Full Q&A afternoon session from the 2007 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting with the world’s richest man and most successful investor, Warren Buffett and his partner, Charlie Munger.
Q2 hedge fund letters, conference, scoops etc
PM 2007 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting With Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger - Full Q&A
Transcript
OK. If you're ready we are we're going to keep going in the same order because there's people in the other rooms that have been waiting. So we will go to number 11 Hi my name is Christian Bahah from superfunds. I have a question for you Mr. Buffett. What do you think about minifigures response. I didn't quite get that one kind of from managed cutis funds. Very rare. If I put in stocks and bonds going long and so are all the different markets based on the most natural human behavior trend following her behavior managed futures funds. Well I would say that we think the most logical one is the one we have at Berkshire where essentially we can do anything that makes sense and are not compelled to do anything that we don't think makes sense. So any any any entity that is devoted to a limited segment of the financial market we would regard as being at a disadvantage to one that has total authority. If you have the right person in charge. But that's an assumption you're going to make under any fun. So we would not want to devote our funds to something that was only going to buy bonds something it was only going to buy futures or anything of the sort. We would we would we buy futures at Berkshire we buy bonds at Berkshire we bought we buy currencies we buy businesses. So I think it's I think it's a mistake to shrink the universe of possibilities. Ours is shrunk simply by size but we don't try to.
We don't set out to circumscribe our actions in any way but in the end there's no form that produces investment results. Hedge funds don't produce investment results. Private equity doesn't produce investment results. Mutual funds don't produce it. If it was simply a matter of form we'd all call ourselves you know whatever that form happens to be what really makes the difference is whether the person that is running it knows what their limitations are knows where their strengths are plays one they have the opportunity to play advantageously and stays out when they don't see any opportunities. Charlie I go through I'd say averaged out I would expect that the return per dollar per year in Managed Futures Fund would be somewhere between lousy and negative and I would agree with that. Yeah yeah. Usually those are sales tools. I mean people find out something will sell and it can be you know it can be bond funds at some point it can be undone. But when they find something to sell it'll get sold to the public that will be it will sell till it stops selling. And that means lots of money comes in and lots of competition for a limited number of opportunities. And I think it's I think it's a mistake to get sold something on the on the basis that here is a great area of opportunity areas don't make opportunities branes make opportunities basically number 12 Matthew Monohan from Palo Alto California.
Mr. Buffett Mr. Mongar first of all I want to thank both of you so for so freely sharing your wisdom and knowledge over the years even though we've never met in person I consider you both to be close personal mentors and attribute your teachings and philosophies to any success I've had in business so far. So thank you. Here's my question for a 23 year old with high ambitions. Some initial working capital and a genetic wiring as you call it. For disciplines like investments mathematics and technology what do you foresee as the significant areas of opportunity over the next 50 or even 100 years. And if you were in my shoes what would be your approach and methodology for really learning tackling and mastering these areas of opportunity for the purpose of massive value creation. Well I'm I remain very and and frankly when you get the chance to talk to somebody like Lorimer Davidson as I did was.
