Issue #22: Buffett, Crypto and Private Equity.
As promised, this guest issue will be focused on personal finance. Charisse Conanan-Johnson is a good friend, Univ. of Chicago Booth School of Business classmate, Wall Street Alum, financial services advisory professional (current role), personal finance expert and founder who started her own business and continues to do the work of helping everyone live their best financial lives. Hope you enjoy…
For the last seven weeks, I have been mulling over Warren Buffett’s Letter to Shareholders, which discusses the Berkshire Hathaway’s 2017 performance, Buffett’s reflections on some of his decisions, and Buffett’s outlook on the market. The letter opens with a comparison of Berkshire’s performance over the S&P 500 Index (with dividends included), and Berkshire barely outperformed the S&P 500 in 2017, gaining 21.9% versus 21.8%, respectively. But, what continues to amaze me is Berkshire’s long-term track record – delivering a 20.9% annual gain (compounded) from 1965-2017, compared to 9.9% for the S&P 500 over that same period. To make this real with actual dollars, if you invested $100 back in Berkshire Hathaway stock, and held it over that entire time, you would have just under $2.5 million dollars. Simply amazing!
And what’s even more respectable is that each year, Warren offers us nuggets of wisdom, which bode well for investing and life. Here are 10 of my favorite Buffett lines from this year’s letter, paired with my own reflections.
Most people don’t know much about the Private Equity Industry. Here’s an interesting take on it.
Are you investing in Crypto? Here’s something to note about cryptocurrencies and their relationship to the concept of convexity that is all too familiar to bond traders/owners. And what do you know about the current state of crypto tokens?
It might be 2018 but the New York Times reports a disturbing disparity: For generations of white American families, homeownership has been a fundamental means of accumulating wealth. But African-Americans were essentially shut out of early federal programs that promoted home ownership and financial well-being. We must know our history if we want to close the wealth gap in the US.
Facebook has a lot more data about us than it lets on—and its tools for providing ‘complete control’ don’t do enough.
‘Dreamland’ by Sam Quinones is a fantastic (and timeless) book that traces the opiate epidemic, including details of how American’s middle class got burned and the flow of money around it.
'The Epic Grift of Dirty Money’, as featured in The Atlantic, check out Netflix’s fantastic six-part documentary series on cons and corporate malfeasance.
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Hope you enjoyed this issue. Many thanks to Charisse! I’m still working on what (I hope will be) the paid weekly version of Polymathic will look like. Stay tuned ;)
Have a great week!
Seyi