Warren Buffett's top 10 tips. Invest like the best investor of all time
Sometimes we read all sorts of advice on the internet. Some of them are good, some less so. However, the name of the author may add to their quality. And perhaps few names in the investment world carry as much weight as Warren Buffett. Let's take a look at ten of his best and most famous pieces of advice.
Warren Buffett's advice may not be entirely of the "buy this and make money" variety. It's more about investment philosophy and approach. But first, let's take a look at who Warren Buffett is.
Who is Warren Buffett?
Warren Buffett is one of the most successful investors of all time and the founder of Berkshire Hathaway $BRK-B-1.3%
Warren Buffett was born in 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's business school. He believes in investing in businesses with tangible assets that generate high margins and strong free cash flow. In 1965, he gained control of Berkshire Hathaway and began systematically buying stakes in lagging businesses at very low prices. He gradually turned Berkshire Hathaway into a holding company for 60+ conglomerates.
Warren Buffett is known for his frugality, long-term thinking and sober investment approach. His value investing philosophy is taught in all business schools today. He is one of the richest people in the world, yet he lives modestly in his family home in his hometown of Omaha. But now let's get to his advice.
Warren Buffett's 10 most famous pieces of advice
- Save - When you first make money, you may be tempted to spend it. Don't. Instead, reinvest the profits. Buffett learned this early on. In high school, he and a friend bought a pinball machine to put in a barbershop. They used the money to buy more machines until they had eight in different stores. When his friends sold the business, Buffett used the money to buy stock and start another small business.
Reinvesting dividends and money in general is important. Look at the chart.
- Be willing to differ - Don't base your decisions on what others say or do. When Buffett started managing money in 1956 with $100,000 pieced together from a few investors, he was called an oddball. He worked in Omaha, not Wall Street, and refused to tell his partners where he was putting their money. People predicted he would fail, but when he closed his partnership 14 years later, it was worth more than $100 million.
- Never suck your thumb - That's a bit of an odd translation, I admit, but smsl gives it away. Gather all the information you need to make a decision beforehand and ask a friend or relative to make sure you meet the deadline. Buffett prides himself on making decisions and acting quickly. He calls any unnecessary sitting and thinking a "thumb sucker."
- Stick to the plan - When the market fluctuates, it's easy to panic and be tempted to sell your holdings during downturns. However, Buffett doesn't recommend it. "Buy for better or worse, and especially for better," he told CNBC. "When you see bad headlines, the temptation is to say, 'Well, maybe I should skip a year or something. Just keep shopping. American business is going to do very well over time, so you know the investment universe is going to do very well."
- Watch the fees - And here's where I agree with Buffett in the extreme. Buffett preaches the benefits of low-cost index funds and warns investors to pay attention to fees when choosing where to invest. "Costs really matter when you're investing," Buffett told CNBC television. "If the returns are 7% or 8% and you're paying 1% in fees, that's a huge difference in how much money you're going to have in retirement." "The record shows that an unmanaged index fund will do quite well over time and active investing as a group can't beat it," Buffett said.
- Trust your analysis - At a 1999 shareholder meeting, Buffett advised investors to "learn what you know and what you don't." And when you learn in detail about what you're investing in and are confident about it, don't let the opinions of others sway you from what you think is best. "You can't just look around and find people who agree with you," Buffett said, according to CNBC.
- Invest in yourself - Buffett says that especially in times of inflation, you are the best investment. "The best thing you can do is to be exceptionally good at something," he said at Berkshire Hathaway's 2022 annual shareholder meeting, according to CNBC. "Any skill nobody can take away from you. You can't actually inflate them. By far the best investment is anything that develops yourself, and it's not taxed at all."
- Legendary Rule - " Rule #1 is: Never go broke. Rule No. 2 is never forget Rule No. 1."
Buffett's idea here sounds simple, but is disarmingly complex. As an investor, of course you are trying to make a profit in the market, but one of the best ways to do that is to avoid losing. When you eliminate decisions that expose your portfolio to loss, what remains is more likely to be profit. When you have more money in your portfolio, you can amplify your gains even faster. This approach has implications for the way you invest. Buffett's quote suggests that instead of seeking the highest possible profit, you should first try to avoid loss and only then focus on profits. This is a different mindset from investors who look at the stock market as a slot machine. - Opportunities - "Opportunities rarely come along. When it rains gold, get out the bucket, not the thimble." Here Buffett suggests that when you see an opportunity, you must act quickly and decisively. When the odds are tilted in your favor - for example, when stock prices fall significantly - you need to invest big because good prices may not be around for a long time. Buffett often takes this approach when markets are down significantly. He hoards a lot of cash during the good times and then invests aggressively when stocks fall. Having a large amount of safe cash on hand allows him to use this strategy.
- Be greedy - Everyone knows this advice/phrase in the original. For others - "Simply try to be greedy when others are greedy, and only be greedy when others are greedy."
While some investors think investing is a lot about numbers, Buffett suggests that investing has a lot to do with the behavior of the investors themselves. When investors get greedy and drive stock prices sky-high, Buffett gets scared because a market crash may soon follow. Conversely, when investors run away from the market or specific stocks, Buffett becomes more concerned because prices are cheaper. When stocks are cheaper, they don't have as much risk as when they are expensive. And this is how Buffett thinks when he wants to avoid losses.
What's your favorite piece of advice Buffett gave you? Do you follow any of them?
Disclaimer: This is by no means an investment recommendation. It is purely my summary and analysis based on data from the internet and other sources. Investing in the financial markets is risky and everyone should invest based on their own decisions. I am just an amateur sharing my opinions.