The “when” is also important. The main danger is that the timid or beginning investor will enter the market at a time of extreme exuberance and then become disillusioned when paper losses occur. (remember the late Barton Biggs’s observation: “A bull market is like sex. It feels best just before it ends.”) The antidote to that kind of mistiming is for an investor to accumulate shares over a long period and never sell when the news is bad and stocks are well off their highs. Following those rules, the “know-nothing” investor who both diversifies and keeps costs minimal is virtually certain to get satisfactory results.
Dollar-cost average into index funds
If you like spending 6–8 hours per week on investments, do it. If you don’t, then dollar-cost average into index funds. This accomplishes diversification across assets and time, two very important things.
Contrarian approach
None of this means, however, that a business or stock is an intelligent purchase simply because it is unpopular ; a contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What’s required is thinking rather than polling. Unfortunately, Bertrand Russell’s observation about life in general applies with unusual force in the financial world : “Most men would rather die than think. Many do.”
Big opportunities
Big opportunities come infrequently. When it’s raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble.
Market falls
Smile when you read a headline that says, “Investors lose as market falls.” Edit it in your mind to, “Disinvestors lose as market falls – but investors gain.” Though writers often forget this truism, there is a buyer for every seller and what hurts one necessarily helps the other.
Diversified collection of American businesses
The unconventional, but inescapable, conclusion to be drawn from the past fifty years is that it has been far safer to invest in a diversified collection of American businesses than to invest in securities – Treasures, for example – whose value have been tied to American currency.
Financial panic
During the extraordinary financial panic that occurred late in 2008, I never gave a thought to selling my farm or New York real estate, even though a severe recession was clearly brewing. And, if I had owned 100% of a solid business with good long-term prospects, it would have been foolish for me to even consider dumping it. So why would I have sold my stocks that were small participations in wonderful businesses? True, any one of them might eventually disappoint, but as a group they were certain to do well. Could anyone really believe the earth was going to swallow up the incredible productive assets and unlimited human ingenuity existing in America?
What is popular
Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.
Berkshire buys
Berkshire buys when the lemmings are heading the other way.
Berkshire
Overall, Berkshire and its long-term shareholders benefit from a sinking stock market much as a regular purchaser of food benefits from declining food prices. So when the market plummets – as it will from time to time – neither panic nor mourn. It’s good news for Berkshire.