A very happy New Year to all readers and their families!
Enterprising Investor gives Mr Buffet’s annual returns as 19% in excess of the treasury bill rate.
Forbes says ” Since taking control of Berkshire 40 years ago, has delivered compound annual return of 22%.”
Assuming that the treasury bill rate has been about 3% per annum, the two estimates are more or less comparable.
Let us then take as benchmark, an annualized return of 19% above the interest rate. Given the rate is 9% in India, a return of 28% annualized should take the investor / trader in the category of the best investors of the world!
What do readers say?
Most traders have significantly higher expectations from their trading and investing activities. But, 28% compounded annually can become a large amount soon enough. We must remember that returns are not linear. This means, returns are not 28% per annum, year after year. There will be losing years, some years when the investor gets 50% and some years when the average return comes in.
If you start with Rs 10 lakhs (Rs 1 million) and earn 28% compounded, after 20 years you end up with Rs 13,83,79,657. Okay, this is almost Rs 14 crores, or Rs 140 million.
What should be our New Year resolution: aim for 28% or scale down our expectations to 28%?