ABOUT WARREN BUFFET's ......
Warren Edward Buffett was born on August 30, 1930 to his father Howard, a stockbroker-turned-Congressman. The only boy, he was the second of three children, and displayed an amazing aptitude for both money and business at a very early age. Acquaintances recount his uncanny ability to calculate columns of numbers off the top of his head - a feat Warren still amazes business colleagues with today.
At only six years old, Buffett purchased 6-packs of Coca Cola from his grandfather's grocery store for twenty five cents and resold each of the bottles for a nickel, pocketing a five cent profit. While other children his age were playing hopscotch and jacks, Warren was making money. Five years later, Buffett took his step into the world of high finance. At eleven years old, he purchased three shares of Cities Service Preferred at $38 per share for both himself and his older sister, Doris. Shortly after buying the stock, it fell to just over $27 per share. A frightened but resilient Warren held his shares until they rebounded to $40. He promptly sold them - a mistake he would soon come to regret. Cities Service shot up to $200. The experience taught him one of the basic lessons of investing: patience is a virtue.
Warren Buffett's Education
In 1947, a seventeen year old Warren Buffett graduated from High School. It was never his intention to go to college; he had already made $5,000 delivering newspapers (this is equal to $42,610.81 in 2000). His father had other plans, and urged his son to attend the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. Buffett stayed two years, complaining that he knew more than his professors. When Howard was defeated in the 1948 Congressional race, Warren returned home to Omaha and transferred to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Working full-time, he managed to graduate in only three years.
Warren Buffett approached graduate studies with the same resistance he displayed a few years earlier. He was finally persuaded to apply to Harvard Business School, which, in the worst admission decision in history, rejected him as "too young". Slighted, Warren applied to Columbia where famed investors Ben Graham and David Dodd taught - an experience that would forever change his life.
Warren Buffett Goes to Work for Ben Graham
The couple took a house in the suburbs of New York. Buffett spent his days analyzing S&P reports, searching for investment opportunities. It was during this time that the difference between the Graham and Buffett philosophies began to emerge. Warren became interested in how a company worked - what made it superior to competitors. Ben simply wanted numbers whereas Warren was predominately interested in a company's management as a major factor when deciding to invest, Graham looked only at the balance sheet and income statement; he could care less about corporate leadership. Between 1950 and 1956, Warren built his personal capital up to $140,000 from a mere $9,800. With this war chest, he set his sights back on Omaha and began planning his next move.
On May 1, 1956, Warren Buffett rounded up seven limited partners which included his Sister Doris and Aunt Alice, raising $105,000 in the process. He put in $100 himself, officially creating the Buffett Associates, Ltd. Before the end of the year, he was managing around $300,000 in capital. Small, to say the least, but he had much bigger plans for that pool of money. He purchased a house for $31,500, affectionately nicknamed "Buffett's Folly", and managed his partnerships originally from the bedroom, and later, a small office. By this time, his life had begun to take shape; he had three children, a beautiful wife, and a very successful business.
Over the course of the next five years, the Buffett partnerships racked up an impressive 251.0% profit, while the Dow was up only 74.3%. A somewhat-celebrity in his hometown, Warren never gave stock tips despite constant requests from friends and strangers alike. By 1962, the partnership had capital in excess of $7.2 million, of which a cool $1 million was Buffett's personal stake (he didn't charge a fee for the partnership - rather Warren was entitled to 1/4 of the profits above 4%). He also had more than 90 limited partners across the United States. In one decisive move, he melded the partnerships into a single entity called "Buffett Partnerships Ltd.", upped the minimum investment to $100,000, and opened an office in Kiewit Plaza on Farnam street.
Ben Graham - Buffett's Mentor
http://beginnersinvest.about.com/cs/warrenbuffett/a/aawarrenbio_5.htm
WARREN BUFFET's QUOTE
I NEVER ATTEMPT TO MAKE MONEY ON THE STOCK MARKET. I BUY ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT THEY COULD CLOSE THE MARKET THE NEXT DAY AND NOT REOPEN IT FOR FIVE YEARS.
Translation: This is Warren Buffett at his best. Buffett is telling you to ignore trading, because trading is for gamblers. Buffett tries to imagine what the balance sheet of the company he is interested in, is going to look like in 10 years. If he can’t imagine it, he won’t invest. This is why he never touch Lehman Brothers as an investment. He could not understand the balance sheet, and if the master can’t read the balance sheet, he runs away from the investment. This is why he never ever buys a technology company as well. He can’t imagine what the balance sheet looks like years out. Buffett the investor would be leaving too much to chance. Buffett deals with probabilities he can understand.
Buffett has also publicly stated that an investor should never confuse short-term quotational losses with permanent erosion of capital. It is only in the stock market of publicly traded ideas that one can acquire a piece of a company for a price that one would never ever be able to negotiate in a private transaction.
source:
http://warren-buffett-words-of-wisdom.com/
WARREN BUFFET : MONEY PROVIDES FREEDOM
Did you know that a $10,000 investment in Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, the year Warren Buffett took control of it, would be worth over $40 million today? Berkshire Hathaway has sustained an average return of over 20% for the past 45 years. How does Buffett do it?
Buffett believes in value investing. Value investors look for securities that are unjustifiably low based on their intrinsic worth. Buffett holds stocks for decades, not for months. Here is the basic methodology used by value investors. For more detailed information, I highly recommend the book, The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.
1.Has the company performed well? Look at return on investment (ROE) for the last five to ten years. ROE = net income/shareholder’s equity.
2.Has the company avoided excess debt? Large debt can result in volatile earnings and interest expenses.
3.Are profit margins high? Are they increasing? A high profit margin indicates the company is executing its business well.
4.How long has the company been public? Buffett usually considers companies that have been around for at least 10 years.
5.Economic moat? Does the company have a sustainable competitive advantage by having a well known brand name, pricing power, or a large portion of market demand?
6.Is the stock undervalued? Is the stock selling for at least 25% less than its intrinsic value?
Value investors are concerned with fundamentals such as earnings growth, dividends, cash flow, etc and this requires research and hard work. Value investors buy and hold for the long term, often for decades. Unless you are willing to do the research and understand business fundamentals, value investing is probably not for you. Buffett recommends buying low-cost index funds instead. “A very low cost-index fund is going to beat a majority of professionally managed funds,” says Buffett.
http://moneyprovidesfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/invest-like-warren-buffett/
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