Leave Some Room for Error

Woodstock for capitalists takes place the first Saturday in May.

That’s a reference to the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting. More than 30,000 people fill an arena in downtown Omaha—standing room only—seeking business updates and general investment wisdom from Warren Buffett.

Hotel rooms at the Hilton Omaha across the street from the meeting venue fetch $2,500 per night. And it’s a two-night minimum, meaning $6,000 after taxes for the weekend stay.

Put simply, demand is high.

The reason is obvious: Buffett—and Berkshire—have a nearly 60-year track record of delivering consistent results. According to Barron’s, Berkshire shares could fall 99% and remain ahead of the S&P 500’s total return since 1965, when Buffett took over.  

The total returns work out to a compounded annual gain of more than four million percent. The S&P 500 returned more than 31,000% in the same span, but when you compare the returns side-by-side it appears the S&P returned nothing. That’s how outstanding Berkshire’s long-term track record has been.

But a funny truth about Buffett: He’s often more inclined to discuss mistakes rather than celebrate success.

As one example, the 2019 Berkshire annual meeting had a question from a shareholder, who asked:

“You’ve gotten into the tech sector by purchasing Apple shares. Bill Gates is sitting in the front row today, and I’m curious, why have you never bought Microsoft?”

Laughter broke out as Gates, then a Berkshire board member, smiled while sitting a folding chair near the stage where Buffett was answering questions.

With usual candor, Buffett remarked, “It’s very clear. The answer is stupidity.”

Buffett and Gates have known each other since at least 1991. When they initially met, Microsoft was a publicly traded company valued at around $10 billion. Today, Microsoft's worth nearly $3 trillion.

More than a 44,000% return left on the table—a giant miss.  

How did missing Microsoft impact Buffett or Berkshire shareholders?

Probably not at all.

Buffett’s aversion to technology stocks has been well-documented. Even if he bought Microsoft in 1991, it’s not obvious he would have held it for 30 years. A period where the business went through multiple transformations: starting in computer software, moving into video game manufacturing, and then into cloud computing.

Buffett was a fan of betting on horses at an early age—detailed in Alice Schroeder’s book, The Snowball—and enjoyed the process of handicapping, only placing wagers when he believed the odds favored him.

In the case of Microsoft, he didn’t believe the business moat—one that would protect Microsoft from competition—was strong enough.

But he did identify moats across Geico, American Express, Coca-Cola, Gillette, and countless others where he believed the odds were advantageous. And he felt more comfortable about the future for each.

It’s easy to think Microsoft was “a miss,” but the opportunity cost is unknowable.

Buying Microsoft could have taken his attention away from the many other businesses that delivered great investment outcomes in the decades that followed.

Buffett finished answering the question stating, “We missed a lot in the past, and I suspect we’ll miss a lot more in the future.”

If one of the world’s great investors can brush off a perceived miss, maybe the rest of us should too.

Getting a few simple things right over an investment lifetime—and less emphasis on home run hitting—will carry most of the freight.

For many, the simple things—while not all encompassing—can be distilled down to a few key ideas:

• Save more than you spend

• Diversify across asset classes

• Invest regularly (even during bear markets and corrections)

• Be mindful of costs

• Don’t panic during sell-offs

It would be great to have owned Nvidia, Bitcoin, or many of the other “shiny objects" in the past few years, but investing fates are decided by many other factors than a few giant winners.