Asked during Saturday's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) annual shareholders meeting about the future of value investing, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger found themselves divided.
Ever the optimist, Buffett argued the future of value investing remains strong for one key reason: the competition.
"What gives you opportunities is other people doing dumb things," Buffett said. "During the 58 years we've been running Berkshire, I would say there's been a great increase in the number of people doing dumb things — and they do big dumb things. And the reason they do it, to some extent, is because they can get money from other people so much easier than when we started."
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Munger, for his part, was less sanguine on the future of the value investor's pursuit to buy great companies at fair prices.
"I think value investors are going to have a harder time now that there’s so many of them competing for a diminished bunch of opportunities," Munger said. "So my advice to value investors is to get used to making less."
To which Buffett quipped: "Charlie has been telling me the same thing the whole time."
Since 1965, the per-share value of Berkshire Hathaway has compounded at an annual rate of 19.8%, double the S&P 500's 9.9% annual gain over that period.
The investing book that 'lives on'
Elsewhere during Saturday's meeting, Buffett and Munger offered additional advice for investors eager for clues on how they might emulate the duo's success, whether that is from reading Buffett's shareholder letters or listening to the 92-year-old billionaire hold court inside a basketball arena for six hours on a Saturday afternoon in Omaha, Nebraska.
Buffett again sang the praises of Ben Graham and his book, "The Intelligent Investor," which is the foundation of many of the principles investors ascribe to Buffett's style. The core lesson of Graham's book is that investors should try to buy good companies at discount prices. And then do that for years.
"This book lives on, and everybody keeps bringing out new books and saying a lot of other things," Buffett said. "But they aren't saying anything that's as important as what he said in 1949 in this relatively thin little book."
However, Munger added, while the lessons of Ben Graham's book or any other investing totems may still be relevant, there's no ignoring how the business has changed over the last several decades.
"There is so much money now in the hands of so many smart people all trying to outsmart one another," Munger said. "It’s a radically different world from the world we started in."
Josh is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.
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