Warren Buffet's Investment Advice: Aug 16 2013

The Futility of Playing the Market

One thing that surprised people about the recent $250 million sale of the Washington Post to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was the health of the Washington Post's pension plan. At a time when most pension plans are struggling, the Post has $1 billion more than it needs. That billion-dollar surplus, it turns out, can be traced back to a memo Warren Buffett, age 44 at the time, sent the Washington Post's then chairman and CEO Katharine Graham about problems developing in pension plans and suggestions for how to avoid them. In the memo Buffett, who built his fortune buying individual stocks, acknowledged the inanity of trying to outguess the stock market and the wisdom of a passive investment approach. For more on the story see http://qz.com/116075.