Fretting is "the enemy of long-term performance" · Transcript

WarrenThere's a lot to be said for developing a temperament that can own securities without fretting. I think that the fretful disposition is the, it's an enemy of long-term performance. Well, it's almost, I think it's almost impossible if you're to do well in equities over a period of time. If you go to bed every night thinking about the price of them, I mean, Charlie and I, we think about the value of them. But we would be happy, just as in that movie. If they close the stock exchange tomorrow, you know, Dick Grasso wouldn't be happy and Jimmy McGuire, our specialists, wouldn't be happy. It wouldn't bother me and Charlie at all. We would keep selling bricks, selling deli bars, selling candy, writing insurance. You know, a lot of people have private companies, and they never got a quote on them. You know, we bought Seas Candy in 1972. We haven't had a coat on it since. Does that make us wonder about how we're doing with C's candy? candy? No, we looked at the company results. So there's nothing wrong with focusing on company results. Focusing on the price of a stock is dynamite, because it really means that you think that the stock market knows more than you do. Now, the stock market may know more than you do, but then you shouldn't be in stocks. I mean, you should have, the stock market is there to serve you and not to instruct you. So you need to formulate your ideas on price and value. And if the price gets cheaper and you have funds, you know, logically you should buy more. And we do that all the time.