From Zhao Danyang, a private placement tycoon, recommending shares to Buffett, which prompted the sharp rise of the share price of Wumart business, to sun Yuchen's sudden "bad disease" breaking the appointment when he photographed Buffett's lunch, which turned the lunch into a lasting "marketing" event. Buffett lunch, a charity auction intended to help the local poor and homeless, was also played by Chinese businessmen and became a reality show with its own traffic.
Instead of talking to the old man about everything, Chinese bidders seem to value the influence behind the name "Buffett".
And now, "Buffett lunch" has also ushered in the end. At the end of April, the charity grad said that the "Buffett lunch", which had been shelved for two years, would be held again, but it would also be the last time. The reason for the suspension is unclear.
In China, Buffett has a large number of followers. Goldman Sachs once had such a statistics: about 2 million people around the world are Buffett followers, of which 300000 are from China. People worship Buffett's investment myth and want to learn a little from the investment experience of the old man's half life.
But now, there is a wave of Internet companies listing, and investors have achieved 100 times and 1000 times of investment return in the past decade. Later, there is the temptation of bitcoin price once rising to $60000, and the "virtual fire" of the virtual industry continues to heat up, Buffett's "long-term doctrine" and "value investment" seem to be increasingly unable to meet people's ambitions and desires**
In addition to lunch, at the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders' meeting, Buffett and his partner Munger continue the tradition of answering questions from global investors and the media for half a day. But it seems that fewer people can listen to the advice of the two old people.
01 pilgrimage to "Buffett"
Early May is the busiest time in the Central American city of Omaha.
Buffett and Munger will make a joint appearance on the first Saturday of this month to answer questions from investors and media around the world. This is the shareholders' meeting of Berkshire Hathaway. This tradition has lasted for more than half a century and has never been interrupted for many years. Now both old men are nearly 100 years old.
May 2022, Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders' meeting
Every year, there are almost 40000 participants in the conference, of which about 4000 are Chinese. Many people regard attending the meeting in Omaha as a "pilgrimage", while Buffett is called "the oracle of Omaha". In China, Buffett also has a more realistic name - "God of stock".
The worship of Chinese investors to Buffett comes from the investment myth he created.
Since Buffett took over Berkshire, the company's share price has increased 36000 times in 57 years since 1965. The current market value is US $704.6 billion, or 4.7 trillion yuan of RMB, equivalent to more than two Maotai. In the U.S. second only to Apple , Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Tesla.
Buffett has always held 39% of the company's shares. He is also the only millionaire who has realized a fortune of 100 billion dollars through investment.
It is based on the worship of wealth that Chinese investors are particularly keen on "Buffett lunch".
The first Chinese to film "Buffett lunch" was Duan Yongping.
That was in 2006. Duan Yongping had divided the former step-by-step into three, two of which are now oppo and vivo. He chose to retreat to the United States to invest. Before meeting Buffett, he had created a "myth" of "investing in Netease to get 100 times return".
Duan Yongping claimed that in the process of reading and studying, he read Buffett's concept of stock investment, which had a deep impact on him. For that lunch, Duan Yongping admitted that he only bid to pay tribute to his investment idol and wanted to report his learning achievements to Buffett.
For Duan Yongping, what people like to talk about is his "disciples".
At that lunch, Duan Yongping took a young man named Huang Zheng to the banquet. Later, under the pressure of Alibaba and jd.com to carve up the e-commerce market, the young man created pinduoduo, created the fastest development record of e-commerce platform with low price strategy, and brought pinduoduo to NASDAQ in only three years.
Vivo and oppo separated from Bubugao also occupy half of the domestic mobile phone market. With the rapid development of vivo and oppo in the Southeast Asian market, Jitu Express has also grown rapidly in the distribution system of "ov". Li Jie, the founder of Jitu, once served as an executive of Bubugao company, and Duan Yongping was also a "teacher".
By 2020, Jitu will enter the domestic market and be deeply bound with pinduoduo. After the acquisition of Baishi express, according to the calculation of Huachuang securities, Jitu won a market share of 15.4% in China's express market.
From smart phones, e-commerce, logistics... Duan Yongping's "disciples" have woven a complete set of new economic industrial chain.
The picture comes from Duan Yongping's snowball account
Recently, Duan Yongping revealed on the social platform that he met Buffett and Munger at dinner. Buffett introduced him to Munger, saying that Duan Yongping sold about the same amount of mobile phones as apple, and that he might not buy apple without Duan Yongping. Duan Yongping was flattered by such praise.
In terms of investment, Duan Yongping seems to have really become the "Chinese spokesman" of Buffett's value investment philosophy.
Buffett said: "if you don't expect to hold a company's stock for more than ten years, don't hold it for ten minutes and don't buy it at all."**
Duan Yongping also always emphasizes that "when he understands, he will not invest in industries he does not understand, nor do he make short-term investments. In the past ten years, Duan Yongping has taken a heavy position in apple and Maotai, and the rise in the share prices of apple and Maotai also proves his choice.
In March this year, Tencent's share price once fell to HK $300. In a wait-and-see mood, Duan Yongping took a heavy position in Tencent again, which is the fourth time Duan Yongping has copied the bottom of Tencent in recent two years.
Duan Yongping also often expresses his investment philosophy to the outside world. In a reply to his fans, he said: "the value of the company depends on the discount of the total profit in the company's life cycle. A good company has strong vitality and generally lives well and long. The stock market is a scale in the long run, which will reflect the value of the company sooner or later."
This is in line with Buffett's philosophy, but few people can really stand loneliness and temptation.
02 "casino" has no Buffett
Buffett's value investment philosophy can be summarized as "investing what you know", "understanding its value", "the difference between the future value of the stock and the current stock price is the safety margin", "starting with the expectation of holding the stock for ten years"
According to public reports, BYD is Buffett's first company to invest in China. Buffett started BYD in 2008. The annual report shows that Buffett has earned 32 times on BYD's investment, but he didn't sell any shares until 2021.
But few investors have done the same. People are often impatient, and few people can hold a stock for a long time.
It is believed that many people's focus on stock investment is divorced from the operation of the enterprise itself, but entangled in gambling probability and mathematical calculation, as well as the study of various moving averages
As the general manager of chizixin China growth investment fund, Zhao Danyang photographed Buffett's lunch for $2.11 million in 2008.
Zhao Danyang (left) once photographed Buffett's lunch for $2.11 million
People often talk about Zhao Danyang's deeds of recommending "Wumart business" stocks to Buffett at lunch. By the time Zhao Danyang returned home, Wumart's share price had risen by nearly 24%, with a floating profit of $14 million. It was also after that that that Buffett made a rule: the habit of not talking about individual stocks at the dinner table continues to this day.
But Zhao Danyang may be the most vulnerable to temptation.
In 2014, Zhao Danyang chose to return to a shares and did copy the bottom of a bull market in seven years; In June 2015, the Shanghai Composite Index hit the high point of 5178 again. However, after the sharp decline in June, Zhao Danyang failed to get out in time. In terms of the annual performance in 2015, the yields of the two domestic funds under chizixin were - 12.07% and - 3.04% respectively, underperforming the increase of 9.41% of the Shanghai stock index in the same period; In a letter to investors in 2016, Zhao Danyang said that in the future, investment will gradually shift from individual stock selection to global macro allocation.
For investment, Zhao Danyang emphasizes "cycle" and "general trend". In a speech in 2017, Zhao Danyang repeatedly stressed, "in your life, you need to know what to do at what time and where. Put aside this thing, everything remains. If you say value investment, it's nonsense."
But Buffett's view is, "we will never buy (stocks) according to how the stock market will come. We have never understood in-depth economic views. We can't choose the timing of the market without mistakes."**
This may also determine that Zhao Danyang did not embark on an investment path similar to Buffett, but it has nothing to do with right or wrong - last year, Zhao Danyang, the "godfather of private placement", performed well in fund products issued overseas, and his two funds made more than 50% in the first 11 months.
This also means that the methodology to make money on investment is not Buffett's.
Another Chinese businessman, Zhu ye, founder of Tianshen entertainment, also appeared on Buffett lunch. In 2015, he photographed lunch for a sky high price of $2.34 million.
Zhu Ye has lunch with Buffett. Picture from: Internet
Before that, his company Tianshen entertainment backdoor kemian wood industry was listed. As a game enterprise, his representative works include "light of dawn", "tank wind and cloud", "proud sword" and other games. He also participated in the investment of film and television dramas such as "remaining sin", "night", "strange exploration of the Republic of China" and so on.
It's hard to say what Zhu Ye learned at this lunch. In the following three years, Tianshen entertainment made great strides, acquired part of the equity of Ruyi film and acquired game companies such as leishang and Leyan. In 2018 alone, Tianshen entertainment launched more than 10 mergers and acquisitions, with a purchase amount of nearly 10 billion yuan.
But the steps were too big, resulting in a surge in debt. In 2018, affected by regulatory policy adjustments such as the freezing of game titles, the standardization of tax order in the film and television industry and the restriction of specific themes, the operating performance of Tianshen entertainment fell sharply and fell into a serious debt crisis and business crisis.
At present, Zhu Ye's team has already withdrawn from Tianshen entertainment as a whole.
Zhu ye, who is not good at investment, did say to Buffett at lunch: "I'm OK in industry, not in stocks." In those three years, he finally lost the bet.
The "gambling" of the global stock market is also rising. After the outbreak, as the Fed continued to release excess liquidity, US stocks continued to rise over the past two years, and a large amount of hot money poured into the stock market. After April, the volatility of US stocks is also intensifying.
Buffett criticized: "many large American companies seem to have become chips on the gambling table", "the stock market is like a casino, where everyone gambles. This phenomenon has been particularly obvious in the past two years, and it is also driven by Wall Street"
The casino never needs Buffett.
03 "farce" ended
In the movie "the richest man in Xihong city", Wang Duoyu paid a lot of money for the lunch of the stock god, but unexpectedly, the stock god effect led to the rise of all the sunset stocks he bought, but made money.
Just a piece, a film and television clip, but life is often more wonderful than film and television dramas. Whether Zhao Danyang recommended shares to Buffett, which led to the short-term rise of Wumart shares, or the sharp rise of Tianshen entertainment shares after Zhu Ye attended lunch, all illustrate this point.
But it is the post-90s sun Yuchen who really turns the "Buffett lunch" into a farce.
In countless interviews, sun Yuchen never concealed his strong desire for fame and wealth.
When he was young, he wanted to be the next Han Han. Therefore, he carefully studied the style of the first prize of the previous new concept composition competition in order to cater to the tastes of the judges. After three years in a row, there was no response. Then he spent four years in Peking University with radical ideas and extreme remarks.
Then he went to study in the United States. He took courses from Wharton Business School, joined the Investment Association, participated in internship interviews with investment banks and fund companies, and began to study virtual currency.
In an interview with GQ, he talked about the change of his concept and believed that "entrepreneurs are the core of the rotation of the whole earth. The more people make money, the more noble they are". Since then, in his wechat circle of friends, Ma Yun, Feng Lun, Shi Yuzhu... He has been showing his group photos with business leaders at any time.
Behind the name "Sun Yuchen", it is almost a collection of opportunism and successful learning of chicken soup.
He has indeed realized wealth freedom. The wave field Tron he founded has increased rapidly. Sun Yuchen, who holds 6billion wave field coins, harvested leeks and cashed out 12billion yuan at one time.
According to Caixin, due to suspected illegal fund-raising and other issues, the regulatory authorities have issued border control instructions to sun Yuchen since June 2018. Sun Yuchen has not returned to China since January 2019.
But even so, there is still no shortage of sun Yuchen's supporters in China. In him, people saw the "illusion" of getting rich overnight**
The first thing that "Sun Yuchen" want to challenge is that set of mature and rational investment methodology.
In 2019, sun Yuchen auctioned Buffett's charity luncheon for nearly $4.57 million, but shelved it on the grounds of sun Yuchen's "sudden kidney stone".
Sun Yuchen announced in 2020 and completed his lunch appointment with Buffett
A screenshot of sun Yuchen's conversation shows that sun Yuchen said: "this wave I gave a class to the whole financial industry. Everyone thought I went to take lunch to listen to the class and make money. Wrong, I can make money without eating." "Making money is the most important. Everyone thinks Buffett gives me a class for lunch, so I'll give Mr. ba a class before dinner.".
Buffett once again stressed at the recent shareholders' meeting that "bitcoin is not a productive asset. Its value depends on how much the next person pays the last person who owns bitcoin. The money moves from person to person, and they just change the owner. But in essence, if the asset is to be valuable, it must be able to deliver productivity and value."
Munger also said, "in my life, I tried to avoid something stupid, evil and worse than others. I think bitcoin accounts for all three." Call it stupid because its value will return to zero, and call it evil because it weakens the sound U.S. financial system**
However, Buffett may have expected to meet sun Yuchen. He wants to hear how the young man who made a lot of money on virtual currency understands bitcoin.
The rising price of virtual assets is also challenging Buffett's value investment step by step. In terms of cryptocurrency, in addition to sun Yuchen, musk is also a supporter of cryptocurrency. Buffett and musk shouted several rounds across the air.
And the market has never been short of speculators. Since last year, the real universe has set off another wave of Carnival about the meta universe. Under the subdivision track of metauniverse, the NFT market is also growing rapidly. According to the prediction of chainalysis, a market research organization, the market scale of NFT has reached at least US $26.9 billion in 2021.
In the past year, even if they don't understand it, a large number of entrepreneurs and investors have raised the banner of blockchain, metauniverse and NFT
Buffett is old. He, 92, and Munger, 98, sat on the queen Omaha Center Stadium and answered questions from the media for six hours. They expounded their views and opinions countless times, from the international political pattern to oil, the Internet and virtual currency.
But how many of the 40000 participants here, as well as the countless spectators in front of the screen, really listened to the old man's painstaking efforts?