 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | A collection of pithy and inspiring sayings from America's favorite businessman that reveal his secrets of success Like the sayings of the ancient Chinese philospher Lao-tzu, Warren Buffett's worldly wisdom is deceptively simple and enormously powerful in application. In The Tao of Warren Buffett, Mary Buffett -- author of three books on Warren Buffett's investment methods -- joins noted Buffettologist and international lecturer David Clark to bring you Warren Buffett's smartest, funniest, and most memorable sayings with an eye toward revealing the life philosophy and the investment strategies that have made Warren Buffett, and the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, so enormously wealthy. Warren Buffett's investment achievements are unparalleled. He owes his success to hard work, integrity, and that most elusive commodity of all, common sense. The quotations in this book exemplify Warren's practical strategies and provide useful illustrations for every investor -- large or small -- and models everyone can follow. The quotes are culled from a variety of sources, including personal conversations, corporate reports, profiles, and interviews. The authors provide short explanations for each quote and use examples from Buffett's own business transactions whenever possible to illustrate his words at work. As Warren says: "You should invest in a business that even a fool can run, because someday a fool will.""With enough inside information and a million dollars, you can go broke in a year." "No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant." "Our method is very simple. We just try to buy businesses with good-to-superb underlying economics run by honest and able people and buy them at sensible prices. That's all I'm trying to do."
The Tao of Warren Buffett inspires, amuses, sharpens the mind, and offers priceless investment savvy that anyone can take to the bank. This irresistibly browsable and entertaining book is destined to become a classic. |
Average Customer Rating:   Great piece of book for a casual read Some great advice overall for life in general and investment in particular. I liked the style of the book - its not a giant essay but is composed of bunch of short quotes and thoughts. Investment wisdom from the best player Warren Buffett is the Michael Jordan of investing. Mary Buffett and David Clark compiled 125 quotes from the greatest investor of all times. These are short quotes, but they are so uplifting and simple that they would make almost anybody want to be an investor. My favorite quote is this:
"I made my first investment at age eleven. I was wasting my life up until then."
This book should be on every investor's shelf.
- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market
Good Perspectives! "The Tao of Warren Buffett" is a collection of aphorisms that are useful for investors. These include:
1)You can't make a good deal with a bad person.
2)The great personal fortunes in this country weren't built on a portfolio of 50 companies - they were built by someone who identified one wonderful business. I can't be involved in 50-75 things - that's a Noah's ark way of investing. None of the balls get the attention they need and you end up dropping them all.
3)If you can't find attractive investments within your circle of competence, don't expand the circle - just wait. This may require waiting until the market cools off or goes into a recessionary period. (In 1969, at the high end of the 1960s bull market, Warren thought stocks were so overpriced he got out of the market completely; by 1973-74 stocks were at bargain prices and he jumped back in.
4)Warren woke up in the late 1970s to the fact that bargain stocks below book value were no longer available and switched to buying exceptional businesses with a sustainable competitive advantage (eg. powerful worldwide brand - American Express, Gillette, Coca Cola) that does NOT require brilliant leadership - eg. high technology, brain surgery) in a stable industry (eg. candy; NOT autos, with their need for continual redesign) at reasonable prices and holding them for long periods. Companies Warren has invested in include Disney (1960), American Express (after the soybean oil scandal), Wells Fargo (1990), General Foods, Coca-Cola (1987, at 20X earnings after the New Coke fiasco and the 1987 crash), Budweiser, Wal-Mart, Wrigley's, Hershey, H&R Block, Washington Post (1973), GEICO (after a management mistake), Fruit of the Loom - 2002, out of bankruptcy, and ABC.
5)Buffett's idea of a group decision is to look into the mirror. Following others, doing what is popular is not the way to make money.
6)Anything that can't go on forever, won't. That includes our trade deficit.
7)When management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.
8)The reaction of weak management to weak operations is often weak accounting.
9)There is a huge difference between the business that grows and requires lots of capital (eg. G.M., Intel) to do so and the business that grows and doesn't require capital (eg. Wrigley's, Coca-Cola - don't have to redesign products).
10)Don't use equations with Greek letters in them. (Stick to simple basics.)
11)You want to learn from experience - especially other people's.
12)Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
13)"A stockbroker is someone who invests other people's money until its all gone." (Woody Allen) Wall Street makes its money on activity; you make your money on inactivity.
14)If you are getting more than one brilliant investment idea/year, you are probably deluding yourself. Buffett likes to find great businesses with a predictable future selling at a discounted price brought on by a correctable mistake by management or an industry recession or a bear market - he's not a "get in on the ground floor" guy.
15)If you let yourself be undisciplined on the small things, you will probably be undisciplined on the large things as well.
16)There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight. A great amount of wisdom in a little book I loved this book. It contained a lot of great wisdom on investing, and life. |  |
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