Warren Buffett tips at a glance

Warren Buffett Quotes PPT - PDF

Warren Buffett, the billionaire investors and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, has openly revealed his success formula and investment mantras in various interviews, meetings and discussions. 

Warren Buffett suffering from Prostate Cancer

Warren Buffet has recently been diagnosed with a stage 1 prostate cancer, which is believed to be non life threatening. The eighty one year old, billionaire investor, will begin a two month treatment of daily radiation in July. 

“I feel great -- as if I were in my normal excellent health -- and my energy level is 100 percent,” Buffett said in the letter yesterday. “I will let shareholders know immediately should my health situation change. Eventually, of course, it will; but I believe that day is a long way off.”

Warren Buffett Portfolio Performance History

Berkshire Hathaway performance history (1980 - 2012)

Warren Buffett, the oracle of Omaha, who turned the loss making textile company Berkshire Hathaway into the world's largest holding company, follows the value investing strategy of Benjamin Graham. 

Buffett prefers to acquire great companies trading at a discount to their intrinsic value, and  hold them for a very long time. He only invests in businesses that he understands.  Using simple investing strategies he has outperformed S&P 500 by wide margin. 

Below is the brief snapshot of returns generated by Berkshire Hathaway over 5 years, 10 years and since inception.

Warren Buffett Letter to Shareholders 2011 - 2012 : PDF

Berkshire Hathaway Chairman, Mr. Buffett, sends an annual letter to all of its shareholders and he has been doing this every year since 1977. 

The letter is very informative and Warren Buffett don't forget to highlight his mistakes in the letter (if any), which is a part of a leadership style that has helped him build a company with 270,000 workers and draw crowds of more than 20,000 to hear him speak during annual general meeting. “A friend once asked me: If you’re so rich, why aren’t you smart?” Warren Buffett, said in a letter accompanying the 1996 annual report. 

If you are looking to read some or all of those letters then use the link to download them in PDF format:

Warren Buffett Biography PDF

Warren Buffett, the world's richest investor turned philanthropist, has turned the ailing textile business of Berkshire Hathaway into a multi billion dollar furniture to Insurance giant after acquiring it in 1965. 

At the age of six, Buffett purchased 6-packs of Coca Cola from his grandfather's grocery store for twenty five cents and resold each of the bottles for a nickel, pocketing a five cent profit. While other children his age were playing hopscotch and jacks, Warren was making money. Its very encouraging to see that buffett who used to sell coca cola on trolley at the age of Six is now the owner of Coca Cola. He is the largest shareholder of the company as on FEB 2012. 

Berkshire Hathaway Holdings

Warren Buffett's holding company Berksire Hathaway held following stocks in their portfolio as on 30th June 2011. The total value of investments held by berkshire hathaway as on 28th Sep 2011 is $49.6 billion.

The biggest investment held by the company is Coca-Cola which is worth approximately $14 billion.

Warren Buffett latest interview - August 2011

Warren Buffett Interview - 2011

Buy Warren Buffett favourite stocks cheaper than him

ConocoPhillips (COP), SanofiAventis ADS (SNY), GlaxoSmithKlien (GSK), Bank of New York Mellon (BK) and U.S. Bancorp (USB) are some of his favourite stocks that you can buy cheaper than him right now.

Lunch with Buffett - a value investment of life

It takes millions of dollars to have lunch with legendary investor Warren Buffett and a bidder has snatched up the opportunity by agreeing to shell out $2.34 million in an online charity auction.

However, the highest bid this year was less than last year's record bid price of $2.62 million. The proceeds from the auction, conducted every year on online marketplace eBay, would be used for charity purposes. The auction proceeds will go to Glide Foundation , an institution that helps alleviate poverty in the San Francisco Bay Area.

How Buffett does it

Warren Buffett key investment strategies by InvestorZclub

Warren Buffett Quotes

Warren Buffet Investment Quotes and Criteria: 

1. A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.
2. Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
3. Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction.
4. I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute.
5. I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.
6. I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
7. If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.
8. If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.
9. In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
10. It's better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you'll drift in that direction.
11. It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.
12. Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.
13. Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.
14. Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.
15. Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
16. Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.
17. Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.
18. Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
19. The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.
20. The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.
21. The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth.

Warren Buffet Biography

Early life

Warren Buffet was born in 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of a stockbroker and Congressman, and has become probably the world’s most successful investor.

As a boy, irrespective of his family background, he delivered newspapers to make extra money and this probably sparked his interest in the media where he has made several successful investments including the Washington Post Company, a stock that has made him a lot of money and which he vows never to sell.

Imbued with a determination to make good and an entrepreneurial nature, Warren dabbled in several part time businesses but his destiny was chartered early in the piece when, after graduating from the University of Nebraska, he studied business at the Columbia Graduate Business School under the legendary Benjamin Graham.

Working with Benjamin Graham

He tried to get a position with Graham’s firm and was at first unsuccessful. He finally got the job and, as he generously acknowledges, learned a lot about stock investment from The Master.

Warren Buffet portfolio

Warren Buffet Latest Portfolio - 2011

Rank	Stock	# of Shares	% Weighting
		(millions)	of Portfolio	% Stake
			(as of 12/31/10)	in Co.
1	Coca-Cola (KO)	200	21.60%	8.73%
2	Wells Fargo (WFC*)	320	19.56%	6.51%
3	American Express (AXP)	151.6	12.28%	12.67%
4	Procter & Gamble (PG*)	79.1	9.83%	2.74%
5	Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT)	106.7	6.34%	6.02%
6	Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)	23.9	3.06%	1.55%
7	Wal-Mart (WMT)	39	4.26%	1.10%
8	Wesco Financial Corp. (WSC)	5.7	4.32%	80.10%
9	ConocoPhillips (COP)	34.2	3.43%	1.93%
10	US Bancorp (USB)	69	3.51%	3.59%
11	Washington Post Co. (WPO)	1.7	1.51%	20.46%
12	Moody's Corp. (MCO)	30.8	1.80%	12.31%
13	M&T Bank Corp. (MTB)	5.6	0.87%	4.48%
14	Costco (COST)	4.3	0.51%	0.99%
15	USG Corp. (USG)	17.1	0.58%	16.60%
16	Torchmark Corp. (TMK)	2.8	0.30%	3.53%
17	General Electric (GE)	7.8	0.28%	0.07%
18	Sanofi-Aventis (SNY)	3.9	0.29%	4.68%
19	United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS*)	1.4	0.18%	0.14%
20	GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)	1.5	0.11%	0.06%
21	Ingersoll-Rand (IR)	5.6	0.39%	0.20%
22	Exxon Mobil (XOM)	0.4	0.06%	0.01%
23	Gannett Co., Inc. (GCI)	1.7	0.06%	0.73%
24	Comdisco Holding Co. Inc. (CDCO.OB)	1.5	0.03%	38.18%
25	Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK)	5.6	0.39%	0.14%
Acq	Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI)**	0	0.00%	100%

Warren Buffett Investment Criteria

Warren Buffet owned Berkshire Hathaway relies on extensive research-and-analysis team that goes through reams of data to guide their investment decisions. While all the details of the specific techniques used are not made public, the following 10 requirements are all common among Berkshire Hathaway investments:

1. The candidate company has to be in a good and growing economy or industry.

2. It must enjoy a consumer monopoly or have a loyalty-commanding brand.

3. It cannot be vulnerable to competition from anyone with abundant resources.

4. Its earnings have to be on an upward trend with good and consistent profit margins.

5. The company must enjoy a low debt/equity ratio or a high earnings/debt ratio.

6. It must have high and consistent returns on invested capital.

7. The company must have a history of retaining earnings for growth.