第一次！巴菲特5年期回报率不敌标普500

    沃伦•巴菲特旗下的伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司2013年向股市净增投资47亿美元。

    多年来，巴菲特每年都会将伯克希尔-哈撒韦（Berkshire Hathaway）与标普500指数的总回报率进行对比。50年前，巴菲特还在经营一家对冲基金时就开始了这种做法，但2013年的对比数据可不太好看。

    巴菲特日前公布了伯克希尔的2013年的业绩，并在年度致股东信中表示，每股账面价值（这是巴菲特用于此项对比的基准指标）增长了18.2%，达到了134,973美元。表现非常稳健。但同期，标普500指数经历了1997年以来最好的一年，总回报率高达32.4%。

    虽然巴菲特在致股东信中没有特别提到，但2013年这样的表现使得伯克希尔的5年期每股账面价值（2008年底至2013年底）涨幅落后于标普500指数——这是伯克希尔有史以来的第一次。这5年中，标普指数大涨128%。伯克希尔每股账面价值的涨幅只有91%。

    巴菲特过去一直非常看重5年期数据，他相信账面价值是衡量伯克希尔内在价值增长情况的一个大致指标（方向正确，但不能充分反映）。巴菲特问到，如果伯克希尔的内在价值增长不能跑赢标普指数，为什么公司股东不干脆退出，转而购买像标普指数这样的被动投资工具？（请注意，一位CEO向股东问出这样细致的问题，是颇为少见的事情。）

    显然，5年的时间跨度并没有什么神奇之处，巴菲特在最新的致股东信中事实上还增加了一年用于计算。他指出，在整个股市周期中（2007年底至2013年底）——伯克希尔的表现都优于标准普尔指数。这是因为伯克希尔（去年在《财富》美国500强公司中排名第五）更大程度上是一家运营企业，不是股市投资工具，而标普指数当然全部是股票。因此，2008年对于标普指数是灾难性的一年，回报率为负37%。伯克希尔的每股账面价值也下跌了，但跌幅仅仅只有9.6%。在这整个6年期间，伯克希尔的每股账面价值增长了73%，而标准普尔指数总回报率增长了44%。

    巴菲特用账面价值作为衡量标准的原因是因为其中包含了全部资本收益，包括未实现收益，而更常用的收益指标并不包含未实现收益。即便如此，很多媒体在报道伯克希尔2013年业绩时肯定会报告这家公司3月1日发布的收益数据，而这些数据相当漂亮。至于这家公司的A股，每股收益增长32%，达到了11,850美元。计算的基础是以2月28日173,700美元的收盘价。

    伯克希尔的税前利润从2012年的222亿美元增长到了2013年的288亿美元，反映了39亿美元的已实现投资收益（来自股票和固定收益证券）以及整个公司总体良好的运营业绩。良好的业绩表现在保险、主要子公司Burlington Northern Santa Fe和MidAmerican Energy及其他工业子公司、零售与住房领域。过去几年，股东们盯得很紧的衍生品投资在2013年贡献了26亿美元的税前利润，上一年约为20亿美元。

    Buffett's Berkshire invested $4.7 billion of net new money in stocks during 2013.

    In a practice he began when running a hedge fund 50 years ago, Warren Buffett has always positioned his company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA), as being in annual competition with the S&P 500 index's total return—and right now that's not working too well for him.

    Announcing Berkshire's 2013 results this morning, Buffett said in his annual letter to shareholders that book value per-share—Buffett's standard yardstick in this competition—rose by 18.2% to $134,973. That's a very solid performance. But the S&P 500 index, having its best year since 1997, had a huge total return of 32.4%.

    Furthermore, though Buffett doesn't specifically talk about this in his annual letter to shareholders, these results capped a five-year period, year-end 2008 to year-end 2013, in which the S&P 500 beat Berkshire's gain in book value per-share—the first such period in Berkshire's history. For the five years, the S&P index jumped 128%. Berkshire's book value per-share rose by only 91%.

    Buffett has in the past attached importance to the five-year record because he believes that book value is a rough indicator—directionally correct, but greatly understated—of how Berkshire's intrinsic value is rising. If Berkshire's intrinsic value doesn't beat the S&P over the years, Buffett asks, why shouldn't the company's shareholders simply defect and buy a passive investment like the S&P index? (Please note how rarely you have heard a CEO ask his shareholders for this kind of close analysis.)

    Obviously there's nothing magic about a precise five years, and in his new letter Buffett in fact appends a year to the calculation. He points out that over the entire stock market cycle—between year-ends 2007 and 2013—Berkshire outperformed the S&P. That would be because Berkshire, No. 5 in last year's Fortune 500, is these days more of an operating company than a stock market investment vehicle while the S&P is, of course, pure stocks. The year 2008 was therefore a disaster for the S&P: its return was minus 37%. Berkshire's book value per share fell as well, but by only 9.6%. For the entire six-year period, Berkshire's book value per share rose 73% to the S&P's total return gain of 44%.

    Buffett uses book value as a yardstick because it includes all capital gains—including those unrealized, which the more popular indicator of earnings does not. Even so, many press accounts of Berkshire's 2013 record will surely report the earnings figures that the company released today, and these will be excellent. For the company's A shares, earnings per share were up 32% to $11,850. That's against yesterday's stock-price close of $173,700.

    Berkshire's increase in pretax profits from $22.2 billion in 2012 to $28.8 billion in 2013 reflected $3.9 billion in realized investment gains (emanating from both equities and fixed-income securities) and generally favorable operating results throughout this hugely complex company. They showed up in insurance; at major subsidiaries Burlington Northern Santa Fe and MidAmerican Energy, and other industrial units; and in retail and housing. Derivatives, under intense shareholder surveillance for the last few years, contributed $2.6 billion to pre-tax profits in 2013—up from about $2 billion the year before.