巴菲特致股东的信（2017年）①概述

To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:

致伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司所有股东：

Berkshire’s gain in net worth during 2017 was $65.3 billion, which increased the per-share book value of both our Class A and Class B stock by 23%. Over the last 53 years (that is, since present management took over), per- share book value has grown from $19 to $211,750, a rate of 19.1% compounded annually.*

2017年伯克希尔的净资产增加了653亿美元，A/B股每股账面价值增长了23%。自现任管理层接手的53年以来，每股账面价值已从19美元增至211,750美元，年复合增长率约为19.1%。

*All per-share figures used in this report apply to Berkshire’s A shares. Figures for the B shares are 1/1500th of those shown for the A shares.

本报告中所有的每股数据均指伯克希尔A类股。B类股的数据为A类股的1/1500。

The format of that opening paragraph has been standard for 30 years. But 2017 was far from standard: A large portion of our gain did not come from anything we accomplished at Berkshire.

这样的开头段落格式已经是30年来的惯例了。但2017年绝非寻常的一年：我们的收益中有很大一部分，并不是伯克希尔自身经营取得的。

The $65 billion gain is nonetheless real – rest assured of that. But only $36 billion came from Berkshire’s operations. The remaining $29 billion was delivered to us in December when Congress rewrote the U.S. Tax Code. (Details of Berkshire’s tax-related gain appear on page K-32 and pages K-89 – K-90.)

这653亿美元的收益是实实在在的——这一点大可放心。但其中只有360亿美元来自伯克希尔的运营。其余的290亿美元是去年12月国会改写美国税法时送给我们的。（伯克希尔税改收益的详细信息请参见年报K-32页和K-89至K-90页。）

After stating those fiscal facts, I would prefer to turn immediately to discussing Berkshire’s operations. But, in still another interruption, I must first tell you about a new accounting rule – a generally accepted accounting principle (GAAP) – that in future quarterly and annual reports will severely distort Berkshire’s net income figures and very often mislead commentators and investors.

在陈述完这些财务事实之后，我本来想立刻转入讨论伯克希尔的经营情况。但我不得不再插一段话，先给大家介绍一项新的通用会计准则（GAAP）变更——这项变更在未来的季报和年报中，将严重扭曲伯克希尔的净收益数字，并且常常会误导评论员和投资者。

The new rule says that the net change in unrealized investment gains and losses in stocks we hold must be included in all net income figures we report to you. That requirement will produce some truly wild and capricious swings in our GAAP bottom-line. Berkshire owns $170 billion of marketable stocks (not including our shares of Kraft Heinz), and the value of these holdings can easily swing by $10 billion or more within a quarterly reporting period. Including gyrations of that magnitude in reported net income will swamp the truly important numbers that describe our operating performance. For analytical purposes, Berkshire’s “bottom-line” will be useless.

新准则规定，我们持有的股票的未实现投资损益的净变动额，必须全部纳入到我们向各位报告的净收益数字中。这一要求将导致我们GAAP报表上的净利润出现真正剧烈且难以预测的波动。伯克希尔持有1,700亿美元的有价证券（不含卡夫亨氏 (Kraft Heinz) 的持股），这些持股的市值在一个季度内很容易波动100亿美元甚至更多。把如此巨大的波动纳入报告净利润，会完全淹没那些真正重要的经营业绩数字。出于分析目的，伯克希尔的"净利润"将变得毫无意义。

The new rule compounds the communication problems we have long had in dealing with the realized gains (or losses) that accounting rules compel us to include in our net income. In past quarterly and annual press releases, we have regularly warned you not to pay attention to these realized gains, because they – just like our unrealized gains – fluctuate randomly.

新准则还加剧了一个我们长期面临的沟通难题：会计准则一直要求我们将已实现的投资损益计入净收益。在过去的季报和年报新闻稿中，我们一再提醒大家不要过度关注这些已实现损益，因为它们——和未实现损益一样——都是随机波动的。

That’s largely because we sell securities when that seems the intelligent thing to do, not because we are trying to influence earnings in any way. As a result, we sometimes have reported substantial realized gains for a period when our portfolio, overall, performed poorly (or the converse).

这在很大程度上是因为，我们卖出证券是基于理性判断，而不是试图以任何方式操控当期利润。因此，在投资组合整体表现不佳的时期，我们有时反而报告了大额的已实现投资收益（反过来也是一样）。

With the new rule about unrealized gains exacerbating the distortion caused by the existing rules applying to realized gains, we will take pains every quarter to explain the adjustments you need in order to make sense of our numbers. But televised commentary on earnings releases is often instantaneous with their receipt, and newspaper headlines almost always focus on the year-over-year change in GAAP net income. Consequently, media reports sometimes highlight figures that unnecessarily frighten or encourage many readers or viewers.

新准则将未实现损益也纳入了进来，使得现有准则中已实现损益造成的失真更加严重。因此，我们将在每个季度不厌其烦地向大家解释，你们需要做哪些调整才能理解报告数字的真正含义。但电视上对业绩的评论往往是在数据公布的同时就脱口而出，报纸标题几乎只关注GAAP净利润的同比变化。因此，媒体报道有时会放大那些毫无必要地引发读者恐慌或亢奋的数字。

We will attempt to alleviate this problem by continuing our practice of publishing financial reports late on Friday, well after the markets close, or early on Saturday morning. That will allow you maximum time for analysis and give investment professionals the opportunity to deliver informed commentary before markets open on Monday. Nevertheless, I expect considerable confusion among shareholders for whom accounting is a foreign language.

为了缓解这一问题，我们将继续坚持在周五收盘后或周六清晨发布财务报告，给各位留出尽可能多的分析时间，也让投资专业人士有机会在周一开盘前发表深入的解读。尽管如此，对于那些视会计为天书的股东来说，我预计困惑仍然在所难免。

At Berkshire what counts most are increases in our normalized per-share earning power. That metric is what Charlie Munger, my long-time partner, and I focus on – and we hope that you do, too. Our scorecard for 2017 follows.

在伯克希尔，真正重要的是我们经常性每股盈利能力的提升。这才是我和我的长期合伙人查理·芒格 (Charlie Munger) 一直关注的指标——我希望你们也是。以下是我们2017年的成绩单。