巴菲特致合伙人的信（1962年半年度）
①一个提醒和预测

July 6, 1962

1962年7月6日

A Reminder:

In my letter of January 24, 1962 reporting on 1961, I inserted a section entitled. "And a Prediction." While I have no desire to inflict cruel and unusual punishment upon my readers, nevertheless, a reprinting of that section, in its entirety, may be worthwhile: 

一个提醒：

在写于1962年1月24日的1961年信中，有一段讲了我的“一个预测”。我不想残忍地折磨读者，但一字不差地把这部分搬过来，非常有必要：

And a Prediction

Regular readers (I may be flattering myself) will feel I have left the tracks when I start talking about predictions. This is one thing from which I have always shied away and I still do in the normal sense. 

一个预测

老读者（我王婆卖瓜，自卖自夸了）可能很奇怪，我怎么一反常态开始预测了呢？我一直都不预测，现在我一般也不预测。

I am certainly not going to predict what general business or the stock market are going to do in the next year or two since I don't have the faintest idea.

我肯定不会预测明后年宏观经济或股市行情会怎么样，我根本不知道。

I think you can be quite sure that over the next ten years there are going to be a few years when the general market is plus 20% or 25%, a few when it is minus on the same order, and a majority when it is in between. I haven't any notion as to the sequence in which these will occur, nor do I think it is of any great importance for the long-term investor.

我认为今后十年，有几年，大盘最多涨20％或25％，有几年，大盘最多跌20％或25％，其余年份则在二者之间。我完全不知道哪年涨、哪年跌，长期投资者也不关心某一年的涨跌。

Over any long period of years, I think it likely that the Dow will probably produce something like 5% to 7% per year compounded from a combination of dividends and market value gain. Despite the experience of recent years, anyone expecting substantially better than that from the general market probably faces disappointment.

长期来看，算上股息和市值增长，道指的年复合收益率可能在5％到7％之间。虽然这几年道指涨得很多，但如果你期望道指的年复合收益率高于5％到7％，道指很可能让你失望。

Our job is to pile up yearly advantages over the performance of the Dow without worrying too much about whether the absolute results in a given year are a plus or a minus. I would consider a year in which we were down 15% and the Dow declined 25% to be much superior to a year when both the partnership and the Dow advanced 20%. I have stressed this point in talking with partners and have watched them nod their heads with varying degrees of enthusiasm. It is most important to me that you fully understand my reasoning in this regard and agree with me not only in your cerebral regions, but also down in the pit of your stomach.

我们的工作是年复一年的超越道指，集小胜为大胜，不特别在意某一个年的绝对收益率是正是负。与我们和指数都上涨20％的年份相比，我认为，在指数下跌30％而我们下跌15％的年份，我们的表现更出色。我和合伙人强调这一点的时候，能看得出来，他们有的深信不疑，有的将信将疑。你一定要完全理解我为什么这么想，不但要在脑子里认同，而且要在心底里认同。

For the reasons outlined in my method of operation, our best years relative to the Dow are likely to be in declining or static markets. Therefore, the advantage we seek will probably come in sharply varying amounts. There are bound to be years when we are surpassed by the Dow, but if over a long period we can average ten percentage points per year better than it, I will feel the results have been satisfactory.

在讲我们的投资方法时，我已经说过了，与道指相比，我们表现最好的年份可能出现在下跌或平盘的市场中。因此，我们取得的相对收益可能时高时低，相差很大。有些年份，我们肯定会落后道指，但是如果长期来看，我们能平均每年战胜道指10个百分点，我对我们的业绩就很满意了。

Specifically, if the market should be down 35% or 40% in a year (and I feel this has a high probability of occurring one year in the next ten--no one knows which one), we should be down only 15% or 20%. If it is more or less unchanged during the year, we would hope to be up about ten percentage points. If it is up 20% or more, we would struggle to be up as much. The consequence of performance such as this over a period of years would mean that if the Dow produces a 5% to 7% per year over-all gain compounded, I would hope our results might be 15% to 17% per year.

某一年市场下跌35％或40％（我觉得今后十年里某一年出现这种情况的概率是很大的，谁都不知道是哪年），我们应该只下跌15％或20％；某一年道指平盘，我们应该上涨10％。假如道指上涨超过20％，我们很难跟上。长期来看，只要我们能有上述表现，如果道指的年化复合收益率在5％到7％之间，我们的业绩应该是每年15％到17％。

The above expectations may sound somewhat rash, and there is no question but that they may appear very much so when viewed from the vantage point of 1965 or 1970. It may turn out that I am completely wrong. However, I feel the partners are certainly entitled to know what I am thinking in this regard even though the nature of the business is such as to introduce a high probability of error in such expectations. In anyone year, the variations may be quite substantial. This happened in 1961, but fortunately the variation was on the pleasant side. They won't all be!

你可能觉得我的预测不对，等到1965年或1970年时回过头来看，我的预测可能就是不对，甚至是完全错的。我觉得合伙人有权知道我的真实想法，但是投资这行就是这样，预期总是很有可能出错。单独某一年，波动幅度可能相当大。1961年波动就很大，幸运的是波动是向上的，但不可能年年如此。

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〔译文来源于梁孝永康所编全集〕

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