-cost operators expanded, their
fares began to force the old-line, high-cost airlines to cut their
own. The day of reckoning for these airlines could be delayed by
infusions of capital (such as ours into USAir), but eventually a
fundamental rule of economics prevailed: In an unregulated
commodity business, a company must lower its costs to competitive
levels or face extinction. This principle should have been obvious
to your Chairman, but I missed it.
随着低成本营运业者座位容量的大幅扩增，超低的票价迫使那些高成本的老牌航
空公司也不得不跟进，然而额外资金的挹注(也包含我们在美国航空的那笔投
资)，延迟这些老牌航空公司发现这项问题的时机，然而终究到最后，基本的经
济法则还是战胜一切，在一个没有管制的商品制式化产业，一家公司不是降低成
本增加竞争力，就是被迫倒闭关门，这道理对于身为公司负责人的我，可说是再
清楚也不过了，但是我竟然疏忽了。
Seth Schofield, CEO of USAir, has worked diligently to correct
the company's historical cost problems but, to date, has not
managed to do so. In part, this is because he has had to deal with
a moving target, the result of certain major carriers having
obtained labor concessions and other carriers having benefitted
from "fresh-start" costs that came out of bankruptcy proceedings.
(As Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines, has said:
"Bankruptcy court for airlines has become a health spa.")
Additionally, it should be no surprise to anyone that those airline
employees who contractually receive above-market salaries will
resist any reduction in these as long as their checks continue to
clear.
美国航空的总裁-Seth Schofield一直致力于改正该公司长久以来的成本结构问
题，不过到目前为止，仍然力有未殆，一部份的原因在于，他所面对的是一个不
断变动的目标，因为部份航空业者幸运地取得劳资双方的协议，另一些业者则受
惠于破产法令的保护，可以有一个全新出发的成本，(就像是西南航空的总裁-
Herb Kelleher所说的破产法对于航空业者来说，就好象是得到了一次健康的
spa)，此外，对于哪些在合约上受到保护得以获得高于市场水准薪资的劳工来
说，只要他们发现自己的薪资支票仍能按时兑现，就会全力地抵制减薪的提议。
Despite this difficult situation, USAir may yet achieve the
cost reductions it needs to maintain its viability long-term. But
it is far from sure that will happen.
尽管面临目前的困境，美国航空还是有可能完成降低成本的任务，以维持长期继
续生存的能力，不过到目前为止，还很难确定一定能够成功。
Accordingly, we wrote our USAir investment down to $89.5
million, 25 cents on the dollar at yearend 1994. This valuation
reflects both a possibility that our preferred will have its value
fully or largely restored and an opposite possibility that the
stock will eventually become worthless. Whatever the outcome, we
will heed a prime rule of investing: You don't have to make it
back the way that you lost it.
因此，在1994年底，我们将美国航空帐面的投资金额调降为8,950万美元，
当初一美元的投资等于仅剩下25美分的价值，这样的举动反应出将来我们的特
别股有可能完全或大部分地恢复其价值，但同时也有可能到后来变得一文不值，
不论最后的结果为何，我们必须谨记一项投资的基本原则，那就是你不一定要靠
那些已失去的赚回来。
The accounting effects of our USAir writedown are complicated.
Under GAAP accounting, insurance companies are required to carry
all stocks on their balance sheets at estimated market value.
Therefore, at the end of last year's third quarter, we were
carrying our USAir preferred at $89.5 million, or 25% of cost. In
other words, our net worth was at that time reflecting a value for
USAir that was far below our $358 million cost.
本次打销美国航空投资价值的会计影响有点复杂，根据一般公认会计原则的规
定，保险公司在资产负债表上必须将它们的投资以市价列示，因此截至去年第三
季止，我们在美国航空投资的帐面价值是8,950万美元，大概只有原始成本3.58
亿美元的25%，换句话说，在当时我们的净值就已反应了这项调整。
But in the fourth quarter, we concluded that the decline in
value was, in accounting terms, "other than temporary," and that
judgment required us to send the writedown of $269 million through
our income statement. The amount will have no other fourth-quarter
effect. That is, it will not reduce our net worth, because the
diminution of value had already been reflected.
不过到了第四季，我们认为这种下跌的情况，套句会计的专有名词，并非属于暂
时性的，所以我们必须将这笔向下调整的金额反应在损益表之上，然而这个动作
对于本公司的净值并不会再造成任何的影响，因为早在第三季我们便已反应过
了。
Charlie and I will not stand for reelection to USAir's board
at the upcoming annual meeting. Should Seth wish to consult with
us, however, we will be pleased to be of any help that we can.
在即将召开的美国航空年度股东会中，查理跟我决定不再续任董事，当然要是
Seth总裁觉得有任何需要我们帮忙的地方，我们愿意提供任何咨询服务。
Miscellaneous
其它事项
Two CEO's who have done great things for Berkshire
shareholders retired last year: Dan Burke of Capital Cities/ABC
and Carl Reichardt of Wells Fargo. Dan and Carl encountered very
tough industry conditions in recent years. But their skill as
managers allowed the businesses they ran to emerge from these
periods with record earnings, added luster, and bright prospects.
Additionally, Dan and Carl prepared well for their departure and
left their companies in outstanding hands. We owe them our
gratitude.
去年有两位对Berkshire贡献卓著的经理人决定退休，分别是资本城/ABC的
Dan Burke与富国银行的Carl Reichardt，Dan与Carl近年来在各自的产业都
面临到相当大的挑战，但他们杰出的管理能力使得他们经营的事业在这段期间内
仍能保有出色的盈余，并赋予公司光明与璀璨的前景，此外，对于他们的离开，
Dan与Carl都已作好准备，将公司交由能干的人才接手，我们对他们报以深深
的敬意。
* * * * * * * * * * * *
About 95.7% of all eligible shares participated in Berkshire's
1994 shareholder-designated contributions program. Contributions
made through the program were $10.4 million and 3,300 charities
were recipients.
大约有95.7%的有效股权参与1994年的股东指定捐赠计划，总计约1,040万
美元捐出的款项分配给3,300家慈善机构。
Every year a few shareholders miss participating in the
program because they either do not have their shares registered in
their own names on the prescribed record date or because they fail
to get the designation form back to us within the 60-day period
allowed for its return. Since we don't make exceptions when
requirements aren't met, we urge that both new shareholders and old
read the description of our shareholder-designated contributions
program that appears on pages 50-51.
每年都有一小部份的股东由于没有将股份登记在本人的名下，或是没能在60天
的期限内，将指定捐赠的表格送回给我们，而没办法参加我们的指定捐赠计画，
凡是不符合规定者，都不能参加这项计画，也因此我们敦促不管是原有或新加入
的股东，仔细阅读年报上有关股东捐赠计画的详细内容，
To participate in future programs, you must make sure your
shares are registered in the name of the actual owner, not in the
nominee name of a broker, bank or depository. Shares not so
registered on August 31, 1995 will be ineligible for the 1995
program.
想要参加这项计画者，请确定您的股份是登记在自己而非股票经纪人或保管银行
的名下，同时必须在1995年8月31日之前完成登记，才有权利参与1995年
的捐赠计画。
* * * * * * * * * * * *
We made only one minor acquisition during 1994 - a small
retail shoe chain - but our interest in finding good candidates
remains as keen as ever. The criteria we employ for purchases or
mergers is detailed in the appendix on page 21.
1994年我们只进行了一项小型的购并案-那是一家鞋业的连锁店，然而对于寻
找好的候选对象，我们的兴致与过去一样热烈，对于买进与购并标准请参阅附
录。
Last spring, we offered to merge with a large, familycontrolled
business on terms that included a Berkshire convertible
preferred stock. Though we failed to reach an agreement, this
