The long term return of Warren Buffett is quoted as 20%. But is it the arithmetic or geometric mean return?
Buffet's Birkshire Hathaway from 1999 to present... 8.2%, but has underperformed the SPY since the 2009 low. IDK if this includes dividends.
%% Strangely\ some years ago he forecast he most likely would not do as well, as he had. I think you are right, but your chart show he outdid SPY. from 2009low mostly. SCHW data show he beat SPY by 2% /5 years; but who wants to pay$ half a million per share/+ Good king size bid\ask spread, LOL; but SPY = liquidity leader. No wonder Mr Buffet is jealous of short term trades, even if he beat most of them in past.Elephant herd size AUM investors may like $464,464.777 per share!!
Buffet made LOTS of his performance in his early days... when his capital was small. Not a good idea to extrapolate his best days forward. He's become so big that he's mostly the same as an SPX fund.
"Warren Buffett's annual letter to Berkshire shareholders was released on Saturday, and as usual the first page compares the annual performance of Berkshire against that of the S&P 500 (^GSPC) since 1965.* Berkshire shares have seen an average annual return of 20.0% compared to the S&P 500's 10.2% gain during that period." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-...ent-track-record-morning-brief-113829049.html That answers my question as well, since the 10.2% must be a geometrical average and so the 20.0% must be a geometrical average as well.
I'd add, "when his capital was small" and when US equity markets were so inefficient that you could find healthy businesses selling for less than net cash.
%% EXaCTLY\ GM went from $22 to $555 area in 1915...... so must be a supertrender still?? But i doubt if mr Buffet + fund ever goes bankrupt or unionized like GM His past 10+20 years look much different. He still is brilliant, calling[most] of US health care ''a tapeworm'' LOL[Not a stock tip or insult to tape readers]