Thanks for the link. Loved it, classic W.B in regards to the part about the brokers, managers, and hedgefunds who as a whole can't outperform the market.
interestingly, Buffet used to run a limited partnership before 1970s, which was similar to a hedge fund today.
You are correct. Here are the partnership results from 1957, the first year, to 1969, the last year. year.. Dow.. partnership .. Limited PTr 1957 ... -8.4%... +10.4% ... +9.3% 1958... 38.5 ... 40.9... 32.2 1959 ... 20.0 ... 25.9... 20.9 1960 ... -6.2 ... 22.8... 18.6 1961 ..... 22.4... 45.9... 35.9 1962 ... - 7.6... 13.9.... 11.9 1963 ... 20.6 ... 38.7... 30.5 1964 ... 18.7 .. 27.8... 22.3 1965 ... 14.2 ... 47.2.... 36.9 1966 ... - 15.6... 20.4 ... 16.8 1967 ... 19.0 ... 35.9.... 28.4 1968 .... 7.7 ... 58.8.... 45.6 1969 ... - 11.6 .. + 6.8... 6.6 The above Dow # includes dividends The cumulative coumpounded returns were ............... +7.4 ......... + 29.5........ +23.8 Remember - he was managing a lot less money then, then he manages now.
no mention of if he still owns or leases silver though he did mention some unwinding of his bet against the USD
He was way early on his silver bet, but I gotta believe they still have some involvment w silver. Even though photography was one of the biggest users of silver the px has doubled in the last 3-5 years. In the letter he explained how some of his foreign investments were another way to mitigate a weaker dollar. He describes this starting in the middle of page 16 of the link above. But he has to be right because if he converts $ to, say, Yuan and the foreign investment performs well, when he sells it and converts proceeds back to $, the $/Yuan exchange rate at that time has to be better than his ROI for the trade to make sense (in dollars). Of course, if the Yuan investment increases and the $ falls he has the potential to get a double-double. Is that right?
Yes, your thinking is correct. Holding foreign investments in another currency also exposes you to forex risk. For example, Canadians buying and holding US investments during 2005 probably wouldn't have done very well due to the appreciation of the Canadian dollar vs. the US dollar.