Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett on the keys to success

Munger: It's so simple: You spend less than you earn and invest shrewdly and avoid toxic people and toxic activities and try and keep learning all your life, etc., etc.  And do a lot of deferred gratification because you prefer life that way.  And if you do all those things, you are almost certain to succeed.  And if you don't, you're going to need a lot of luck, a lot of luck.  And you don't want to need a lot of luck; you want to go into a game where you're very likely to win without having any unusual luck.

Buffett: I'd add one more thought, though: You need to know how people can manipulate other people and you need to resist the temptation to do it yourself.

Munger: Oh yes!  The toxic people who are trying to fool you or lie to you, who aren't reliable in meeting their commitments, the great lesson of life is get them the hell out of your life.

Buffett: Yep.

Munger: And do it fast!

~ Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, 2023 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, May 6, 2023

(video posted by Vitaliy Katsenelson, see here)

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger on cryptocurrencies (2018)

Warren Buffett: There's nothing being produced in the way of value from the asset.  You also have the problem that it draws in a lot of charlatans... who are trying to create various sorts of exchanges...  It's something where people who are of less-than-stellar character see an opportunity to clip people who are trying to get rich because their neighbor's getting rich buying this stuff that neither one understands.  It will come to a bad ending.  Charlie.

Charlie Munger: Well, I like cryptocurrencies a lot less than you do.  And so to me it's just dimentia.  And I think the people who are professional traders who go into cryptocurrencies, it's just disgusting.  It's like somebody else is trading turds and you decide "I can't be left out."

~ 2018 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, May 5, 2018

Warren Buffett: "The stock market is a no-called-strike game"

The stock market is a no-called-strike game.  You don't have to swing at everything -- you can wait for your pitch.  The problem when you're a money manager is that your fans keep yelling, "Swing, you bum!"

~ Warren Buffett, 1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, as quoted in The Tao of Warren Buffett by Mary Buffett and David Clark

MLB 2021 Home Run Derby

Warren Buffett on bubbles

But a pin lies in wait for every bubble.  And when the two eventually meet, a new wave of investors learns some very old lessons: First, many in Wall Street -- a community in which quality control is not prized -- will sell investors anything they will buy.  Second, speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest.

~ Warren Buffett, 2000 Berkshire Hathaway Chairman's Letter

Warren Buffett on stock forecasters

We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good.  Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.

~ Warren Buffett, 1992 Berkshire Hathaway Chairman's Letter

Warren Buffett on Berkshire Hathaway's 5.5% stake in Apple

[Apple is] probably the best business I know in the world.

~ Warren Buffett, interview with CNBC's Becky Quick, February 24, 2020

(AAPL closed that day at 298.18, valuing the company at $1.328 trillion.)

Morgan Housel on the contradiction of the Berkshire Hathaway annual lovefest

Another version of [pluralistic ignorance] is when everyone thinks they’re a contrarian. The heart of pluralistic ignorance is having misperceptions about how others in your peer group think. And that’s usually what happens when you have a view about an investment that you assume isn’t held by a large percentage of other investors. Take the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, which is coming up next week. It’s 40,000 people, all of whom consider themselves contrarians. People show up at 4 am to wait in line with thousands of other people to tell each other about their lifelong commitment to not following the crowd. Pluralistic ignorance at its finest.

~ Morgan Housel, "You Played Yourself," Collaborative Fund blog, April 29, 2019

Jim Cramer on the next Berkshire Hathaway (2007)

I think every portfolio has to take the risk/reward here of finding the next Buffett.

A selloff in a healthy environment, where inflation is under control and interest rates are stable ... is a great opportunity to pick up leadership names like a Sears or a Brookfield or a Goldman.  These are asset managements -- that's why I like them. They aggressively manage their assets, and that's what you should be buying.

Eddie Lampert is a terrific investor, and he's the brains behind Sears. ... I am urging patience. I don't want people to quit Sears.

~ Jim Cramer, June 21, 2007

(On TheStreet.com TV's Wall Street Confidential Web video Thursday, he nominated Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) as an international Berkshire Hathaway; Sears (SHLD) is a domestic Berkshire Hathaway, he said.)

Whitney Tilson on Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway

I sleep well. It's not going to double overnight, but we think it will in five years, which is a 15 percent compounded annual rate. It's the stock you want to own.

~ Whitney Tilson, principal at New York-based hedge fund T2 Partners, "Buffett's Berkshire Has Worst First Half Since 1990," Bloomberg, July 2, 2008