Vous connaissez sans aucun doute Warren Buffet, un investisseur long terme, milliardaire de son état. Adulé par la plupart des investisseurs, il reste néanmoins critiqué. Mais depuis ses débuts, avec une croissance moyenne par an de 8%, il est et reste sans aucun doute le meilleur et surtout sur un horizon de temps durable, le meilleur investisseur de tous les temps. Bien que sa fortune provienne essentiellement de la manière dont il a géré son fonds de gestion et des frais « importants » qu’il facture ses clients plus que sur ses gains boursiers. Quoiqu’il en soit, on ne peut qu’apprendre auprès d’un homme qui est à la fois homme d’affaires et un investisseur qui gagne sur la durée. Voici donc 18 conseils du meilleur investisseur de ces 50 dernières années à relire une fois par mois pour garder le cap.

« It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price. »

« You don’t need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ. »

« None of this means, however, that a business or stock is an intelligent purchase simply because it is unpopular; a contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What’s required is thinking rather than polling. Unfortunately, Bertrand Russell’s observation about life in general applies with unusual force in the financial world: « Most men would rather die than think. Many do. »

« After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out. »

« The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble…We want to buy them when they’re on the operating table. »

« Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497. »

« The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball.They know that overstaying the festivities ¾ that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future ¾ will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There’s a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.« 

« Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now. Over time, you will find only a few companies that meet these standards – so when you see one that qualifies, you should buy a meaningful amount of stock. You must also resist the temptation to stray from your guidelines: If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio’s market value. »

« When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever. »

« I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.« 

« Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful. »

« The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don’t have to swing at everything–you can wait for your pitch. The problem when you’re a money manager is that your fans keep yelling, ‘Swing, you bum!' »

« We will continue to ignore political and economic forecasts, which are an expensive distraction for many investors and businessmen. Thirty years ago, no one could have foreseen the huge expansion of the Vietnam War, wage and price controls, two oil shocks, the resignation of a president, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a one-day drop in the Dow of 508 points, or treasury bill yields fluctuating between 2.8% and 17.4%.

« But, surprise – none of these blockbuster events made the slightest dent in Ben Graham’s investment principles. Nor did they render unsound the negotiated purchases of fine businesses at sensible prices. Imagine the cost to us, then, if we had let a fear of unknowns cause us to defer or alter the deployment of capital. Indeed, we have usually made our best purchases when apprehensions about some macro event were at a peak. Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist.

« Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that ‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’ Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.« 

« I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am no investor. »

« Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre. »

« Rule No. 1: never lose money; rule No. 2: don’t forget rule No. 1