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14 sats \ 9 replies \ @orangecheckemail_isthereany 8 May \ on: There Will Never Be Another Buffett (WSJ, Jason Zweig) econ
What if you'd simply bought gold when he started his fund, instead of investing it with him?
Using the numbers from
https://www.investorsfriend.com/what-warren-buffett-accomplished-for-share-owners/ and https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/if-you-invested-$100-in-berkshire-hathaway-in-1965-this-is-how-much-you-would-have-today
share price in 1965: 18 dollars
share price in 2025: 460 000 dollars
That's roughly a 25 000x compared to gold's 100x over the time period.
Impressive indeed.
That's a 250x over 60 years adjusted to inflation as measured by gold,
or about 9.7 percent per year annual compound growth rate above inflation rate as measured by gold price changes.
Not taking into account inflation:
1960s to 2020s: 25 000x over 60 years, or 18.4 percent annual compound growth
Taking into account inflation as measured by gold:
1960s to 2020s: 250x over 60 years, or 9.7 percent annual compound growth rate
Pretty big difference
but still great either way
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probably a lot less returns.
If you run some "DCA" monthly etc, then I could see it work. But point to point, no way.
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Did some calculations and you are correct indeed about the difference in returns being substantial.
Using the numbers from
https://www.investorsfriend.com/what-warren-buffett-accomplished-for-share-owners/ and https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/if-you-invested-$100-in-berkshire-hathaway-in-1965-this-is-how-much-you-would-have-today
share price in 1965: 18 dollars
share price in 2025: 460 000 dollars
That's roughly a 25 000x compared to gold's 100x over the time period.
Impressive indeed.
That's a 250x over 60 years adjusted to inflation as measured by gold,
or about 9.7 percent per year annual compound growth rate above inflation rate as measured by gold price changes.
Not taking into account inflation:
1960s to 2020s: 25 000x over 60 years, or 18.4 percent annual compound growth
Taking into account inflation as measured by gold:
1960s to 2020s: 250x over 60 years, or 9.7 percent annual compound growth rate
Pretty big difference
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apparently, curtesy of Mark Moss, if you pick the timeline good enough (=what I was alluding to above) you can get that gold-parity result
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Indeed! Thanks for checking
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Gold was about 30 dollars per ounce in the 1960s and its over 3000 an ounce now.
Gold did a 100x
Maybe Warren did better but many people also overestimate how much they gained versus how much they didn't lose to inflation (rise in price of gold being a proxy for inflation)
Point is that the sick returns are more a symptom of broken monetary system than investing genius
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Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has significantly outperformed the S&P 500 over the past several decades. Since 1965, Berkshire Hathaway's stock has returned 5,502,284%, compared to the S&P 500's total return of 39,054%, including dividends. This translates to a compounded annual gain of 19.9%, nearly double the S&P 500's 10.4% annual return
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I have no clue, look up the cumulative returns. But 20-25% a year for 40+ years probably beats that
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