一种投资哲学的萌芽、发展与成熟 第三章 成熟
1、费雪在开篇介绍了他投资化工股、并选中陶氏化学的经历，他讲述的点也与他提到的几个维度相关联，包括利润率更高的产品线、高效的管理团队、研发实力等等。
2、费雪用“美国企业死了比活着更值钱”的时代，来说明当时市场的恐慌及低迷程度，即使企业盈利不断向好，股价也没什么表现，企业清算价值远大于市值，当企业宣布破产清算时，股价反而大涨。
3、费雪列举了一些他投资过程中的教训（错误）：
（1）期间，他因没有根据以往的经验做足调研，只是调研了企业高管、少数相关投资人士，没有去继续调研竞争对手、行业专业等，导致最后“投资失败”。“从那次难堪的经历之后，我便格外注意：越是形势向好的时候，调研越要做到彻底。”这一点对自己很有启示，当周围都比较悲观时，反而我们应该放松精神、保持乐观、勇敢买入；当周期都最比较乐观、行情一片向好时，我们应该保持警惕。
（2）1969年，当时市场沉浸在大牛市（“科技股”的狂欢）的氛围中，费雪起初抵制住了市场疯狂上涨的诱惑，但随着行情的发展，情绪还是战胜了理性，他也买入了一只科技相关股。但他后来认为，自己为了这份前景付出的买入价太高了，这一令人失望的结果，根源就是被当时的市场狂热诱惑，付出了不切实际的买入价。注意：费雪对买入价值也是有标准的！
4、费雪认为自己也有“能力圈”，因为成长股的投资模式，需要对行业、企业、生意盈利模式等非常熟悉，费雪说自己只专注于自己熟悉了解的行业。成功的投资应该在于找到不错的标的同时，尽可能少犯错。
5、费雪不择时、不猜测市场涨跌、不预测宏观经济情况等，认定了某只股票，只要其基本面强劲、满足自己的标准，会一直长期持有，即使经历了大幅上涨、面临回调。他只会考虑，该企业未来是不是会比现在好、更值钱、盈利更好。他认为，人们对未来市场走势、经济等的判断都只是主观预测，其准确的概率低于自己对所持有企业未来盈利会更好的准确判断的概率，“为了一个最多只有60%把握的判断，就放弃一个你有90%把握是正确的持仓”，这完全不合逻辑。
6、忽略股价的短期波动，不要因为短期的波动而频繁买卖。不管它是大涨、还是大跌，重要的是关注它的基本面。
7、费雪认为，对于那些不需要靠股息来维持生活的投资者，投资于那些不派发股息，而是把更多公司资金留存下来，投入到这些创新产品中的公司中，结果会好得多。对于不需要现金收入的投资者而言，股息的影响应该被大幅淡化。一般来说，低分红或完全不分红的股票里，更容易找到更有吸引力的投资机会。
因此，我重返平民生活后的一项优先任务，就是努力找出大型化工企业中最具吸引力的标的，并将其作为我管理资金的核心持仓。我并没有把100%的时间都花在这上面，但在重启业务后的第一年里，我确实花了相当多的时间，去接触所有我能找到、真正了解这个复杂行业的人。比如经销一家或多家大型企业产品的经销商、化工系教授（他们与业内人士联系密切），甚至还有为多家化工企业建过工厂的大型建筑公司人员——这些人都成了极有价值的背景信息来源。把这些信息与常规财务数据分析结合后，我只用了大约三个月，就把范围缩小到三家公司中的一家。再往后，进展就慢了，决策也更难。不过到1947年春天，我最终选定了陶氏化学。 My other major conclusion was that the chemical industry would enjoy a period of major growth in the postwar years. Therefore, a high priority project on returning to civilian life was to endeavor to find the most attractive of the larger chemical companies and make this a major holding for the funds I was handling. I by no means spent 100 percent of my time doing this, but in the first year after restarting my business I did spend a rather considerable amount of time in talking to anyone I could find who had real knowledge of this complex industry. Such people as distributors who handled the lines of one or more large companies, professors in the chemical departments of the universities who had intimate knowledge of chemical business people, and even some of those in the major construction companies that had put up plants for various of the chemical producers all proved extremely worthwhile sources of background information. By combining these inputs with analyses of the usual financial data, it only took about three months to narrow the choices down to one of three companies. From there on, the going was slower and the decisions more difficult. However, by the spring of 1947 I decided that the Dow Chemical Company would be my choice.
在众多前景良好的化工企业中选择陶氏化学，原因有很多。当我向陶氏总裁提出这个问题时，他的回答让我印象极为深刻：“我们要抵御在规模急剧扩大时，变得更像军事化组织的强大压力；要维持那种非正式的关系——让不同层级、不同部门的人，继续以完全不拘形式的方式彼此沟通，同时又不造成管理上的混乱。” There were many reasons for the choice of Dow Chemical from the many promising chemical firms. I believe it might be worthwhile to enumerate some of them because they are clear examples of the type of things I seek in the relatively small number of companies in which I desire to place funds. As I began to know various people in the Dow organization, I found that the growth that had already occurred was in turn creating a very real sense of excitement at many levels of management. The belief that even greater growth lay ahead permeated the organization. One of my favorite questions in talking to any top business executive for the first time is what he considers to be the most important long-range problem facing his company. When I asked this of the president of Dow, I was tremendously impressed with his answer: “It is to resist the strong pressures to become a more military-like organization as we grow very much larger, and to maintain the informal relationship whereby people at quite different levels and in various departments continue to communicate with each other in a completely unstructured way and, at the same time, not create administrative chaos.”
陶氏只涉足那些能成为或有合理机会成为业内最高效生产商的化工产品线——要么靠更大规模，要么靠更优的化工工程，或是对产品更深入的理解，或是其他优势。陶氏非常清楚，创新性研发不仅是为了领先，更是为了持续领先。公司还高度重视“人”的因素。尤其重视尽早发掘有特殊才能的人，把他们融入陶氏特有的政策与流程；并且真心实意地做到：如果看似优秀的人在某个岗位表现不佳，就给他们合理机会，去尝试更适合自身特点的其他工作。 I found myself in complete agreement with certain other basic company policies. Dow limited its involvement to those chemical product lines where it either was or had a reasonable chance of becoming the most efficient producer in the field as the result of greater volume, better chemical engineering and deeper understanding of the product or for some other reason. Dow was deeply aware of the need for creative research not just to be in front, but also to stay in front. There was also a strong appreciation of the “people factor” at Dow. There was in particular a sense of need to identify people of unusual ability early, to indoctrinate them into policies and procedures unique to Dow, and to make real efforts to see if seemingly bright people were not doing well at one job, they be given a reasonable chance to try something else that might be more suitable to their characteristics.
“永远不要提拔一个从没犯过严重错误的人，因为那样做，你提拔的就是一个从没真正做成过任何事的人。”投资界很多人无法理解这一点，而这一点，一次又一次在股市中创造出非同寻常的投资机会。 I found that although Dow’s founder, Dr. Herbert Dow, had died some seventeen years before, his beliefs were held in such respect that one or another of his sayings was frequently quoted to me. While his comments were directed primarily at matters within Dow, I decided that at least two of them were equally appropriate to my own business, in that they could be applied at least as well as to optimizing the selection of investments as to matters internal to the Dow Chemical Company. One of these was “Never promote someone who hasn’t made some bad mistakes, because if you do, you are promoting someone who has never done anything.”The failure to understand this element by so many in the investment community has time and again created unusual investment opportunities in the stock market.
商界里真正有价值的成就，几乎总是需要相当程度的开拓创新——既要巧思，又要务实。在依靠前沿技术研发获取收益的领域，这一点尤为重要。无论人员多么能干、多数想法多么出色，这类努力总有注定失败、甚至惨败的时候。一旦发生这种情况，失败成本会让当年盈利远低于预期，而投资界的第一反应往往是：贬低管理层的能力。结果就是，当年盈利下降，再叠加市盈率低于历史水平，股价被双重打压，股票常常跌到真正的便宜价位。但如果还是那批在其他年份取得成功的管理层，那么未来成功与失败的平均比例很可能还会延续。正因如此，由能力极强的人管理的公司，在某次严重错误曝光时，往往会出现极佳的低价买入机会。相反，那些不开拓、不冒险、只随大流的公司，在这个竞争激烈的时代，很可能只是平庸的投资标的。 The truly worthwhile accomplishment in the business world nearly always requires a considerable degree of pioneering, in which ingenuity has to be seasoned with practicality. This is particularly true when the gains are sought through leading edge technological research. No matter how able the people are and no matter how good may be most of their ideas, there are times when such efforts are bound to fail, and fail dismally. When this happens and the current year’s earnings drop sharply below previous estimates as the costs of the failure are added up, time and again the investment community’s immediate consensus is to downgrade the quality of the management. As a result, the immediate year’s lower earnings produce a lower than the historic price earnings ratio to magnify the effect of reduced earnings. The shares often reach truly bargain prices. Yet if this is the same management that in other years has been so successful, the chances are the same ratio of average success to average failure will continue on in the future. For this reason, the shares of companies run by abnormally capable people can be tremendous bargains at the time one particular bad mistake comes to light. In contrast, the company that doesn’t pioneer, doesn’t take chances, and merely goes along with the crowd is liable to prove a rather mediocre investment in this highly competitive age.
“如果你不能把一件事做得比别人更好，那就干脆别做。”只有这样，利润率通常才足够高，能够支撑成长的需求。当然，在通胀显著侵蚀账面利润的时期，这一点尤为重要。 The other of Dr. Dow’s comments which I have tried to apply to the process of investment selection is “If you can’t do a thing better than others are doing it, don’t do it at all.” In this day of heavy-handed government intervention in so many types of business activities, of high taxes and labor unions, and of rapid shifts in public taste from one product to another, it seems to me that the risk of common stock ownership is seldom warranted unless it is confined to companies with enough competitive spirit constantly to be trying and frequently succeeding in doing things in a manner superior to industry in general. In no other way are profit margins usually broad enough to meet the demands of growth. This is, of course, particularly true during periods when inflation is having a significant effect in eating away at reported profits.
在更早的大萧条时期，股价被砸到了20世纪相对真实价值极低的水平。原因不仅是大萧条造成的经济崩溃，还因为股价已经反映了投资者的巨大担忧：美国的私人企业制度本身还能否存续。结果它存续了下来，在随后的岁月里，那些有能力、有意愿投资优质股票的人，都获得了惊人的回报。 There were some remarkable parallels between the period when I was starting my business at the depths of the Great Depression and during the years 1947 through the very early 1950’s, when I was restarting it after a military service interlude of three and a half years. Both periods were times when it was unusually hard to obtain immediate results for clients in the face of overwhelming general pessimism. Both were times that were to prove spectacularly rewarding for those who had the patience. In the earlier period, stocks were driven to perhaps the lowest level in relation to real value seen in the Twentieth Century, not just because of the economic havoc wrought by the Great Depression, but also because prices were discounting the worry of many investors as to whether the American system of private enterprise would itself survive. It survived, and in the ensuing years the rewards of those able and willing to invest in the right stocks were fabulous.
于是当时主流投资观点就这样推论：“所以，现在再好的盈利也毫无意义。”接下来必然会出现可怕的崩盘和极度艰难的时期，所有人都会遭殃。 Just a few years after World War II, another fear kept stocks at levels almost as low in relation to intrinsic value as those seen at the depths of the Great Depression. This time, business was good and corporate earnings were steadily rising. Nevertheless, almost the entire investment community were mesmerized by a simple comparison. A relatively few years after the Civil War, a period of immediate prosperity was followed by the Panic of 1873, and almost six years of deep depression. A somewhat similar period of prosperity after World War I was followed by the Crash of 1929 and the even deeper depression of about the same length. In World War II, the costs of war had run on a per diem basis about ten times that of World War I. “Therefore.” reasoned the dominant investment view of this period, “current excellent earnings don’t mean anything.” They will be followed by a horrendous crash and a period of extreme adversity when all would suffer.
时间一年年过去，越来越多企业的每股收益都在上升。大约到1949年，这段时期被称作“美国企业死了比活着更值钱”的时代。因为一旦有上市公司传出即将停业的消息，股价反而会大幅上涨——许多公司的清算价值远高于当时的市值。一年又一年过去，投资大众才慢慢醒悟：也许压制股市的，不过是一个虚幻的担忧。大家预期的经济大衰退始终没有到来；除了20世纪50年代两次相对温和的衰退外，市场正在为后来长期投资者的巨大回报埋下伏笔。 Year after year went by, and the per-share earnings of more corporations rose. Along about 1949, this period became known as the era in which “American business is worth more dead than alive.” because as soon as word spread that a publicly owned company was about to go out of business, its shares would rise dramatically. The liquidating value of many a company was so much more than its current market valuation. Year followed year, and slowly it began dawning on the investment public that perhaps stocks were being held back because of a myth. The expected business decline never did arrive and, excepting for two relatively minor recessions in the 1950’s, the stage was being set for the great rewards to long-term investors that were to follow.
…………我们或许可以合理地认为：1980年代及之后，可能会出现与前两次超低价格时期类似的、丰厚的投资机会。 As I write these words in the closing weeks before the decade of the 80’s is about to start, it amazes me that more attention has not been paid to restudying the few years of stock market history that started in the second half of 1946 to see whether true parallels may actually exist between that period and the present. Now, for the third time in my lifetime, many stocks are again at prices which, by historic standards, are spectacularly low. In relation to reported book value, they may not be quite as cheap as they were in the post-World War II period. However, if that reported book value is adjusted for replacement value in real dollars, they may perhaps be cheaper than in either of the two prior, bargain value periods. The question arises: are the worries that are holding back stock values in the present period, such matters as the high cost of energy or the dangers from the political left or of overextended credit, with the inevitable resulting drain on the level of business activity as liquidity is restored, more serious and more apt to stop the future growth in this country than the fears that held back stock prices in these two prior periods? If not, once the problems of overextended credit have been solved, it might be logical to assume that the 1980’s and period beyond may offer the same sort of rewarding opportunities that characterized the two former periods of abnormally low prices.
从那次难堪的经历之后，我便格外注意：越是形势向好的时候，调研越要做到彻底。 From that embarrassing time forward, I have tried to be particularly thorough in making investigations in periods when things were going well. The only reason this particular investment folly wasn’t more costly stemmed from my caution. Since I had had only a slight contact with the management, I made only a small initial investment, planning to buy more as I got to know the company better. Their troubles overtook me before I had a chance to compound my original folly.
一项对我而言错误的策略判断，酿成了另一类完全不同的错误，而且确实造成了巨额亏损。我的问题在于：把自己的能力延伸到了经验边界之外。我开始在那些自认为已经彻底吃透的行业之外投资，进入了完全不同的业务领域——而在这些领域里，我并没有相应的背景知识做支撑。
A policy judgment that was wrong for me engendered quite a different kind of mistake, and one which did cost a significant amount of dollars. My mistake was to project my skill beyond the limits of experience. I began investing outside the industries which I believe I thoroughly understood, in completely different spheres of activity; situations where I did not have comparable background knowledge.
对于服务工业市场的制造企业，或是为制造商提供前沿技术的公司，我相信自己知道该看什么——也清楚优势和陷阱可能在哪里。但事实证明，在评估生产和销售消费类产品的公司时，需要的是完全不同的能力。当竞争公司的产品本身大同小异，当市场份额的变化很大程度上取决于大众口味的转变，或是受广告效果影响极大的流行趋势时，我发现自己在挑选优秀科技公司上的能力，并不能直接套用到其他领域——比如我根本没法判断，究竟是什么因素能让房地产运营取得非凡成功。
When it comes to manufacturing companies that serve industrial markets or to companies on the leading edge of technology that are serving manufacturers, I believe that I know what to look for—where both the strong points and pitfalls may lie. However, different skills proved important in evaluating companies making and selling consumertype products. When the products of competitive companies are essentially rather similar to one another, and when changes in market share depend largely on shifting public tastes or on fashions greatly influenced by the effectiveness of advertising, I learned that the abilities which I had in selecting outstanding technological companies did not extrapolate to the point where I could identify what produces unusual success in real estate operations.
一项对我而言错误的策略判断，酿成了另一类完全不同的错误，而且确实造成了巨额亏损。我的问题在于：把自己的能力延伸到了经验边界之外。我开始在那些自认为已经彻底吃透的行业之外投资，进入了完全不同的业务领域——而在这些领域里，我并没有相应的背景知识做支撑。
A policy judgment that was wrong for me engendered quite a different kind of mistake, and one which did cost a significant amount of dollars. My mistake was to project my skill beyond the limits of experience. I began investing outside the industries which I believe I thoroughly understood, in completely different spheres of activity; situations where I did not have comparable background knowledge.
尽管如此，分析师必须认清自己能力的边界，守好自己手里的羊群。
Others may do well in quite diverse investment arenas. Perhaps, unlike the other types of mistakes I have made during my business career, this one should properly be ignored by others. Nevertheless, an analyst must learn the limits of his or her competence and tend well the sheep at hand.
即便某家公司的股价看似处于短期高点，短期内很可能出现大幅回调，但只要我相信它长期前景足够吸引人，我就不会卖出它的股票。如果我判断几年后它的股价高点会远高于当前水平，我宁愿选择持有。这一信念源于对投资过程本质的一些根本性思考：具备非凡升值潜力的公司其实非常难找，因为这类公司本就不多。
Should an investor sell a good stock in the face of a potentially bad market? On this subject, I fear I hold a minority view given the investment psychology prevalent today. Now more than ever, the actions of those who control the vast bulk of equity investments in this country appear to reflect the belief that when an investor has achieved a good profit in a stock and fears the stock might well go down, he should grab his profit and get out. My view is rather different. Even if the stock of a particular company seems at or near a temporary peak and that a sizable decline may strike in the near future, I will not sell the firm’s shares provided I believe that its longer term future is sufficiently attractive. When I estimate that the price of these shares will rise to a peak quite considerably higher than the current levels in a few years time, I prefer to hold. My belief stems from some rather fundamental considerations about the nature of the investment process. Companies with truly unusual prospects for appreciation are quite hard to find for there are not too many of them. However, for someone who understands and applies sound fundamentals, I believe that a truly outstanding company can be differentiated from a run-of-the-mill company with perhaps 90 percent precision.
对短期表现的判断，首先要对整体商业景气做宏观经济预测，但那些预言经济周期变化的“先知们”，预测记录通常糟糕透顶。他们常常严重误判衰退是否会发生、何时发生，对衰退的严重程度和持续时间预测得更差。此外，无论是整个股市还是单只股票的走势，都不会与经济景气高度同步。大众心理的变化、整个金融界如何评估整体商业或个股前景，这些因素往往起决定性作用，而且几乎无法预测。因此我相信，无论怎么努力钻研，预测股票短期走势的正确率很难超过60%，这个估计可能都已经过于乐观了。表面上看，这完全不合逻辑：为了一个最多只有60%把握的判断，就放弃一个你有90%把握是正确的持仓。
It is vastly more difficult to forecast what a particular stock is going to do in the next six months. Estimates of short-term performance start with economic estimates of the coming level of general business. Yet the forecasting record of seers predicting changes in the business cycle has generally been abysmal. They can seriously misjudge if and when recessions may occur, and are worse in predicting their severity and duration. Furthermore, neither the stock market as a whole nor the course of any particular stock tends to move in close parallel with the business climate. Changes in mass psychology and in how the financial community as a whole decided to appraise the outlook either for business in general or for a particular stock can have overriding importance and can vary almost unpredictably. For these reasons, I believe that it is hard to be correct in forecasting the short-term movement of stocks more than 60 percent of the time no matter how diligently the skill is cultivated. This may well be too optimistic an estimate. On the face of it, it doesn’t make good sense to step out of a position where you have a 90 percent probability of being right because of an influence about which you might at best have a 60 percent chance of being right.
真正优秀的股票，后续创出的高点，往往能比前一个高点高出数倍之多。因此，从风险收益比来看，长期投资才是更优选择。
Moreover, for those seeking major gains through long-term investments, the odds of winning are not the only consideration. If the investment is in a well-run company with sufficient financial strength, even the greatest bear market will not erase the value of holding. In contrast, time after time, truly unusual stocks have subsequent peaks many hundreds of percent above their previous peaks. Thus, risk/reward considerations favor long-term investment.
用最简单的数学语言来说，无论是概率还是风险收益比，都支持继续持有。判断一只优质股票短期会出现不利走势，出错的可能性，远大于判断它长期具备强劲上涨潜力的出错概率。
So, putting it in the simplest mathematical terms, both the odds and the risk/reward considerations favor holding. There is a much greater chance of being wrong in estimating adverse short-term changes for a good stock than in projecting its strong, long-term price appreciation potential. If you stay with the right stocks through even a major temporary market drop, you are at most going to be temporarily behind 40 percent of the former peak at the very worst point and will ultimately be ahead; whereas if you sell and don’t buy back you will have missed long-term profits many times the short-term gains from having sold the stock in anticipation at a short-term reversal. It has been my observation that it is so difficult to time correctly the near-term price movements of an attractive stock that the profits made in the few instances when this stock is sold and subsequently replaced at significantly lower prices are dwarfed by the profits lost when timing is wrong. Many have sold too soon and have either never gotten back in or have postponed reinvestment too long to recapture the profits possible.
一轮大幅上涨之后，在缺乏金融经验的人眼里，一只股票几乎总是显得太贵。这位客户的做法，也向那些只因为赚了不少、股价短期看似高估，就卖掉仍有巨大成长潜力的股票的人，揭示了另一重风险。这类投资者一旦判断失误，很少会在更高价位再买回来，从而错失了后续极为可观的巨大涨幅。 After a very sharp advance, a stock nearly always looks too high to the financially untrained. This client demonstrated another risk to those who follow the practice of selling shares that still have unusual growth prospects simply because they have realized a good gain and the stock appears temporarily overpriced. These investors seldom buy back at higher prices when they are wrong and lose further gains of dramatic proportions.
短期股价波动本身就极难预测，我不相信有人能靠频繁买卖，还能赚到真正长期持有优质股票所获得的那种巨大利润。 At the risk of being repetitious, let me underscore my belief that the short-term price movements are so inherently tricky to predict that I do not believe it possible to play the in and out game and still make the enormous profits that have accrued again and again to the truly longterm holder of the right stocks.
最具成长潜力的公司，往往面临着完全不分红的巨大压力。它们对资金的需求、以及高效运用资金的能力都太强了。开发新产品的成本，只是支撑增长所需资本的第一笔巨大消耗。接下来是推向市场所需的高额营销费用。一旦成功，又需要扩建厂房来满足不断增长的业务量。当新业务步入正轨后，还需要更多资金来支撑存货和应收账款的增长——而在大多数情况下，这些几乎会与业务规模成正比增长。
Shortly after World War II, when I started concentrating my investment activities almost solely on the attainment of major, long-range capital appreciation, another aspect of the dividend payout issue became even more apparent. The companies with the greatest growth prospects were under tremendous pressure to pay no dividends at all. Their need for funds and their ability to use funds productively was too large. The cost of developing these new products was just the first heavy drain on capital needed to finance growth. There followed the heavy marketing expense needed to introduce them to the customer. With success, plant expansion was needed to service a growing volume. Once the new line was on its way, there were further capital requirements for the increased inventories and accounts receivable which, in most cases, grow almost in direct proportion to the volume of the business.
这类拥有大量优质投资机会的公司，与一类投资者之间，似乎存在一种天然的契合：这类投资者希望在承担相应风险的前提下赚取尽可能高的收益，他们既不需要额外的现金收入，也不愿支付不必要的税款。我相信，这类投资者主要应把投资集中在那些不分红、但盈利能力强劲、且有优质再投资渠道的公司。这也正是我想要服务的客户群体。
There seemed a natural fit of interest between those firms with bountiful investment opportunities and certain investors who sought to make the greatest possible profit in relation to the risk involved and who neither needed additional income nor wanted to pay unnecessary taxes. Such investors should, I believe, mainly confine investments to non-dividend-paying companies with strong earning power and with attractive places to reinvest their earnings. These were the clients I sought to serve.