- Charlie Munger lambasted speculators, crypto and the Fed at the Daily Journal’s annual meeting.
- Warren Buffett’s right-hand man praised Costco, touted Chinese stocks and offered investment advice.
- The 98-year-old predicted that the passive investing boom would have disastrous consequences.
Charlie Munger lamented rampant speculation in the stock market, compared cryptocurrencies to sexually transmitted infections and predicted the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy would end in disaster at the Daily Journal’s annual meeting on Wednesday.
The 98-year-old investor is best known as a business partner of Warren Buffett and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. He trumpeted Costco, defended his bets on China and sounded the alarm on the
passive investment
boom during the event, which was streamed live by Yahoo Finance.
Here are Munger’s top 16 quotes from the Daily Journal meeting, edited for length and clarity:
1. “Granted, Gamestop’s big short squeeze was miserable excess. Granted, bitcoin is miserable excess. -venture and other forms of private equity.”
2. “We have a stock market that some people use as a gambling parlour. If I was the dictator of the world, I would have some sort of tax on short-term gains that would make the stock market a lot less liquid, and chased this legitimate capital development and gambling parlor marriage out of the country.It’s not a good marriage, and I think we need a divorce.
3. “What we get is miserable excess and a danger to the country. Everyone likes it because it’s like a bunch of people getting drunk at a party; they’re having so much fun getting together. drunk that they don’t think about the Eventually there will be considerable problems because of the miserable excess, that’s how it usually worked in the past. But when it will happen and how bad it will be, I can not tell you.
4. “I definitely didn’t invest in crypto. I’m proud of the fact that I avoided it. It’s like a venereal
illness or otherwise. I just regard him as under contempt. Some think it’s modernity, and they hail a currency so useful in extortion and kidnapping, tax evasion, etc. I wish it had been banned immediately. I admire the Chinese who banned it. I think they were right and we were wrong to allow it.”
5. “There has never been anything like what we are doing now. We know from what has happened in other countries that if you try to print too much money, it ends up by causing terrible trouble. We’re closer to terrible trouble than we’ve been in the past, but it might still be a long way off.” (Munger was talking about the Federal Reserve’s expansionary monetary policy.)
6. “If you’re trying to do better than average, you’re lucky if you have four things to buy. Asking 20 is really
ask for eggs in your beer. Very few people are smart enough to make 20 good investments.”Munger warned against portfolio diversification.)
7. “If you plan to invest in stocks for the long term or in real estate, there will of course be times when
there is a lot of agony, and other times there is a boom. Sometimes it’s night, and sometimes it’s day. Sometimes it’s a boom, and sometimes it’s a bust. I believe in doing the best we can; keep going as long as they let you.”
8. “I don’t have a single investment. I think some people are good enough to be able to invest in things that are hard to value. Others would be very wise to have more modest ambitions in terms of what they choose to deal in. To anyone who finds the current investment climate harsh and difficult and somewhat confusing, I would say, “Welcome to adult life.”
9. “Costco is going to be an absolute titan on the internet because they have curated products that everyone trusts and huge buying power on a limited number of stock units. America works as well as Costco. Think what a positive thing that would be for all of us.”
10. “The Heinz company directors table is $600,000. The goddamn directors table. The Costco directors table is about $300. Different places, different philosophy.”
11. “In China, the companies we invest in are stronger relative to their competitors and have lower prices. We get more strength per dollar invested. That’s why we’re in China.”
12. “We’ve had this huge shift of voting power to these passive index funds. It’s going to change the world. I don’t know what the consequences will be, but I predict it won’t be good. I think the world of Larry Fink, but I’m not sure I want him to be my emperor.”
13. “That poor, pathetic architect who criticized me is just an ignoramus. He can’t help himself. I guarantee you one thing about him, he’s not fixable.” (Munger was commenting on the backlash he faced over a virtually windowless college dorm he designed.)
14. “The world isn’t driven by greed, it’s driven by envy. The fact that everyone is five times better off than before, they take it for granted. Whatever they think, it’s somebody else has more, and it’s not fair that he has it and they don’t.”
15. “I always say the same thing: realistic expectations, which are low expectations. If you have unreasonable demands on life, you’re almost like a bird trying to destroy itself by slapping its wings on the edge of the sea. cage. You really can’t get out of the cage. That’s stupid. You want to have reasonable expectations and take the results of life, good and bad, as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism. (Munger was asked about the secret to living a happy life.)
16. “It’s not that we wanted to be the guru of the world or anything like that. We knew all the shareholders, and we thought that since they only come once a year, we should at least stay here and answer questions. And there was a market for it, so we kept doing it. Warren and I are contrived, accidental gurus. (Munger reflected on why he and Buffett answered questions at their shareholder meetings.)
Comments are closed.