Why is Buffett considered the greatest investor?
 

Why is it that Buffett is considered by many to be the greatest investor of all time when there are one or two people that have beat his average annual returns over a rather comparable amount of time....George Soros comes to mind. As far as net worth, it appears that Buffett's superior wealth over people like Soros comes from his large holding in his own company.

Help me understand

Re: Why is Buffett considered the greatest investor?
 

Buffett has made the most money through investing. Thats it.

Re: Why is Buffett considered the greatest investor?
 

the more money you have to invest, the more difficult it is to generate market beating returns. the longer he invests, the more money he has. the fewer years and smaller dollar amounts make a very material difference when considering annualized gains.

James

Re: Why is Buffett considered the greatest investor?
 

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the more money you have to invest, the more difficult it is to generate market beating returns. the longer he invests, the more money he has. the fewer years and smaller dollar amounts make a very material difference when considering annualized gains.

James

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in my opinion, this is only half the story. the other half is that he has been able to generate those returns in one asset class.

he hasn't taken his money out of equities at all. he just buys companies. but he's so good at picking which ones to buy and when that he more than makes up for the diversification loss to his risk adjust returns. soros is in currencies & commodities. further, i dont think his overall return stats look as good as buffets, nor do i think he's come near those returns on, as james said, the amt of money he holds.

i wish i could dig into both soros's & buffet's returns but i dont have a bloomberg terminal in my house, nor did a quick search lead my to the data i wanted.

those are some quick thoughts...

Barron

Re: Why is Buffett considered the greatest investor?
 

In the 1950's, Warren Buffet apprenticed with the greatest investor of the time - Benjamin Graham. He then developed ideas of his own and convinced a relatively small amount of investors to go along with him in limited partnerships that he controlled. He stayed away from the mutual fund route because of severe regulations in that area. He was his own boss, and commanded far larger fees than he could if he had been running a mutual fund.

Great investors like Peter Lynch, worked for other people. Peter Lynch didn’t want to be bothered with overhead or hiring and firing people. He wanted to concentrate strictly on what he did best, which was investing.

Buffet made more money in the long run because he ran things himself, and he did an extremely good job at it. I still enjoy studying great investors like Lynch who invest in everything, rather than just non-commodity equity’s.

Just because Buffet made the most money, doesn’t make him the greatest investor. It may however, make him the best business man.

Re: Why is Buffett considered the greatest investor?
 

It's impossible to determine who the "greatest" investor is. It is possible to determine who great investors are though. Warren Buffet is on that list (as well was Peter Lynch.)

Re: Why is Buffett considered the greatest investor?
 

sounds kind of like the "greatest" poker player debate

Re: Why is Buffett considered the greatest investor?
 

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sounds kind of like the "greatest" poker player debate

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except it's 1000000 more quantifiable and there is actual reliable data that can be used.

James

Re: Why is Buffett considered the greatest investor?
 

Bill Gates is the greatest investor ever.

He had the guts to put his assets in one basket, and he sure picked the right basket. Diversification is hedging against yourself. Only Bill Gates had the investing sense to earn $50+ billion.

Re: Why is Buffett considered the greatest investor?
 

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sounds kind of like the "greatest" poker player debate

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except it's 1000000 more quantifiable and there is actual reliable data that can be used.

James

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well i meant moreso defining what is a great investor ie

a) amt of money made
b) innovation of investment style
c) consistent returns

being parallel to

a) amount of money won
b) style of play
c) what games they play


what i was getting at is that it's sometimes an apples to oranges comparison because it's not like they're in direct competition with each others investment strategies. if we were comparing different hedge fund managers or something like that i guess it might be more quantifiable.