1. What are your views on derivatives and how do you think they have affected the global market?
In my 2002 letter to shareholders I referred to them as “weapons of mass destruction.” Derivatives are really just a way to create a product with a very long fuse, for example, 100 years, as opposed to stocks which settle in 3 days. That kind of system allows claims to be built up. AIG called me in September and told me they were about to get downgraded which would have required higher posting requirements. Now this is an enterprise that has been built up over decades and was effectively destroyed in 48 hours by these products. With derivatives, you’re exposed to counterparties and thus reliant on others. These claims built up over time to the tune of billions of dollars and when one falls, the whole system falls. Derivatives are not evil by themselves but rather everyone needs to be able to handle them. System wide, they’re rat poison. Berkshire holds many derivatives but we always hold the money at Berkshire.
[Q: Given the large amount of value that’s been destroyed by the use of derivatives, is it appropriate for Berkshire to hold large derivative positions?]
Buffett: Yes, derivatives pose problems to the world. Our job is to make money over time, and our use of derivatives doesn’t impinge on Berkshire’s capital — we have posted collateral of less than 1% of our total marketable securities. I said in 2002 that we use them. We think that as long as we explain [our use of] derivatives, the benefits outweigh the costs. We received $4.9 billion in premiums [for writing equity puts] and can use this money for 15 – 20 years. I personally think that we’ll make money on our equity put options. We’d have to lose money over 15 – 20 years [to lose on our equity puts]. We had a financial hurricane, [yet regarding] the equity put contracts, there’s a good chance we’ll make money on those. During the last week we modified two put contracts—reducing the term to about 10 years and reducing the strike price from 1,514 to 994. Our shareholders are intelligent enough to understand [the situation] if we explain it.
Munger: I would agree that there should be limits, and we have stayed well short of the limit that’s appropriate.
[What do you think Ben Graham would think about derivatives?]
Buffett: He would not like them. They cause risk to run wild. They increase risks and strains, but if some were mispriced, he’d act accordingly. But he wouldn’t get into a position of letting others get him in trouble. After 1929, Congress decided it was dangerous to borrow against securities, so the Fed was empowered to regulate margin levels. But derivatives made those rules a laughing stock. Derivatives came to be a way around margin regulations. They also allowed longer settlement periods, another danger. Buy Galbraith’s The Great Crash.
Munger: There’s a deeper problem. [Concerning derivatives trading] the dealer has two advantages: [1] a croupier-style house advantage, and [2] the dealer plays in the same game and is a better player and knows what the client is doing [buying and selling]. It’s a dirty business. We don’t need more of this kind of thing in America; we need less.
[Q: What useful function do derivatives serve? Why aren’t derivatives illegal?]
WB: Charlie may have more to comment.
CM: The usefulness of derivatives is overstated. We’d still have oats and wheat if we didn’t have derivative markets. The test is not ‘is there any benefit’, but is the NET benefit or disadvantage useful or better without. My own view is that if we had only [exchange traded] [Ed: another notetaker heard: agriculture and metals] and banned the rest – the world would be better place.
WB: BNSF has diesel contracts. If I was running the place, I wouldn’t hedge - unless you are smarter than the market in diesel fuel. If you are you shouldn’t be running a railroad, you should be run a diesel trading business. If you have someone in charge of running that hedge, they will hedge it. If he thinks that will make him a better manager of railroads, then fine, let him do it, but I will hold CEO responsible for running it over time. I wouldn’t condemn anyone for hedging diesel fuel. But I do think if you put up (slide4) – from Chapter 12 of Keynes General Theory – it is by far the best description of the way capital markets function. It is descriptive and prescriptive. Usually only the first two sentences are quoted, but it is better as a whole paragraph:
Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. The measure of success attained by Wall Street, regarded as an institution of which the proper social purpose is to direct new investment into the most profitable channels in terms of future yield, cannot be claimed as one of the outstanding triumphs of laissez-faire capitalism – which is not surprising, if I am right in thinking that the best brains of Wall Street have been in fact directed towards a different object.
Wall Street is mix of casino and a very important social operation – and once academia got behind derivatives and schools taught more about how to price a derivative instead of valuing a business, the trouble began. In 1982 Wall Street allowed speculation in SP500 futures. I wrote letter to Congressman Dingle which was published in Fortune Magazine. What I forecasted occurred then it got squared, with new ways to gamble.
CM: Warren wrote the only letter saying the idea is insane. Only difference is then not very many people listened to him.
WB: It doesn’t make any sense that the tax treatment on gambling on S&P 500 contracts is better (partial long term capital gains treatment) than buying and holding individual stocks for less than a year (SP500 contract is taxed 60% long-term gain and 40% short term, even if you hold it for 60 seconds). This distortion came about as a result of the power of a small group of lobbyists. Charlie do you know why this is?
CM: It is neither fair nor sensible. The idea that the tax treatment on something that is held for 3 seconds is different than something that is held for less than a year (some long term gains treatment for the former and none for the latter) is insane. If someone with money and interest cares a lot and others are indifferent, that someone wins in front of the legislative bodies. As Bismarck said, don’t watch sausage making or law making.
来源：Source: Q&A with 6 Business Schools ；URL: ；Time: Feb 2009
2. What is your opinion on exchange-traded funds and how to do you accurately judge them?
ETF’s are a fairly low cost way to get into a market or industry. We don’t hold any and never will. I recommend index funds for people who don’t want to spend time studying the market. They are good for 95% of the population. If you don’t bring anything to the game, you shouldn’t expect to win.
来源：Source: Student Visit 2007 ；URL: http://buffettspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/01/permanent-value-teachings-of-warren.html ；Time: January 2007
3. Could you comment on your currency position?
We have about $21 billion in about 11 foreign currencies. We have $60-70 billion in things that are denominated in US Dollars. We still have a huge US bias. If Martians came down with currency certificates and could choose any currency on earth, I doubt it would be 80% in US Dollars.
We are following policies that make me doubt that our currency will not follow a downward spin. We lost $307 million this quarter. The net gain since we started holding foreign currencies in 2002 is $2.1 billion. We have to mark these future contracts to market daily. If we owned bonds instead of sterling forward contracts, it wouldn't fluctuate around so much.
Identifying bubbles is fairly easy. You don't know how big they will get and you don't know when they will pop. You don't know when midnight will hit, but when it does, it turns carriages to pumpkins and mice. What markets will do is pretty easy. When they will do it is more difficult. Some people want to stick around for the last dance, and they thought that a bigger fool would be just around the corner tomorrow.
When we bought those junk bonds, I didn't know we would make $4 billion in such a short time. It would have been better if it wouldn't have happened so quickly, as we would have gotten a bigger position.
来源：Source: Student Visit 2005 ；URL: http://boards.fool.com/buffettjayhawk-qa-22736469.aspx?sort=whole#22803680 ；Time: May 6, 2005
4. Early on in you career you bought some land and then rented this out to some local farmers? Why didn’t you pursue this type of investment in real estate?
I made an initial investment farm real estate when I was 14. Someone else handled the whole transaction; I just bought 40 acres. A guy would farm the land and harvest X number bushels of soybean and sell if for $X per bushel at the market and say here is your check. I did virtually nothing for this investment. I had no idea if he actually harvested what he said he did, or if he sold the bushels he said he sold, or for that matter what price he sold it at. It’s kind of like the guys who kept all his cows in with a big herd. As they are taking them to market, the owner of the big herd says, sorry but all of your cows died. How would you know which cows were yours?
In 1980 with the S&L crisis, land was selling for $2,000 an acre. Well, an acre produced 120 bushels of corn or 45 bushels of soybeans. At a couple dollars a bushel, this was basically $80 an acre in revenue. At the time with the interest rates, you would pay $150 per acre in interest. So you were taking in $80 and paying out $150, it just did not make sense. The bankers went crazy lending money at $2,000 an acre prices for farms at 10% interest rates to produce $80 an acre in crops. Well after a bunch of people lost big time, the FDIC took control of the farms and ended up selling them at $600 an acre, which at the time was a good deal. The FDIC took over hundreds of farms because people went crazy and lost their shirts.
The S&L’s lost their fundamentals and the Government owned $100 million worth of properties they needed to dump at a low cost. This was an opportunity to make some money, however I still don’t like farms because they are too passive.
I still don’t like farming. My son likes farming, I don’t.
来源：Source: Student Visit 2007 ；URL: http://buffettspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/01/permanent-value-teachings-of-warren.html ；Time: January 2007
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