8 Business Principles That Never Go Out of Style
Some business principles come and go. A company I worked for started so many game-changing transformational programs and then, like a disgraced member of the Politburo, quickly abandoned and airbrushed them out of our corporate history so we could start yet another “business-critical” program that would be abandoned. We referred to them as the “acronym of the month.” Fortunately, there are some business principles you can use forever: 1. Look past the messenger and focus on the message. When people speak from a position of power or authority or fame, it’s tempting to place greater emphasis on their input, advice, and ideas. Warren Buffett? Yep, gotta listen to him. Sheryl Sandberg? Yes. Richard Branson? Absolutely. That approach works to a point–but only to a point. Really smart people strip away all the framing that comes with the source–both positive and negative–and evaluate information, advice, and input idea based solely on its merits. (MORE: Job Interviews Can Tell ...
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Dow Hits Record, Erasing Great Recession Losses
(NEW YORK) — The stock market is back. Five and a half years after the start of a frightening drop that erased $11 trillion from stock portfolios and made investors despair of ever getting their money back, the Dow Jones industrial average has regained all the losses suffered during the Great Recession and reached a new high. The blue-chip index rose 125.95 points Tuesday and closed at 14,253.77, topping the previous record of 14,164.53 on Oct. 9, 2007, by 89.24 points. “It signals that things are getting back to normal,” says Nicolas Colas, chief market strategist at BNY ConvergEx, a brokerage. “Unemployment is too high, economic growth too sluggish, but stocks are anticipating improvement.” The new record suggests that investors who did not panic and sell their stocks in the 2008-2009 financial crisis have fully recovered. Those who have reinvested dividends or added to their holdings have done even better. Since bottoming at 6,547.05 on March 9, 2009, the Dow has risen 7,706.72 ...
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Warren Buffett on Berkshire’s ‘Subpar’ Year, Big-Game Hunting and Why He Loves Newspapers
Warren Buffett, America’s most famous investor, holds himself to a high standard. That’s why he described 2012, a year in which his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway achieved a total gain for its shareholders of $24.1 billion, as “subpar.” As Buffett pointed out, for the ninth time in 48 years, Berkshire’s book value gain (14.4%) was less than the S&P’s gain (16%). This mea culpa of sorts kicks off Buffett’s annual letter, which was released on Friday. As usual, the document is required reading for anyone interested in investing, and features the Oracle of Omaha’s wry, homespun style. Aside from Berkshire’s “subpar” performance, Buffett’s other main regret was his “inability” to make a major acquisition in 2012. “I pursued a couple of elephants, but came up empty-handed,” he wrote. Buffett found his mojo earlier this year, however, with the blockbuster $23.3 billion acquisition of ketchup titan H.J. Heinz Co. Berkshire is spending $12 billion to buy half ...
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Warren Buffett on Berkshire’s ‘Subpar’ Year, Big Game Hunting, and Why He Loves Newspapers
Warren Buffett, America’s most famous investor, holds himself to a high standard. That’s why he described 2012, a year in which his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway achieved a total gain for its shareholders of $24.1 billion, as “subpar.” As Buffett pointed out, for the ninth time in 48 years, Berkshire’s book value gain (14.4%) was less than the S&P’s gain (16%). This mea culpa of sorts kicks off Buffett’s annual letter, which was released on Friday. As usual, the document is required reading for anyone interested in investing, and features the Oracle of Omaha’s wry, homespun style. Aside from Berkshire’s “subpar” performance, Buffett’s other main regret was his “inability” to make a major acquisition in 2012. “I pursued a couple of elephants, but came up empty-handed,” he wrote. Buffett found his mojo earlier this year, however, with the blockbuster $23.3 billion acquisition of ketchup titan H.J. Heinz Co. Berkshire is spending $12 billion to buy half ...
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Why Warren Buffett Loves Ketchup, Plain and Simple
For many Americans, Warren Buffett isn’t just one of the world’s greatest investors. He’s a folksy grandpa with a mysterious wizard’s touch. Everything about him—his upbringing, employees, travels, personal life, investing style, even his home decor—has been picked over for details about what exactly goes into his pixie dust. (There have been two dozen books published on him in the past year alone). Naturally, his $28 billion purchase of HJ Heinz with U.S.-Brazilian private equity group 3G Capital (owner of Burger King and a piece of Anheuser-Busch InBev) on Feb. 14 caused a lot of chatter. But the move is no mystery; it’s classic Buffett, and here’s why. Buffett lauded Heinz for good management and for making “great tasting products.” No surprise that the “Sage of Omaha” is a big burger eater. But that’s hardly enough to sway Buffett the number-cruncher. As market watchers know, he’s considered a value investor—someone who buys companies when they’re cheap—which ...
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