Hace 37 años, Warren Buffett aclaró una verdad brutal que la mayoría de la gente nunca conoce

Tiene que ver con el precio increíblemente alto de una sola acción en la empresa de Buffett. Por ejemplo, estoy escribiendo esto un viernes por la noche, justo después de que la Clase A de Berkshire cerrara por primera vez a $ 400,000 por acción, lo que la convierte en la acción que cotiza en bolsa más cara con diferencia.

¿Puedes comparar eso con otras acciones? Diablos, es mucho más que el precio promedio de una casa unifamiliar en los Estados Unidos que fue $ 315,900 Finales de 2020.

La explicación simple de por qué las acciones Clase A de Berkshire son tan caras es doble:

  • Es una empresa legítimamente valiosa (aunque no se acerca a la la mayoría empresa valiosa) y
  • Buffett está decidido a no dividir nunca las acciones.

La verdadera pregunta es, por supuesto Por qué Él es tan inflexible sobre esto último.

Así que volvamos a algo que Buffett escribió hace 37 años Eso incluye una explicación interesante, junto con una importante lección de negocios para hoy.

Si tiene un negocio, incluso uno que no cotiza en bolsa con acciones valoradas en varias veces el ingreso promedio estadounidense (alrededor de $ 66,000) – Creo que vale la pena dedicar unos minutos a pensarlo.

En la carta a los accionistas que publicó en 1984, Buffett dijo lo siguiente sobre las acciones de Berkshire que nunca deberían dividirse:

“La clave para un precio racional de las acciones es tener accionistas racionales, tanto actuales como futuros … Queremos que aquellos que se consideran dueños de negocios y que invierten en empresas duren.

Si dividiéramos las acciones o tomáramos otra acción que se centrara en el precio de las acciones en lugar de en el fondo de comercio, atraeríamos una clase entrante de compradores que es inferior a la clase saliente de vendedores. “

Interesante, ¿no? Se trata del valor intrínseco de las acciones, pero también de cómo las personas podrían reaccionar ante su valor percibido.

Para agregar otro factor a la mezcla, Berkshire cotizaba alrededor de $ 1300 por acción cuando Buffett escribió que, si bien era caro, podía decir honestamente que a muy pocas personas que se inclinaban a comprar acciones en 1984 no les importaba que solo uno pudiera comprar piezas. .

Esto ya no es correcto con respecto a las acciones de Berkshire Clase A, pero en 1996 Buffett creó una segunda clase de acciones, Berkshire Clase B, en parte para abordar este problema. Esta acción cotiza a un nivel mucho más fundamentado: aproximadamente $ 266 al momento de escribir este artículo.

Creo que para entender eso ahora, uno tiene que considerar cuán estrechamente están entrelazados Buffett y Berkshire. Con más de 50 años al mando, es el director ejecutivo con más años de servicio en el S&P 500. Y ha sido directo al decir que su autoestima está relacionada en parte con el precio de las acciones de Berkshire.

“Mi ego está repleto de Berkshire. No hay duda al respecto”, dijo. dijo un reportero Hace años, cuando Berkshire cotizaba a unos 3.900 dólares por acción y más tarde a la biógrafa Alice Schroeder, “puedo basar toda mi vida en el precio de Berkshire”.

Así que aquí está la lección y la lección. Está claro que Buffett ve el alto precio de las acciones como un activo de marketing que debe utilizarse, en lugar de un desafío a superar.

Y aunque casi nadie más se enfrenta al problema exacto que tienen con el precio de las acciones, apuesto a que pasa mucho tiempo en su empresa pensando en los precios que se cobrarán por varios productos y servicios.

El precio puede reflejar el valor, pero también puede, probablemente con más frecuencia, si somos honestos, agregar valor percepción

de valor. Esta es una verdad brutal que muchas personas nunca comprenden del todo.

  • Independientemente de lo que venda, cuando piense en el precio, imagine lo que atraviesa un nuevo cliente potencial cuando descubre que usted está a la mitad del precio, o al doble del precio, de un competidor.
  • Imagine a un profesional independiente que ofrece sus servicios por 35 dólares la hora. Sin saber nada más sobre él, envía una señal muy diferente a la de un competidor que vende sus servicios por $ 100 o $ 250 la hora.
  • O un fabricante que vende productos a $ 200 por artículo en un mercado donde los competidores venden a $ 150 y $ 250. Al menos inicialmente, los clientes asumen que existe una diferencia correspondiente en el valor. Sin embargo, es tan probable que la percepción del valor se derive del precio como ese precio se derive del valor real.

Devuélvale esto a Buffett, imagine cómo los inversores ocasionales podrían verlo de manera diferente si su empresa no hubiera negociado unas 35.000 veces más que cuando se compró por primera vez en la década de 1960.

Racionalmente, sabemos que una división de acciones de Berkshire, digamos, una con 1,000 veces más acciones, cada una vendida por una milésima parte de su precio actual de acción, valdría exactamente la misma cantidad.

Pero la gente no siempre es racional. Diablos, muchos de ellos no son realmente buenos en matemáticas simples.

Tenga esto en cuenta cuando piense en el precio y el valor. Los interesados ​​racionales como Buffett, buscado en 1984, pueden ser maravillosos, pero las conexiones emocionales pueden valer mucho más de lo que los números sugieren.

No olvide el libro electrónico gratuito: Warren Buffett predice el futuro.

Las opiniones expresadas aquí por los columnistas de Heaven32 son las suyas propias, no las de Heaven32.

at the end of 2020.  n Now, the easy explanation for why Berkshire's Class A stock is so expensive is twofold: n
    t
  • it's a legitimately valuable company (although nowhere near the most valuable company), and
  • t
  • Buffett is adamant about never splitting the stock. 
n The real question of course is why he's so adamant on that latter point. n So, let's go back to something Buffett wrote 37 years ago that includes an interesting explanation -- along with a key business lesson for today.  n If you're running a business -- even one that isn't publicly traded with shares valued at a multiple of the average American income (roughly $66,000) -- I think it's worth the few minutes it takes to reflect on it. n Here's what Buffett had to say about never splitting Berkshire stock, back in the shareholder letter he released in 1984: n
"The key to a rational stock price is rational shareholders, both current and prospective. ... We want those who think of themselves as business owners and invest in companies with the intention of staying a long time. n ...  n Were we to split the stock or take other actions focusing on stock price rather than business value, we would attract an entering class of buyers inferior to the exiting class of sellers."
n Interesting, right? It's about the intrinsic value of the stock, but it's also how people might react baced on its perceived value. n To throw another factor into the mix, Berkshire was trading at around $1,300 per share when Buffett wrote that, so while it was expensive, he could truthfully say that very few people who were inclined to buy stocks in 1984 would be unable to afford a single share.  n That's no longer accurate regarding Berkshire Class A stock, but in 1996, Buffett created a second class of stock, Berkshire Class B, partly to address this issue. That stock trades at a much more down-to-earth level: roughly $266 as of this writing. n I think to understand this now, you have to factor in the degree to which Buffett and Berkshire are entwined. With more than 50 years at the helm, he's the longest-tenured CEO in the S&P 500. And he's said quite directly that his sense of self-worth is partially tied to the share price of Berkshire. n "My ego is wrapped up with Berkshire. No question about that," he told a reporter years ago, when Berkshire was trading at around $3,900 a share, and later, to biographer Alice Schroeder: "I can gear my whole life by the price of Berkshire." n So, here's the takeaway and the lesson. It's clear that Buffett looks at the high share price as a marketing asset to be leveraged, not a challenge to overcome. n And, while almost no one else faces the exact issue he does on share price, I'll bet that you spend a lot of time in your business thinking about the prices to charge for various products and services. n Price can reflect value, but it can also -- probably more oHeaven32en, if we're being honest -- reinforce the perception of value. That's a brutal truth that many people never quite grasp. n
    t
  • So, whatever you're selling, when you think about price, imagine what goes through a new potential customer's mind when he or she realize that you're half as expensive -- or twice as costly -- as a competitor. 
  • t
  • Consider a freelancer who offers his services at $35 an hour. Without knowing anything more about him, he's sending a very different signal from a competitor who sells her services at $100 or $250 an hour. 
  • t
  • Or else, a manufacturer who sells products at $200 per item, in a market with competitors selling at $150 and $250. Customers assume, at least at the outset, that there's a corresponding difference in value. But it's just as likely that the perception of value is derived from the price, as that the price is derived from actual value.
n Bringing this back to Buffett, imagine how casual investors might view him differently, if it weren't for the fact that his company now trades at roughly 35,000 times what it did when he first bought it out in the 1960s. n Rationally, we know that a Berkshire with a stock split -- say, one that had 1,000 times as many shares, each of which sold for one one-thousandth of its current share price -- would be worth the exact same amount.   n But people aren't always rational. Heck, many of them aren't really all that good at simple math.  n That's something consider when you're thinking about price and value. Rational stakeholders like Buffett wanted in 1984 might be wonderful, but emotional connections can be worth a lot more than numbers might otherwise suggest. n Don't forget the free ebook: Warren Buffett Predicts the Future. ","inc_code_only_text":null,"inc_pubdate":"2021-04-10 05:15:00","inc_promo_date":"2021-04-10 05:15:00","inc_custom_pubdate":null,"inc_feature_image_override":"","inc_feature_image_background_color_override":null,"inc_show_feature_imageflag":true,"inc_feature_image_style":"pano","inc_image_caption_override":null,"inc_autid":0,"inc_typid":1,"inc_staid":7,"inc_serid":0,"inc_prtid":0,"inc_activeflag":true,"inc_copyeditedflag":false,"inc_flag_for_reviewflag":false,"inc_lock_articleflag":false,"inc_react_displayflag":false,"inc_filelocation":"bill-murphy-jr/37-years-ago-warren-buffett-explained-a-brutal-truth-that-most-people-never-learn.html","inc_override_url":null,"inc_hide_article_sidebarflag":false,"inc_custom_sidebar":null,"inc_show_read_moreflag":true,"inc_display_video_at_bottomflag":false,"inc_autoplay_videoflag":true,"inc_full_width_read_moreflag":false,"inc_custom_footer":null,"inc_custom_teaser":null,"inc_hide_video_prerollflag":false,"inc_custom_css":null,"inc_custom_javascript":null,"inc_canonical_url":null,"inc_meta_keywords":"warren buffett, berkshire hathaway, brk-a, brk-b, berkshire 400,000, berkshire class a, berkshire class b, berkshire stock split","inc_column_name_override":null,"inc_newsworthyflag":true,"inc_notepad":null,"inc_track_changesflag":false,"inc_cta_text":null,"inc_cta_url":null,"time_updated":"2021-04-10 01:05:10","channels":[{"id":471,"cnl_name":"Icons & Innovators","cnl_filelocation":"icons-of-entrepreneurship","cnl_featuretype":"None","cnl_custom_color":null,"cnl_calculated_color":null,"cnl_contributor_accessflag":true,"cnl_custom_article_footer":null,"cnl_global_nav_background_color":null,"cnl_global_nav_background_gradient_start":null,"cnl_global_nav_background_gradient_end":null,"cnl_iflid":0,"sortorder":null},{"id":4,"cnl_name":"Lead","cnl_filelocation":"lead","cnl_featuretype":"None","cnl_custom_color":"009CD8","cnl_calculated_color":"F7CE00","cnl_contributor_accessflag":true,"cnl_custom_article_footer":"Inc. helps entrepreneurs change the world. Get the advice you need to start, grow, and lead your business today. Subscribe here
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