(p. 3) Warren Buffett is probably the most famous investor of his generation, and for good reason: His track record over the long term is a thing of beauty.
He has beaten the market by a wide margin over 49 years, a record so impressive that it’s used in finance classes as a textbook example of “alpha.”
Alpha is an elusive quality. Very simply put, it is the ability to beat an index fund without adding risk to a portfolio. Investment managers are always seeking it. If it exists, Warren Buffett surely has had it.
A new statistical analysis of Mr. Buffett’s long-term record at Berkshire Hathaway has just been done, and it’s come up with some fascinating insights about his abilities, past and present, and about the chances that the rest of us have for beating the market. Using a series of statistical measures, the study suggests that Mr. Buffett has indeed been blessed with an impressively big dose of alpha over a very long career.
But it also reveals something that isn’t impressive at all: For four of the last five years, Mr. Buffett has been doing worse than the typical, no-frills Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fund — so much worse that it’s unlikely to be a matter of a string of bad luck. Mr. Buffett has begun to behave like an investor with no alpha at all.
. . .
A vast majority of individuals, including most people now working in finance, do not have alpha, Mr. Mehta says. It doesn’t matter whether they have studied finance or have prodigious math skills; the statistics show that they are unlikely to have the ability to beat the market.
That has a serious implication for individual investors, he says: True investing skill is so rare that the rest of us shouldn’t even try to emulate those who have it. In addition, he says, we probably shouldn’t bother trying to hire the few outperformers to invest our money. Why? Because we aren’t likely to be able to identify them.
For the full commentary, see:
JEFF SOMMER. “Strategies; The Oracle of Omaha, Lately Looking a Bit Ordinary.” The New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (Sun., APRIL 6, 2014): 3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date APRIL 5, 2014.)