If we find a problem with the competitive side of a company, it& #39;s impossible to foresee the nature of business for the next 5, 10 or 20 years, and investing is about predicting the future. You don& #39;t get rewarded for what has happened, you only get rewarded for what will happen in the future. The past is only useful if you want insight into the future, and sometimes the past doesn& #39;t give you insight into the future.

如果我们发现了一家公司竞争方面存在问题，那就无法预见未来5年、10年或20年的商业本质，而投资是需要预测未来的。你不会为已经发生的事情得到回报，你只能为未来发生的事情获得回报。过去只有在你想要洞察未来时才有用，有时候过去并不能让你洞察未来。

If you find a stable business that may give you a good guide to what will happen in the future, then you don& #39;t need a big margin of safety. Sometimes we are able to buy very good businesses for a quarter of their value, but we don& #39;t get that opportunity very often.

如果你找到一个稳定的生意，它可能会给你一个很好的指引，告诉你未来会发生什么，那么你不需要一个很大的安全边际。有时候，我们能够以价值的四分之一买下很好的企业，但我们不会经常遇到这种机会。

Does that mean you should sit there, wait for a good price, wait 10 or 15 years and do nothing? We don& #39;t wait for good prices all the time now, and if we can acquire good businesses at a reasonable valuation, we& #39;ll continue to do that. If a business grows to a point where we feel that the industry it& #39;s in, the competitive position, or something else is so dangerous that we can& #39;t value it, then we& #39;re not going to fool ourselves by setting aside some extra big margin of safety.

这是否意味着你应该坐在那里，等待好价格，等个10年15年，什么都不做？我们现在不是一直等好价格，如果我们能以合理的估值收购好的企业，我们会继续这么做。如果一项业务发展到一定程度，我们觉得它所在的行业、竞争地位或其他东西非常危险，以至于我们无法对它进行估值，那我们不会通过预留一些额外的大安全边际来欺骗自己。

以上内容节选自2007年巴菲特股东大会

由数字人巴菲特播报

本视频由七华软件用人工智能技术生成