Warren Buffett breaks down how he would invest if he had to start again with $1 million

Towards the end of 2018 you mentioned that you guarantee you could make a 50% annual return if you had to start again with under $1 million. The question is if tomorrow you woke up in the body of of of your body 20 year old American, your body. But that’s fine. And your name was now Warren a la carte, and you have some money to invest on a full time basis. What method or methods would you use to achieve that return? Would it involve flipping through 20,000 pages of Moody’s manual or similar publications, or finding, you know, you know, to find cigar butts? Or would it be hunting for great companies at a fair price, as Mr. Monger would? Or would it be a combination of both, with opportunity costs serving as the final arbiter? Or which method to use given that you’re investing opportunity has now brought in significantly. Thank you Cop and Cop. Good question. I’m glad you came. And the, the answer would be in my particular case, it would be going through the 20,000 pages. And since we were talking about railroads, you know, I went through the Moody’s Transportation manual a couple of times. That was 1500 or 2000 pages or probably 1500 pages. And I found all kinds of interesting things when I was 50 or when I was 20 or 21. And I don’t imagine here there’s anybody here that knows about the Green Bay and Western Railroad Company, but there were hundreds and hundreds of railroad companies. And I like to read about every one of them. The Green Bay and Western in those days, everybody had a nickname for for railroads. I mean that was that was just what Northern Pacific was the nipper and you know the Phoebe Snow was one of them in the East that used to go up to Cornell and the Green Bay and Western was known as grab baggage and walk and GB and W and they had an they had a bond that was actually the common stock and they had a common stock that was actually a bond. And you know that that could lead to unusual things but they wouldn’t lead to unusual things that would work for you with many millions of dollars. But but if you collected a whole bunch of those, which I set out to do and actually that’s what impressed Charlie when I first met him because I knew all the details of all these little companies on the West Coast that he thought I would never have heard of. But, but I knew about the Los Angeles the Athletic Club or whatever it might be and he thought he was the only one that knew about that and that that that became an instant point of connection. So to answer your question I would. I would, I don’t know what the equivalent of Moody’s manuals or anything would be now, but I would I would find know everything about everything small and I would find something. And with $1,000,000 you could earn 50% a year. But you have to be in love with the subject. You can’t just be in love with the money. You really got to just find it like a you know, essentially like, you know people find other things in other fields because they just love looking for them. A biologist looks for something because they may they may they they want to find something they and it’s building. I I don’t know how the human brain works that much and I don’t think anybody understands too well how the human brain works but but there’s different people that that just find it exciting to expand their knowledge in a given area. We you know I know great bridge players. I know great chess players. Actually Kasparov came to all mall and met Mrs. B I’ve had the luck of of meeting a lot of people that are unbelievably smart in their own arena and do some unbelievably dumb things in other areas. So all I know is the human brain is complicated and but it does its best when you find out what your brain is really suited for and then you just # the hell out from that point. And that’s what I would be doing if I if I had a small amount of money and I wanted to make 50% a year. But I also wanted to just play the game and you can’t do it if you really, if you don’t find the the game of interest, whether it’s bridge or whether you know whatever it may be chess or this case finding securities that are undervalued. But it sounds to me like you’re on the right track. I mean, anybody that’ll come all the way to this annual meeting, that’s something in their mind other than bridge or chess. So I’m glad you came and come again next year.