塞思·克拉曼——永恒的价值投资（第328期）

要训练人类来做这件事并不容易。

It's not easy to train humans to do it.

也许训练机器会更容易一些，但我并不确定，因为这实际上涉及大量单样本的情况。

Maybe it'll be easier to train machines, but I'm not sure because it really is a lot of sample sizes of one.

你能看到模式，但这些模式并不会完全重复。

You see patterns, but patterns don't exactly repeat.

这正是我们正在做的。

That is what we're doing.

这正是Baupost四十年来一直在做的。

That is what Baupost has done for forty years.

我们在广泛地寻找、搜寻机会。

We're looking, hunting broad and wide.

我喜欢说，我们会广泛地探索，寻找机会。

I like to say we go miles wide to look for opportunity.

当我们认为找到了机会，就会深入挖掘。

And then when we think we found it, then we drill miles deep.

也许区别在于，其他人首先深入挖掘，因此他们对每个行业都了如指掌。

Maybe the contrast is that other people are going miles deep first, so they know everything about every industry.

他们对制药、汽车、金融以及其他领域都了如指掌，但他们并不太关注为什么这些领域中的任何一项可能被错误定价。

They know deeply pharma and auto and finance and whatever else, but they're not as focused on why might any of this be particularly mispriced.

事实上，他们可能根本倾向于避开那些存在错误定价的地方。

And in fact, maybe they're actually oriented towards not going where the mispricings are.

股票被错误定价是因为管理层最近表现不佳。

The stock's mispriced because management has not done a good job lately.

这让人们很难向客户或上司推荐这样的投资。

That's hard for people to recommend to their clients or to their bosses.

或者这家公司可能卷入了某些事情，导致背上了某种污名，比如收购失败或管理失误。

Or maybe the company was involved in something that left them with a degree of stigma, a failed acquisition or a management misstep.

但这些情况反而可能导致价格严重偏离价值，从而创造机会。

And yet those things can cause prices to really get out of whack and lead to opportunity.

因此，挑战就在于找到发现廉价资产的方法。

So that's the challenge is to find ways to find the bargain.

从某种意义上说，当你不需要特别准确地预测未来十年业务会发展成什么样时，你只需要对得少一点。

In a sense, you have to be right about less when you don't have to be particularly right about what's the business gonna grow into over the next ten years.

也许此刻，它就被低估了30%、40%甚至50%。

Maybe right this second, it's 30 or 40 or 50% undervalued.

如今，世界在最近几年发生了更大变化，因为技术颠覆，在格雷厄姆的时代，他只需看看资产负债表和损益表，就能说：‘我以六倍市盈率、三分之二营运资本或三分之二账面价值买入股票，大概率是对的，而且最终市场会纠正这种错误。’

Now the world has changed more in recent years so that because of technological disruption, in Graham's day, he could look at a balance sheet and an income statement and say, look, I'm buying the stock at six times earnings and two thirds of working capital or two thirds of book value and probably be right about that and realize that the tables will turn.

不受欢迎的终将重新受欢迎——这正是《聪明的投资者》开篇引用的诗人贺拉斯的话。

What's out of favor will come back into favor, which is what the quote from Horace, the poet that's at the beginning of Intelligent Investor.

但如今的变化是，一家公司可能经营得还不错，但如果有人在车库里研发的东西即将颠覆这家公司，五年后，这家公司可能几乎不复存在，或者至少变得利润大减。

But what changes now is a business could be doing just fine, but if somebody's working on something in their garage that's gonna disrupt that company, five years from now, that company may barely exist or certainly become a lot less profitable.

因此，投资者必须思考的不仅是格雷厄姆和多德在大萧条时期所担心的周期性变化，还要考虑结构性变化。

And so an investor has to be thinking about not just cyclical change, like Graham and Dodd were worried about in the depression, but secular change as well.

我认为，这两者的结合使得投资变得更加困难，价值投资也变得更加困难，投资者不能再仅仅靠计算几个数字就断言某股票被错误定价。

And the combination of that, I think, has made investing harder and value investing harder that investors can't just crunch a few numbers and say this is mispriced.

他们需要比以往深入得多地去探究。

They need to dig a lot deeper than that.

努力工作本身并没有错。

There's nothing wrong with hard work.

我认为，那些认真寻找的投资者将继续发现定价错误和机会。

And I think that investors who look will continue to find mispricing and opportunity.

我很想深入了解你们在Baupost是如何应用这些理念的。

I'd love to dive into how you apply a lot of this at Baupost.

也许投资流程的第一步就是寻找那些可能存在低效机会的领域。

Maybe the first part of that investment process is this idea of sourcing these opportunistic areas that might be ripe for some inefficiency.

你们如何组织团队，以广泛搜寻那些你们之后可以深入研究的潜在机会？

How do you organize your team to look broadly to try to identify those places where you may then want to dive in deeply?

我认为其中最重要的部分是模式识别，即你注意到过去的一些模式虽然不会完全重复，但总会以某种相似的方式重现。

I think the biggest part of it is probably pattern recognition, that you notice that patterns from the past have a way of repeating not exactly, but with some similarity.

你可以找到一只正在清算其最后一项资产的基金。

You can find a fund that is in the process of liquidating its last asset.

他们面临的压力是：必须尽快把这项资产从账面上清理掉。

The pressures on them are, you better get that asset off the books.

我们不想让它延续到下一个财年末。

We don't wanna carry it through another year end.

因此，原本不会被出售的资产，现在却需要紧急出手。

And so all of a sudden, an asset that wouldn't normally be sold now needs to be sold with some degree of urgency.

这可能很简单，比如意识到某只债券或贷款即将违约或接近违约，从而可能以足够大的折扣交易，或者存在重组机会。

It could be something as simple as realizing that a bond or a loan is about to default or nearing default and might then trade at a steep enough discount or that there's a restructuring opportunity.

也可能是市场对诉讼产生了误判，要么认为诉讼无关紧要，要么认为其重要性远超实际。

It might be that the market misperceives litigation and that either thinks litigation is unimportant or thinks it's more important than it really is.

大多数投资者都受过分析现金流的训练，但要预测法律事件的概率，我认为没人真正擅长这一点。

So, most investors are trained to analyze cash flow, but to guess legal probabilities, I don't think anybody's probably good at that.

我不确定我们是否擅长，但我们确实努力尝试。

I'm not sure we're good at that, although we try.

但我认为，有一些因素在商业中的重要性比以往任何时候都更高，比如这一点。

But I think there are factors that are just more important in the business than they've ever been, such as that.

这类因素还有很多，它们累积起来影响巨大。

There are many, many of them that add up.

因此，我认为这些因素的结合创造了一些参与人数较少的市场环境，这可能导致定价错误，也使得某些领域比其他领域更容易出现定价偏差。

And so I think that the combination of that leads to some playing fields that probably have fewer people playing on them that can lead to mispricings, as well as areas that maybe are more likely to be mispriced than others.

所以，我认为通过追随我们的直觉、寻找模式、挖掘相似之处的线索，我们最终能建立起一个相当不错的投资组合，这些投资 individually 很可能被错误定价，同时整体上也实现了合理的分散化。

So I think by following our nose, by looking for patterns, by pulling on threads of similarities, we end up with a pretty good portfolio of investments that are individually likely to be mispriced and collectively are reasonably diversified.

你们如何与交易对手沟通，让他们越来越多地向你们提供这些独特的投资机会？

How do you go about communicating with your counterparties so that they start showing you more and more of these idiosyncratic opportunities?

我认为这属于Baupost内部的信息网络，但并没有你想象的那么难。

I think that's part of the intel inside at Baupost, but it's not as hard as you might think.

在Baupost的早期，大约三十五到四十年前，我们会接到电话，对方说：‘我是乔·史密斯或吉尔·史密斯，我是美林证券新负责你们这块的客户经理，我想过来聊聊我们能为你们做些什么。’

In the historic days of Baupost, thirty five, almost forty years ago, we'd get a phone call, hey, I'm Joe Smith or Jill Smith, I'm your new coverage for Merrill Lynch, and I'd like to come by and talk about what we can do for you.

由于时间宝贵，当时只有我或极少数几个人，我们会说：‘你没必要亲自过来。’

And time being scarce and just me or a very small group of people, we'd say, look, you don't need to come by.

但如果你们在工作中看到任何你们从未听说过的债券、股票，或者有股东想快速出手其20%的股权，那就随时联系我们。

But if you guys ever see on your desk a bond that you've never heard of or a stock you've never heard of or 20% shareholder in a business that wants to move it quickly, we're your call.

所以，别因为IBM的分析报告或者你们对微软的新评级就来打扰我们。

So don't call us with IBM Insights or your new rating of Microsoft.

但当你发现那个二级合伙权益，或找到一家私营公司的非流动性股权时，一定要联系我们，因为我们会对它出价。

But when you find that secondary partnership interest or you find that illiquid stake in a private company, call us with that because we'll have a bid for you.

所以我认为，关键在于发现这些模式。

And so I think it's seeing those patterns.

然后这就有点像那句名言：当你作为一个年轻人加入Baupost时，我们所做的要么让你产生共鸣，要么不会。

And then it's a little bit like that quote that when you come to Baupost as a young person, either what we do resonates or it doesn't.

我认为，对于我们那些普遍长期任职的员工来说，他们来到这里后，就像被透露了一个小秘密一样。

I think for the great majority of our people who tend to be quite long tenured, they come here, and it's like they too have been let in on a little secret.

他们意识到，盯着别人看的东西，可能并没有那么有趣。

And they realize that looking at what everybody else is looking at is probably not that interesting.

如果你非要去看别人看的东西，那就用一种高度差异化的方式去看。

You're If gonna look at what everybody else looks at, look at it in a highly differentiated way.

这没问题。

That's fine.

但你不可能通过对广受关注的股票发表缺乏差异化的观点来战胜他人并赚钱。

But you're not gonna make money by outsmarting people on widely followed stocks with an undifferentiated opinion.

但外面有很多机会，对吧？

But there's a lot out there, right?

私募市场 arguably 和公开市场一样大，甚至更大。

Private markets are arguably as big or bigger than public markets.

房地产市场本身被认为规模与全球股市相当。

The real estate market itself is thought to be around the size of global stock markets.

因此，有大量的资产、大量的交易和许多可以购买的东西。

And so there's a lot of assets and a lot of transactions and a lot of things that can be bought.

当前市场的反馈是：你应该持有前七只股票。

The current feedback from the market is you should own the top seven stocks.

你应该持有那些显而易见的股票。

You should own the stocks that are obvious.

你应该把资金投入指数基金，因为指数基金往往表现更优。

You should move your money into indexes because indexes tend to outperform.

如果一只股票被剔除出指数，在短期内它的表现会落后。

If stocks kicked out of an index, the short run, it underperforms.

有很多人不得不卖出它。

There's a lot of people that have to sell it.

却没人去买它。

Nobody does to buy it.

但我认为，从更长的时间周期来看，那些未能进入指数的股票才是真正有吸引力的。

But I would argue that over a longer period of time, it's those stocks that don't make it into the index that are actually the attractive ones.

因为如果它们一直不在指数中，你就是在以折扣价买入与指数内公司同类的企业。

Because if they stay out of it, you're buying the same kind of company at a discount to the ones in the index.

如果上帝保佑，它最终被纳入指数，那么你还能从价格上涨中获得显著收益。

And God willing, if it's ever included in the index, now you have significant gain from the step up as well.

这并不是在争论该不该进行指数投资。

This is not an argument to index or not index.

而是想说，当前受追捧的资产往往定价过高，而被冷落的资产可能变得更不受欢迎，但通常具备更好的投资基本面。

It's to say that what tends to be in favor tends to be very fully priced, and what tends to be out of favor can become even more out of favor, but tends to offer better investment fundamentals.

假设你和我说，有两家公司完全一样，只是一家在标普指数里，另一家不在。

Literally, if you and I said, look, there are two companies that are identical except one's in the S and P and one's not.

而那个不在指数中的股票交易价格低了20%。

And the one that's not trades at a 20% discount.

哪个更可能是更好的长期投资？

Which is likely to be the better long term investment?

我认为从估值角度来看，每次都是那个不在指数中的股票更优。

I think we'd say on a valuation basis, it's every time it's the one not in the index.

也许进入指数有一些好处，比如更低的资本成本。

Maybe there's some benefits to being in the index, a lower cost of capital.

也许它给其他公司带来某种优势。

Maybe it gives the other companies some kind of advantage.

但我认为价值投资者通常会说：给我一个实质上完全相同的公司，但入场价格低得多的那个。

But I think a value investor would generally say, give me the one that virtually the same company, but at a much lower entry price.

我最终会获得更高的长期回报。

I'm gonna have the higher return over time.

当然，从长期来看，无论以何种方式衡量回报，更好的回报都来自于更低的市盈率、更低的市净率、更高的股息收益率，无论是什么指标。

And of course, looking at returns over a long period of time, measuring them kind of any which way, the better returns come from paying a lower multiple of earnings, a lower multiple of book, a higher dividend yield, whatever it is.

所以至少这值得好好思考。

So at least that's food for thought.

一旦你发现了这样的机会，通过模式识别和广泛调研，Baupost公司完整的尽职调查流程是从发现机会到深入研究再到准备投资的整个过程是怎样的？

Once you've found one of these opportunities, pattern recognition, canvassing wide, what does a fully vetted process at Baupost look like from seeing the opportunity to doing the deep dive to when you're ready to make an investment?

这可能是几天，也可能是几年。

It can be days and it could be years.

这取决于机会的性质。

That depends on the nature of the opportunity.

我常说，足够大的折扣可能弥补对标的了解不够深入的不足。

I like to say that a big enough discount maybe offsets the lack of the deepest possible knowledge.

有时市场出现混乱，你需要迅速行动。

Sometimes there's chaos in the markets and you want to move quickly.

另一方面，任何人看到股价在最近几天下跌了20%，就认为这毫无原因，那将是极其天真的。

On the other hand, anybody that looks at the price and says, wow, that stock has fallen 20% in the last couple of days, to think that happened for no reason would also be incredibly naive.

因此，我认为投资者需要以一定的敏捷性行动，因为机会不会永远存在；但同时也要以极大的谦逊态度行事，因为市场并不会轻易赠送免费的钱。

So I think that investors need to move with a degree of alacrity because opportunities don't last forever, but they also need to do everything with a great deal of humility because the market doesn't just give away free money.

有很多聪明人。

There are a lot of smart people.

卖家可能和你了解得一样多，甚至更多。

Sellers might know as much or more than you.

毕竟，他们拥有它已经有一段时间了，而你还没有。

They, after all, have owned it for a period of time and you haven't.

所以你必须花足够的时间去深入了解，至少确保自己不会像沃伦·巴菲特所说的那样，成为桌上的冤大头。

So you ought to really spend enough time to get comfortable to at least make sure you're not the patsy at the table in the way Warren Buffett would describe it.

我们做了大量的深入研究。

We do a ton of deep work.

我们深入挖掘公司的财务数据。

We dig deep into company financials.

我们会回顾多年的历史。

We look back a number of years.

我们总是问自己，不仅仅是报表上的数字，而是真正发生了什么。

We always ask ourselves about not just what's the reported number, but what's really going on.

自由现金流是多少？

What's the free cash flow?

利润率怎么样？

What are the margins doing?

有变好吗？

Have they gotten better?

有变差吗？

Have they gotten worse?

这个管理层表现得怎么样？

Is this management doing a good job?

有没有错失的机会？

Are there missed opportunities?

还是他们在勉强撑出一些可能很快就会消失的好数据？

Or are they stretching to put up good numbers that might go away?

所以我们正在深入挖掘那些在我职业生涯中发生过变化的事情。

So we're digging things that have changed over the course of my career.

我刚入行的时候，根本没有专家网络可以联系。

When I started, there were no expert networks to call.

你得自己去摸索，可能还得想办法找出谁了解这个业务，或者通过与业务某些部分的专家交谈来拼凑信息。

You had to figure out your own and maybe figure out who might know something about this business or piece it together, talking to experts on certain part of the business.

所以我肯定认为，现在可获得的信息要多得多。

So I would argue for sure, there's way more information available.

我们每个人都能随时随地免费或低成本地获取比二三十年前最认真的投资人士多得多的信息。

We all have more information available at no cost or low cost at our fingertips than people in the most serious investment positions had twenty or thirty years ago.

但话说回来，信息的价值也是有限的，关键在于你怎么利用它。

But that said, information's only so valuable also because it's what you do with it.

关键是要对它有独特的见解。

It's having a differentiated view about it.

我们内部会进行积极的讨论。

We have then active internal debates.

团队以小组形式开会，通常由一位合伙人、一位资深分析师和一位初级分析师组成。

The teams meet as pods, which tends to be a partner and a more senior and a more junior analyst altogether.

这只是一个近似值，但情况就是这样。

That's an approximation, but that's what it looks like.

当他们准备提出建议时，可能会拿给另一个小组看看，说：嘿，这听起来疯狂吗？

When they're ready to make a recommendation, they may run it by another pod just to say, hey, does this sound crazy?

我们让分析师每周在午餐时碰一次面。

We have our analysts meet once a week at lunch.

任何有空且想参加的人都可以来，但合伙人不会出席。

Anybody who's around and wants to meet, the partners don't attend that.

所以这是一个自由的空间，让分析师们可以互相交流想法，而不用担心合伙人会听到或觉得他们天真、想法可笑。

So it's a free space for analysts to be running things by each other and not feel like partners gonna hear them or they might judge them for being naive or having a silly idea.

我认为这对人们的成长真的很重要。

So I think that's really important for people's development.

当团队准备提出这个想法时，他们会来找我。

When the team's ready to pitch the idea, they run it by me.

他们通常也会同时向我们的总裁吉姆·穆尼汇报。

They run it by our president, Jim Mooney as well, usually at once in the same meeting.

如果是公开的想法，我们会让交易员在场，他们可以提供关于该标的当前交易情况或市场动态的见解。

If it's a public idea, we have our traders in the room who can shed insight into how the thing is trading or any particular thoughts about what's going on in the market at the moment on that name.

我们通常在一个小时内就能做出决定。

We reach a decision often in an hour.

有时我们无法达成一致，就会同意重新讨论，或者认为这个想法有趣，但当前价格不合适。

Sometimes we don't reach a decision and we agree to reconvene or we agree that it's interesting, but not at the current price.

另一些时候，我们会面、达成共识，然后买入。

Other times we'll meet, we'll agree, we'll buy it.

几天后，我们会再次开会，因为价格进一步下跌，现在成了更好的投资机会，我们是否要增持？

And then in days, we're meeting again because the prices dropped further and it's now an even better bargain and do we want to own more?

我天性就是会反复琢磨这些事情。

Part of my nature is these things churn in my head.

所以有时会议第二天早上醒来，我会想，我是不是漏问了一个问题，或者有个风险我之前没考虑到，现在才想到。

So sometimes I'll wake up after a meeting the next morning and think I forgot to ask one question or there's a risk I hadn't thought about that now I'm thinking about.

因此我们会重新召集会议。

And so we'll reconvene.

这可能让我的团队有点抓狂，但我始终认为，保护客户的资本比让自己让人有点烦更重要。

It probably drives my people a little crazy, but I always think protecting the client's capital is more important than whether I drive somebody a little crazy.

因此，只要价格接近我们的目标价，我们就会不断重新讨论。

So we are constantly reconvening if it moves closer to our price target.

这是一次好的卖出时机吗？

Is this a good sale?

我们什么时候应该退出？

When should we get out?

我们要不要卖出一部分？

Do we sell part of it?

我们该如何思考这个问题？

How should we think about that?

如果价格下跌，我们应该加仓吗？

If it falls, should we buy more?

仓位应该有多大？

How big should it be?

如果其他东西变得更有趣了，我们是该继续持有，还是这个新东西更有吸引力？

If something else gets more interesting, should we keep holding it or is this new thing even more attractive?

在投资中，有两个方面对每个投资者都构成限制。

There are two things that are limited in investing to constraints on every investor.

一个是资本，另一个是时间。

One is capital and the other is time.

这两者都非常重要。

And they're both really important.

所以，如果你持有的某样东西下跌了，有时你会选择卖出，即使你对它的看法并没有变得更差。

So, if something you own falls, sometimes you'll trade out of it even though you don't like it any less than you did.

你只是更喜欢刚出现的某个新东西。

You just like something new that came along more.

我认为，这类讨论对于优化投资组合非常有帮助。

Those kinds of conversations I think are extraordinarily helpful in optimizing a portfolio.

随着宝桥公司多年来人员的增加，你是如何逐步完善这一决策过程的？

How have you gone about evolving that decision making process as Baupost has grown a number of people over the years?

我会告诉你，我做得并不好。

I would tell you I've done it poorly.

我仍然对投资组合拥有最终决定权。

I continue to have final say in the portfolio.

因此，我行使这一权力的方式是，我拥有最终决定权，但我会大量依赖我的团队。

So the way I wield that power is I have final say, but I defer a great deal to my team.

所以我给团队充分的自由空间。

So I give the team rope.

如果是一位多年来为客户创造大量利润的资深合伙人，他们想做一件我不太确定的事，我通常会给他们空间去尝试。

If it's a senior partner who's produced a lot of profit for the clients over the years and they wanna do something that I'm not sure about, I tend to give them room to do that.

我认为这很有价值，也可能延长他们的职业生涯。

I think that's valuable and probably career extending for them.

这让他们感到被重视。

It makes them feel appreciated.

这让他们感到满足，因为他们能够做出决策。

It gives them satisfaction that they're getting to make decisions.

但某种程度上，我不仅在决定投资，也在决定人选。

But I also, at some sense, I'm deciding on investments, but I'm also deciding on people.

当他们说已经完成工作时，我该信任谁呢？

Who do I trust when they say they've done the work?

这到底意味着什么？

What does that mean?

他们做得好吗？

Have they done good work?

对于我们最好的人——我们有很多非常优秀、资历深厚的人——长期以来，信任他们一直是正确的做法。

And for our best people, we have a lot of really great people, long tenured people, Trusting them has been exactly the right thing to do for a very long period of time.

最终决策权仍需由投资组合经理掌握，因为我们会在不同领域之间大量投入或撤出资金。

The final say, a portfolio manager still needs to sit on top of the structure, and it's because we slash money into and out of areas.

过去六个月，我们可能大量增持了企业信贷。

So we might have loaded up on corporate credit over the last six months.

但如果明天有更好的机会出现在私募投资或房地产领域，我们可能会减持现有头寸，转而买入更优的标的。

But if tomorrow there's something better to do in a private investment or in real estate, we may be reducing positions we'd like to buy something even better.

组织上的关键是让那些具有团队精神的人能够明白：哦，我懂了。

The organizational key is somehow to have people that are team oriented enough to say, Oh, I get it.

我为这个想法付出了很多努力。

I worked hard on this idea.

很高兴我们持有它。

I'm glad we own it.

但如果我们可以持有更好的东西，为客户提供更多收益，我相信这同样符合我的最佳利益。

But if we can own something better that's going to make more for the clients, I trust that's also in my best interest.

正因如此，我们努力根据公司整体业绩而非个人业绩来支付薪酬。

And we try to pay people not just on their own bottom line, but on a firm wide bottom line for that exact reason.

我们稍作短暂休息，向您介绍一下Ridgeline。

We're going to take a quick break in the action to tell you about Ridgeline.

想象一下，每天早上醒来时，对账工作已经完成。

Imagine starting your day with reconciliation already done.

无需使用电子表格，无需中断去追查问题，也无需用胶带把系统勉强粘在一起。

No spreadsheets, no breaks to chase, no duct tape holding systems together.

Bridgeline 是首个为投资经理打造的前后端一体化系统。

Bridgeline is the first front to back system of record built for investment managers.

一个平台，一个实时数据集，内置人工智能。

One platform, one real time dataset, embedded AI.

投资公司正用这种全新的运营模式，取代分散的孤立系统、订单管理系统、会计系统、报告插件和客户工具，实现复杂工作流的自动化、个性化客户体验的扩展，并释放人工智能的全部价值。

Investment firms are replacing a patchwork of isolated and data order management systems, accounting systems, reporting add ons, and client tools with this fundamentally new operating model, automating complex workflows, scaling personalized client experiences, and unlocking the full value of AI.

如果今年您的公司准备现代化运营并利用人工智能，您可以在 ridgeline.ai 了解更多信息。

If this is the year your firm is ready to modernize operations and harness AI, you can learn more at ridgeline.ai.

现在，我们回到访谈。

And now back to the interview.

你是如何考虑仓位规模的？

How do you think about position sizing?

仓位规模一直是 Baupost 历史上的一大优势。

Sizing has been one of the strengths of Baupost over its history.

我遇到过一些对仓位规模有独特看法的人。

I've run into people with unusual views about sizing.

我遇到过不少基金，它们认为投资的目标是限制任何一项投资的亏损幅度。

So I've come across a number of funds that have a view that the goal in investing is to limit how much you can lose on any idea.

所以关键是让你的基金拥有200个想法，但每个都不超过0.5%。

So the key is to have 200 ideas in your fund, none of them more than half a percent.

你并不理解这一点。

You don't understand that.

如果你能判断一个想法是好的，而不是坏的，那为什么不能理解，有些想法可能不是仅仅好，而是非常出色呢？

If you can establish that an idea is good versus one that's bad, then why can't you understand that there might be one that's great rather than just good?

那为什么这样的想法不应该更大呢？

And why would that not be bigger?

我也认为，一个投资组合能够承受超过十分之一或百分之二的亏损。

I also think a portfolio can absorb more than a tenth or two tenths of 1% of loss.

因此，我们更倾向于通过持续的工作和价格下跌，逐步识别出原本不错的想法如今已变得非常出色。

So, we prefer to identify over time through continued work, through price decline, that a good idea has now become a great idea.

或者通过某个事件、公司公告，确认接下来将要发生的事情。

Or through an event, through a company announcement that the following is going to happen.

也许你研究这家公司已经足够久，能够立即理解并领会这条消息的含义，而其他人可能觉得这并非正确的方向，或者至少无法理解其影响。

And maybe you've studied the company long enough that you understand and can appreciate right away what that news means, where somebody else might think it's directionally not the direction to go or at least not understand the impact of it.

因此，我们显然会远离任何内幕信息，但我们希望利用我们的洞察力和耐心，以及长期导向的客户给予我们的信任。

So, we obviously stay very far away from any line of inside information, but we want to capitalize on our insights and patience that our long term oriented clients give us.

多年来，我们的巨额利润通常来自于那些最初与我们观点相悖的投资标的，我们会在此时摊低成本。

We have made our big dollar profits over the years, usually in ideas that have gone against us at first, and we average down.

当这些标的被催化时，意味着将发生某些事件，使我们获利。

And when they are catalyzed, which means some event is going to happen that will cause us to make money.

我们并不只是依赖某人在明天醒来后比今天更喜欢它，而是公司实际上会完成重组计划、清算计划，或合并几乎必然完成，或资产将从其公司投资组合中出售，并用大部分收益回购股票。

We're not just dependent on somebody waking up tomorrow and liking it more than they did today, but rather the company will in fact complete a reorganization plan or will complete a liquidation plan or a merger will close with high probability or an asset will get sold out of their corporate portfolio and they will buy back stock with a lot of the proceeds.

无论具体是什么，这些才是我们所寻找的催化剂。

Whatever it might be, those are the kinds of catalysts we look for.

催化剂的存在让我们更有信心持有更大的仓位。

The presence of a catalyst makes us comfortable having a bigger position.

没有催化剂的价值投资最难之处在于，你可能会长期持有不受欢迎的资产。

The hardest thing about value investing without catalysts is you can own something that's out of favor for an incredibly long time.

在五到十年或更长的时间跨度里，提早行动却犯错，看起来和单纯犯错完全一样。

And over five or ten or longer year period, looking, being early and being wrong look exactly the same.

你可能会开始感到困惑，你的团队和客户也可能开始感到困惑。

And you can start to get confused and your people can start to get confused and your clients can start to get confused.

因此，我不认识除沃伦·巴菲特之外的任何人，能在连续十年甚至更久跑输市场的情况下，依然让所有人都觉得没问题，因为他们相信最终会成功。

And so I don't know anybody other than maybe Warren Buffett who could underperform for a decade or more and feel like everybody's just dandy with that because they have confidence it's gonna work out.

当然，每位投资者都该问问自己：如果你持有的股票持续下跌，你是不是判断错了？

And of course, every investor should also be asking themselves those questions that if you own a stock that just goes down and down and down, might you have been wrong?

或者至少，你本可以更早发现一些问题，而不是在最高价时买入。

Or at least maybe you could have figured some things out earlier and not owned it from the highest price you paid.

Baupost的另一点在于，我们知道我们并非无所不知，事实上，在浩如烟海的知识面前，我们懂得实在太少，因此我们花大量时间去汲取教训。

One of the things about Baupost also, because we know we don't know everything, we know we know so little in the scheme of how much there is to know, that we spend a great deal of time trying to learn lessons.

所以，我们要花时间从成功和失败中都学习，因为两者都蕴含着宝贵的启示。

And so, spend time learning both from our successes and from our failures because they both contain valuable learnings.

这些教训并不总是在第一天就能获得。

Those learnings aren't always available the first day.

回过头来看，可能需要相当长的时间。

It may take quite a while to reflect back.

我记得多年前看过一篇采访，有人问一家共同基金的负责人：‘请谈谈您这些年来最棒的投资想法。’

I remember reading years ago in an interview, they asked the head of a mutual fund, tell me about your best idea over the years.

他回答说：‘我以5美元的价格买进了一只股票，后来涨到了50美元。’

And they said, well, I found the stock at $5 and it went to 50.

当我查了那只股票后，你猜怎么着？

And when I looked up that stock, guess what?

它从5美元涨到50美元，但又回到了5美元。那么，这到底是一个绝佳的投资想法，还是一次幸运的交易？

It had gone from $5 to $50 but it was back to $5 So was that a great idea or was that a lucky trade?

我不知道答案。

I don't know the answer.

你是如何思考风险管理的？

How do you think about risk management?

Baupost基金创立之初的核心原则，首先是保护创始家族的资本。

Baupost was founded on the principle of protecting the capital, first and foremost, of the families that founded it.

因此，我会说我们的方法是规避风险的。

So, I would describe us as having a risk averse approach.

我们试图在每一项投资中都考虑下行风险。

We try to think about downside in every individual investment.

我们将这一点融入投资组合中，不是通过某种复杂的数学公式，而是从智力上思考：我们的相关性在哪里？

We roll that into a portfolio, not in some fancy math formula, but intellectually, where are our correlations?

我们的投资组合是否像单个投资一样面临如此严重的风险？

Do we have exposure as a portfolio that's as bad as the individual investments?

还是说，由于我们有相互抵消的投资，整体风险可能低得多？

Or might there be much less exposure because we have offsetting investments?

如果这一项表现良好，另一项很可能表现较差。

If this one does well, that one's likely to do less well.

或者如果这一项表现糟糕，另一项可能会取得巨大成功。

Or if this one does poorly, that one's likely to be a grand slam home run.

是否可以通过投资组合中的对冲来降低风险？

Are there ways to mitigate risk just with offsets in the portfolio?

你还可以通过催化剂来降低风险。

Then you could also mitigate with catalysts.

催化剂可以缩短你的投资周期。

Catalysts shorten your duration.

它们让你对未来的市场整体水平依赖更少。

They make you less dependent on the overall level of the market in the future.

我们知道，沃伦·巴菲特在上世纪70年代初的《财富》杂志上写道：任何对市场下跌50%感到不安的人，都不该持有普通股。

And we know Warren Buffett wrote in the 7374 timeframe on Fortune that no one should own common stocks who's not comfortable with a 50% drop in the market.

我可以说，几乎没有人能坦然接受市场下跌50%，但美国人持有的股票却比以往任何时候都多。

I could tell you almost nobody's comfortable with a 50% drop in the market, yet Americans own more stocks than ever before.

因此，我认为人们已经忘记了这种忠告。

And so, I think people have forgotten that kind of admonition.

我认为这一点也非常重要。

I think that's really important too.

所以，这就是为什么我不只是单纯地追求贝塔收益，而是通过分散投资到其他资产类别，比如信贷，来缩短投资周期，获得资本结构中的优先地位——即使股权严重受挫，你也更有可能拿回本金。

So, it's why I don't just want pure beta equity long diversifying into other asset classes into credit, for example, shorten your duration, give you a senior position in a capital structure where you're likely to get paid back even if the equity struggles mightily.

或者，如果你没能拿回全部资金，至少能拿回80美分。

Or if you don't get all your money back, you get 80¢ on the dollar back.

很多东西都能帮助你规避完整的市场风险。

A lot of things diversify away from full market risk.

这是仓位上的分散化。

It's position diversification.

这是在投资组合层面进行对冲。

It's hedging at the portfolio level.

我们会根据每个具体的投资，适当叠加宏观对冲、商品类对冲和利率对冲。

We tend to overlay macro hedges and commodity type hedges, interest rate hedges, as appropriate based on each individual investment.

还可能有一层投资组合对冲，本质上类似于市场的看跌期权。

And there may be a layer of portfolio hedges that look like essentially puts on the market.

这样做的原因是，市场的长期平均市盈率大约是17倍。

And the reason for that is that the average long term multiple of the market's about 17 times.

但有时会达到20倍，有时甚至接近30倍，而在其他时候又会跌到10倍。

But you have moments, today it's 20 times, you have moments it's hit closer to 30 times, and other times it gets to 10 times.

当市场估值高于历史平均水平时，你将面临巨大的风险，即估值回归长期回报水平。

At times when the market is more expensive than historic averages, you are exposed like crazy to just the multiple coming down to the long term returns winning out.

仅凭这种均值回归，你就可能遭受巨大损失。

And you can lose a lot just from that kind of mean reversion.

因此，我们也会努力防范这种情况。

So we try to protect against that too.

在没有立即投资机会时，我会持有现金。

I will hold cash in the absence of immediate opportunity.

如今，这个数额并不算大。

That's not a terribly big number these days.

但这些对冲和缓释措施的组合，确实提供了显著的下行保护。

But the combination of those hedges, those mitigants do provide a significant degree of downside protection.

当我们确实面临下行时，损失通常也非常有限。

And when we do have downside, it tends to be quite limited.

因此，Baupost在其41年的历史中，仅有五年亏损，其中除两年外，其余亏损均在个位数中段或更低。

So Baupost has only lost money in five of its forty one years, all but two of those have been in the mid single digit range or less.

因此，在四十年的时间里如此保护资本，我认为这就是Baupost所追求的目标，也是价值投资者希望实现的目标。

So protecting capital to that extent over four decades, I think is the name of the game for what Baupost tries to do, what value investors hope to accomplish.

当你投资私人证券而非公开证券时，你是如何考虑流动性定价的？

When you're investing in private securities compared to public securities, how do you think about pricing in liquidity?

我认为你必须为流动性不足获得补偿。

I think you have to get paid for illiquidity.

我认为放弃对买卖时机的控制是有成本的，但也有相应的抵消因素。

I think that there is a cost to giving up control over getting in and getting out, but there are offsets.

因此，其中一个抵消因素是，如果你买了一栋楼，它确实是缺乏流动性的。

And so one of the offsets is you'd think if you bought a building, it's illiquid.

但如果你拥有整栋楼，你就能决定何时出售。

But if you own the whole building, you get to decide when to sell it.

而如果你持有某家公司的一百股或一百万股股票，管理层可能会做出一些你绝不会做的极其愚蠢的决定。

Whereas if you own a 100 shares of stock or a million shares of stock of a company, management could do something extraordinarily dumb that you wouldn't have done.

因此，这其中有利有弊。

And so there are puts and takes.

所以我要确保自己因为放弃改变主意的权利而得到相应的回报。

And so I wanna make sure I get paid for giving up the right to change my mind.

但一个资产以流动形式存在，并不意味着它就完全是缺乏流动性的。

But just because an asset is in a liquid form doesn't mean it's purely illiquid.

建筑物经常被出售。

Buildings get sold all the time.

整个公司也经常被出售。

Whole companies get sold all the time.

而一家4亿美元公司的9.9%股份可能是一块非常缺乏流动性的股权。

Whereas 9.9 of the shares of a $400,000,000 company might be a very illiquid block.

因此，流动性可能并不像人们普遍认为的那样。

And so liquidity may not be what everybody seems to think.

近年来，我认为一些管理资金的人对流动性缺乏本身能带来回报存在严重误解。

There's been, I think, a great misunderstanding in recent years among some people who run money that illiquidity itself delivers degree of return.

他们以为只要接受流动性缺乏，就自动能获得回报。

That if you take the illiquidity, you automatically get the return.

我认为没有什么比这个想法更奇怪的了。

I don't think anything could be weirder than that idea.

你从流动性不足中赚钱的原因，是当交易对手持有流动性差的资产，却突然需要套现、想把资产从账面上移除时，这可能导致资产以折价交易，而折价则带来了更高的回报。

That the reason you make money from illiquidity is when you have people on the other side of the trade who have an illiquid asset and they suddenly need to monetize it, they want it off the books, that may cause it to trade at a discounted price and the discounted price provides the higher return.

流动性不足本身并不会带来回报。

The illiquidity itself doesn't.

通常，当客户问这个问题时，我会说你应该获得几百个基点的回报。

Generally, when clients ask this, I say you ought to make several 100 basis points.

我不确定是200还是500个基点，但放弃流动性、放弃改变主意的权利，价值是很大的。

I don't know if that's 200 or 500 basis points, but giving up the liquidity, the right to change your mind is worth a lot.

另一方面，作为一个思想实验，让我们来看看所有工具中流动性最强的品种。

On the other hand, just as a thought experiment, let's take the most liquid of all instruments.

假设我在国债收益率为4%的时候找到了五年期国债，但我有一种方法能让你以10%的收益率创建同样的债券，只是你五年内不能交易。

And let's say I found a five year treasury bonds at a time when treasuries yield 4%, and I had a way that you could create that at a 10% yield, but you couldn't trade it for five years.

流动性是有价格的。

There's a price on liquidity.

会有人这么做吗？

Would anybody do that?

我会说，任何打算购买国债并可能持有五年的人，都应该优先考虑进行这笔交易。

Well, I would argue that anybody that's gonna buy treasury bonds and would likely keep holding them for five years ought to be first in line to do that trade.

这种交易是存在的。

And that exists.

我无法详述它存在的所有方式，但我们一直在不断交易类似的东西。

I can't describe all the ways it exists, but we are trading off things like that all the time.

也许现金放在一个清算信托中，只能缓慢兑付。

Maybe the cash is in a liquidating trust and will only get paid out slowly.

也许存在某种类似现金或国库券的资产，现金被持有其中。

Maybe there's something cash like or treasury bill like where the cash is held.

所以它并不是严格的国库券，但类似于国库券，收益率却远高于普通国库券。

And so it's not exactly a treasury bill, but it's like a treasury bill, and yet the yield is way, way disproportionately more than you'd ever get on a treasury.

因此，我们一直在永恒地寻找这类机会，有时我们确实能找到。

So we're on the eternal hunt for things like that and sometimes we actually find them.

你对国际市场的风险溢价与美国市场相比有什么发现？

What have you found about differential risk premium in international markets compared to The US?

我们进行国际投资。

We invest internationally.

我们在欧洲持有股票。

We have stocks in Europe.

我们有时会购买欧洲的债务。

We have debt in Europe that we sometimes buy.

我们在全球拥有房地产，尽管大部分位于美国和西欧。

We own real estate globally, although mostly it's US and Western Europe.

我们的投资授权广泛且灵活，使我们能够灵活转向有机遇的市场。

Our mandate is broad and flexible, which lets us move where the opportunity is.

我们不久前还向客户谈过一些我们发现的中国股票。

We talked to our clients not that long ago about a few Chinese stocks we were finding.

几十年来，我们从未持有过任何中国资产。

We had never owned anything in China for decades.

当时是看好的。

It was in favor.

大家都争着往那里去。

Everybody was lining up to go there.

我知道他们的治理体制相当专制，不想站在对立面。

I knew that they have a pretty authoritarian system of governance and didn't wanna be on the wrong side of that.

我们通常会避开这类市场。

We stay away from most markets like that as a pretty regular rule.

但这些股票已经开始大幅折价反映中国的巨大风险，我们第一次觉得真正得到了应有的回报。

Yet, the stocks were starting to discount such a significant degree of China risk that we felt like for the first time ever that you're actually getting well paid.

我们发现一家公司股价暴跌了90%，觉得很有吸引力，到目前为止表现不错。

And we found a company whose stock was beaten down 90% and thought that was attractive, and so far so good.

但这只占我们资本的一小部分，是我们的某位分析师提出的非常大胆的想法。

But it's not a large percentage of our capital, but it was a very intrepid idea by one of our analysts.

我对新兴市场和前沿市场没有明确看法。

I don't have a view about emergent markets, about the frontier markets.

我们足够谦逊和谨慎，知道如果你不住在一个国家，也没有当地的人活跃其中，你就处于真正的劣势。

We're humble enough and cautious enough to know that if you don't live in a country, if you don't have people that are active in that country, you're at a real disadvantage.

因此，我不知道在非洲或亚洲购买股票应该有多少溢价。

And so I have no idea what the premium should be for buying equities in Africa or equities in Asia.

但当我发现一只股票以25美分的价格交易时，我知道这类投资通常会有好结果。

But when I find a stock trading at 25¢ on the dollar, I know that those things tend to work out.

这就是我们如何应用这一原则的。

So that's how we've applied it.

但我们绝大多数的投资都在美国和西欧。

But the vast majority of our investments are US and Western Europe.

我不认为西欧相对于美国需要特别高的风险溢价。

And I don't know that Western Europe needs particularly significant risk premium over The US.

显然，对于居住在美国或面临汇率风险的客户来说，你可能需要考虑一些因素。

Obviously, for clients who live in The US or with exchange rate risk, you may have some considerations there.

从我们的角度来看，这不会是很大的折扣。

That wouldn't be a big discount from our perspective.

我们只是将每个单独的投资项目单独看待，努力理解其中的风险与机会，然后做出判断。

We just take each individual investment as it is, try to understand what the risks and opportunities are in it, and make our determination then.

随着经济环境的变化，尤其是过去一年半到两年间利率上升和通胀加剧，您在识别模式时，对未来几年可能出现的投资机会有何关注？

As the economic environment's been changing with rates rising and inflation, particularly in The US over the last year and a half, two years, Where is your antenna up in that pattern recognition for the types of opportunities you suspect will come over the next few years?

这在我看来，是我四十多年投资生涯中最为奇特的时期之一，竟然出现了泡沫。

This is to me one of the weirdest times since I've been in the investment business for over forty years, that you had a bubble.

这实际上是一个信贷泡沫，演变成了全面泡沫。

It was really a credit bubble that became an everything bubble.

超低利率，有时甚至为零利率，使得资本极易获得且成本极低。

Super low interest rates, at times zero rates, made capital easily available and incredibly cheap.

这导致了初创企业热潮、SPAC、迷因股票和加密货币等各种投机活动。

And that led to startup manias and SPACs and meme stocks and crypto, all kinds of speculative activity.

我不确定我们是否已经开始理清这个泡沫。

I'm not convinced that we've even begun to sort out that bubble.

这个泡沫在2022年确实崩溃得相当彻底，但今年市场又强劲反弹了。

Now that bubble did a pretty good job of collapsing in 2022, but the market has rallied back so much this year.

我们现在正处于牛市，至少根据20%这个任意定义来看，已不再是熊市。

We're now in a bull market, no longer in a bear market by that at least arbitrary definition of 20%.

我认为，过去十二年债券泡沫所造成的损害，别忘了，直到2022年之前，这可是长达三十五年的债券牛市。

I think that the damage that was done over a twelve year bond bubble, And of course, don't forget it's been a thirty five year bond bull market up till 2022.

在这段时期，金融机构本该怎么做呢？

That what were financial institutions supposed to do during that time frame?

它们无法通过承担信用风险获得回报。

They couldn't get paid by taking credit risk.

回报依然不多。

It still wasn't much.

它们也无法通过延长投资期限获得回报。

They couldn't get paid by going out in duration.

收益率曲线相当平坦，至少在某些时候是这样。

The yield curve was decently flat, at least part of the time.

因此，我们看到一些金融机构像硅谷银行那样，最终出现了资产与存款之间的严重错配。

And so, we've seen some financial institutions do what like Silicon Valley Bank did and end up with significant mismatches of assets to deposits.

但我并不确信我们了解所有问题的根源。

But I'm not convinced we know where all the bodies are buried.

我想，时不时你会读到一些文章，说某家银行有高达一千亿美元的债券低于市价之类的。

I think here and there you read an article that says this bank has $100,000,000,000 of bonds below market or whatever.

但我就是不太信。

But I'm just not convinced.

我并不是说还存在其他问题。

I'm not saying there's anything more.

我什么都不知道。

I don't know anything.

但我还是会感到不安，因为市场会引发行为。

But I'd be nervous because markets cause behaviors.

当人们必须把资金投入运作、必须管理账本、必须运作庞大的资产负债表时，他们总会想办法使用这些资金。

And when people have to put money to work, have to run a matchbook, have to run a large balance sheet, they're going to do something with the money.

我们还没有看到太多问题浮出水面。

We haven't seen a lot of bodies float up.

我不知道那是什么意思，但我都会担心。

I don't know what that means, but I'd be worried.

我认为我们已经极度依赖政府来救助一切。

I think that we've become incredibly dependent on the government rescuing everything.

这个时刻的讽刺之处在于，你曾经有过格林斯潘救市、伯南克救市和耶伦救市，而现在鲍威尔正在打破这一模式。

The irony of this moment is that while you had a Greenspan put and a Bernanke put and a Yellen put, Now Powell is breaking it.

我不知道他能否打破这一模式，然后立即重新提供支持。

I don't know if he can break it and provide the put right afterwards.

另一方面，对于硅谷银行，我们确实这么做了。

On the other hand, with SVB, we did.

我们改变了存款保险的所有规则，以防止危机蔓延。

We changed all the rules around deposit insurance in order to not let them splatter.

所以，这些都是非常复杂的问题。

And so, these are really complicated questions.

我不觉得自己能确定地知道答案。

I don't feel like I know the answer for sure.

但我认为道德风险非常高。

But I think the moral hazard is very high.

我认为人们的记忆很短暂。

I think people's memories are short.

我认为人们若能关注历史、回想起那个并非一切都会被救助的时代，并尝试想象一个不会立即转化为买入机会的熊市，将会非常明智。

I think people would be really wise to pay attention to history, to think back to an era where everything didn't get rescued, to try to imagine a bear market that didn't immediately just lead to a buying opportunity.

你不必回溯那么久。

You don't have to look that far back.

人们可以回顾1974年或1973年。

People could look back to seventy four five or seventy three four.

许多股票的市盈率低至个位数，但这些公司并没有破产，只是人们需要卖出股票来支付账单和履行承诺。

Many many stocks trading at single digit earnings multiples that weren't going out of business, but people needed to sell stocks to pay the bills and to meet their commitments.

那时确实出现了真正的清算。

You had a genuine liquidation.

在很长一段时间里，你几乎没怎么见过这种情况。

You really haven't had much of that for a really long time.

在1998年到2001年之间，你经历了很多波折，然后次贷危机又带来了大约十二个月非常糟糕的时期。

You had a lot of hiccups around between '98 and '1, and then the great financial crisis was a really ugly twelve months or so.

我只是不明白，为什么你不可能遇到更多麻烦，尤其是因为你经历了巨大的资本流动。

I'm just not sure why you couldn't have more trouble, especially because you had enormous capital flows.

你见证了私人信贷行业的全面扩张，以及资金从银行体系的脱媒。

You had entire buildup of a private credit industry and disintermediation from banks.

也许这一切都会顺利进行。

Maybe that'll all go smoothly.

也许不会。

Maybe it won't.

这从未经过考验。

It's not been tested.

华尔街大多数创新的本质是，它们从不接受恶劣环境的压力测试，因为那样就没什么意思了。

The nature of most Wall Street innovation is it's never stress tested for a rainy day because that wouldn't be any fun.

卖很多债券、很多股票、很多合伙制产品，然后大赚投资银行费用，这才是有趣的事。

It's fun to sell a lot of bonds, a lot of stocks, sell a lot of partnerships, and rake in the investment banking fees.

但当风雨来临时，抵押贷款支持证券可能会崩盘，而私人信贷领域出现局部崩溃也不会让我感到意外。

But when the rainy day comes, mortgage backed securities can blow up and wouldn't surprise me to see pockets of private credit blow up.

历史上，私募股权基金曾多次被救助。

Private equity funds has been rescued historically.

所以在2008到2009年期间，我一直认为私募股权应该加个星号，因为那些人得到了美联储迅速降息以及国会刺激计划的救助——当时许多私募股权债务的交易价格已跌至面值的50美分，但最终这些交易都挺过来了。

So in the eight or nine period, I always thought there should be an asterisk on private equity because those guys got rescued by the Fed rushing in cutting rates and then Congress's stimulus plans as well, which a lot of private equity debt was trading down to 50¢ on the dollar, and yet all those deals ended up working out.

如果当时的救助没有及时发生，私募股权的数据可能会截然不同。

Had that rescue not happened when it did, you might see very, very different numbers out of private equity.

现在，或许有人会认为私募股权总是能从中受益。

Now, there might be an argument that private equity is always gonna be on the beneficiary side of that.

这可能是真的。

That might be true.

但它在未来的某个时期也可能得不到救助，尤其是在我们社会存在严重不平等、普通民众质疑为何要救助富有的华尔街金融家的情况下。

But it also might not get rescued in some further period, especially with the imbalances in our society and with moms and pops wondering why they're rescuing wealthy Wall Street financiers.

因此，我对这一点仍充满不确定性。

So there's just a lot of uncertainty in my mind about that.

我只是觉得，总的来说，如果我要给人们一条建议，我会提醒他们：研究金融历史。

I just think in general, you know, if I had to give one piece of advice to people, I'd just remind them, study financial history.

吉姆·格兰特常说的是，科学是线性进步的，但金融是周期性发展的。

That Jim Grant likes to say, science progresses secularly, but finance progresses cyclically.

大多数观点其实早已存在，我们总是重复同样的错误。

And that most ideas have been around before and we repeat the same mistakes.

研究过去的时期能学到很多东西。

And there's a lot to learn from studying past periods.

我当然没经历过大萧条，但我感觉，即使只是研究那段历史，也让我为糟糕的市场做好了准备。

Obviously, didn't live in the Great Depression, but I feel like even studying that has prepared me for bad markets.

它让我有能力做出极其艰难的决定。

It's prepared me to make really tough decisions.

它让我明白情况可能有多糟，但也让我意识到，如果不是大萧条，下跌40%或50%其实已经是非常严重的下滑了。

It's informed me of how bad things could get, and yet also emboldened me to understand that if it's not the Great Depression, maybe down 40 or 50% is actually a pretty steep decline.

所以我认为，历史能帮助我们认清合理的结果范围，同时永远不会让我们忽视历史极端情况可能带来的警示。

So I think the history helps center us on what a reasonable range of outcomes might be while we never lose sight of what the extremes of history might dictate.

当你将这种历史研究与当前这个高度不确定、在某些方面前所未有的时代结合起来时，这如何影响你配置投资组合的方式，与过去相比有什么不同？

When you combine that study of history and this very uncertain and in some ways unprecedented time, how does that translate into how you're positioning the portfolio relative to how you have in the past?

在过去十二年里，我们和所有人一样都处于收益饥渴状态，直到一年前利率开始上升。

We've been yield starved like everybody else for the last twelve years until rates started to move up a year ago.

我们喜欢信贷。

We like credit.

信贷常常被误解，它容易产生低效现象。

Credit often is misunderstood, lends itself to inefficiencies.

当一只债券被降级至投资级以下时，可能会有一批天然的持有者希望抛售，这也会导致定价低效。

When a bond gets downgraded below investment grade, there can be a natural constituency of holders who want to churn out of that, and that can lead to pricing inefficiencies as well.

因此，我们喜欢关注信贷。

So, we like to look at credit.

我们喜欢困境信贷。

We like distressed credit.

我们喜欢破产债务。

We like bankrupt debt.

我们并不希望这种情况发生，但它确实提供了一个机会。

We're not rooting for it to happen, but it's a playing ground.

当这些市场存在时，我们可以从中寻找机会。

We can hunt through when those markets exist.

当几乎没有困境信贷时，Baupost就必须另寻他处。

When there's hardly any distressed credit, Baupost has to look elsewhere.

所以在2010到2012年再到2021年这段时间里，我们更多地关注了一些私募市场和私募领域的低效机会，比如房地产和私募股权，但我们的私募股权与其他人的并不相似。

So, in the twenty ten to twenty twelve to twenty twenty one period, we focused more on some private markets and private inefficiencies, real estate for one, private equity for another, but it doesn't look a lot like other people's private equity.

我们的投资更像是些因特定原因被错误定价的、复杂且独特的交易。

It looks like more one off hairy deals of some sort that are mispriced for a particular reason.

现在我们已经重新调整，回归了信贷市场。

Now we've rebalanced into credit.

我们所做的一切都是自下而上的。

Everything we do is bottom up.

这不是自上而下的资产配置，但我们找到了足够的债务，使其占到我们投资组合的约15%，并且这一比例一直在稳步增长。

It's not top down asset allocation, but we found enough debt to make that about 15% of our portfolio, and that's been pretty steadily growing.

这远不是最佳机会，但我认为，随着通胀和经济形势的发展，机会可能还会继续增加。

This is not anything like peak opportunity, but I think could continue to increase depending on what happens with inflation and what happens with the economy.

你甚至可能遇到一种情况：利率下降，通胀得到控制，但同时伴随经济衰退，这可能会引发更多财务困境。

You could even have economy where interest rates go down, inflation gets tamed, but that's accompanied by an economic downturn and that could lead to more financial distress.

许多公司承担的债务远远超过了应有的谨慎水平。

A lot of companies have taken on way more debt than probably would be that prudent.

因此，这可能是投资组合中最大的变化。

So that's probably the biggest change in the portfolio.

我们的对冲策略相当完善。

We are pretty well hedged.

我们并不试图对冲每一分风险。

We don't try to hedge every ounce of risk.

我们从来就没有这么做过。

We never have.

我们不是零贝塔基金，也不是类似的东西。

We're not a zero beta fund or anything like that.

但我们已经对一些相当极端的情景进行了有效保护。

But we're protected meaningfully against some pretty extreme scenarios.

如果我们遇到那些我们并不真正理解市场过度乐观程度的情况，也不会感到惊讶。

It wouldn't surprise us to encounter those that we don't really understand the degree of exuberance in the market.

在2022年的下跌中，确实有一些个股被过度抛售，但整体市场并未真正达到低价水平。

There were certainly individual stocks that were oversold in the downdraft of '22, but the overall market did not really reach bargain levels.

也许它曾达到过合理价格水平，但现在又反弹回了高估水平。

Maybe it reached fairly price levels and now has rebounded again to overpriced levels.

所以我并不是在预测市场走势，但我确实认为存在脆弱性。

So I'm not making a market prediction, but I do think there's vulnerability.

因此，尽管我们的信贷敞口有所增加，股权敞口却有所下降，我们正试图将更多股权组合集中在具有催化剂的标的上。

So while our credit exposure's gone up, our equity exposure's gone down somewhat, and we're trying to focus a greater percentage of the equity book on positions with catalysts.

我想退一步，谈谈Baupost的业务。

I'd love to take a step back and talk a little bit about the business of Baupost.

在早期的很长一段时间里，你们除了家人之外没有任何客户。

For a long time in the early years you didn't have any clients except for the family.

然后我想，大概十五年前或二十年前，你们开始引入一些机构投资者，但一直非常谨慎地选择投资人。

Then I guess, I don't know, fifteen, twenty years ago now you did bring some institutions but have been very careful about who is an investor.

你如何看待你们的投资目标与投资人之间的契合度的重要性？

What's your perspective on the importance of that alignment between what you're trying to do and who your investors are?

在Baupost的早期，我们通过口碑吸引家族投资者，每年可能新增一两个家族，即便如此，十年后我们的资产规模仍停留在数亿美元左右。

We took families by word-of-mouth in the early years of Baupost, so maybe we'd add a family or two a year, but even with that, our assets were still in the couple of $100,000,000 range ten years in.

我们在1998年迎来了第一批机构投资者，如今差不多快迎来这个里程碑的二十五周年了。

We took our first institutions in '98, so we're probably coming up to our twenty fifth anniversary of that.

他们一直是很好的合作伙伴，因为他们的目标与我们一致。

And they've been great partners because they're aligned.

每种类型的客户都有其稳固性。

Every type of client has its solidity.

我们喜欢个人投资者，因为我们能向他们解释我们的做法。

We love individuals because we can explain what we do.

我们的创始人本身就是个人投资者。

Our founders were individuals.

个人投资者往往更注重下行风险的保护，至少不亚于机构投资者，而机构投资者可能更着眼于长期视角，并且彼此之间存在某种程度的竞争，这是个人投资者未必具备的。

Individuals tend to think about protecting on the downside at least as much, if not more than institutions who maybe can take a longer term view, who are in competition with each other in a way that individuals aren't necessarily.

但这两种类型的客户都成为了极佳的客户。

But both types have made fantastic clients.

我们一直非常谨慎地避免与热钱型客户或短期思维型客户合作。

We've been very careful to avoid hot money type clients, short term thinking type clients.

理念一致是任何投资者最重要的成功因素之一。

The alignment is one of the most important success factors for any investor.

如果你没有长期导向的客户，你就无法进行长期投资。

If you don't have long term oriented clients, you can't make long term investments.

由于我不知道如何做出有效的短期投资，所以我无法理解那些没有长期资金的人该如何投资。

And since I have no idea how to make short term investments that work, I don't know how people without long term money can invest.

因此，与客户建立一段相互了解的‘求爱期’非常重要。

So it's very important to have a courtship period where you meet with clients.

事实上，曾经有人主动提出要给我们资金，但我告诉他们：在你读完这封年度信函、读完过去五年所有的信、真正理解我们的做法并由衷认同之前，我不会接受你的资金。

Literally, I've had people offer us money, and I've said, I won't take your money until you read this annual letter, and you read the last five years, and you understand what we do, and you really appreciate.

因为我们不希望出现这样的情况：我们认为自己度过了相当不错的一年，而你却不这么认为。

Because we don't want to be out of alignment where we think we had a pretty darn good year and you don't.

所以让我们谈谈我们真正想实现的目标、哪些是可能的，哪些是不可能的。

So let's talk about what we are trying to achieve, what's attainable, and what's not.

我认为这类做法对我们非常有利，因为它带来了更深层次的整体一致性。

And I think those kinds of things have served us in really good stead because it has led to a much greater overall alignment.

我认为捐赠基金领域尤其适合我们。

I think the endowment world especially matches well for us.

捐赠基金领域在你我导师戴夫·斯文森的智慧指引下，多年来一直努力与基金经理建立长期合作关系。

The endowment world, following your and my mentor's wisdom, Dave Swenson, over a lot of years has worked hard to form long term partnerships with managers.

这些长期合作关系建立在信任之上，而信任则通过实际行动和业绩得以具体化。

And those long term partnerships are ones of trust trust being concretized through actions and performance.

团队之间相互了解，不是仅限于高层之间的交流，而是深入渗透到整个组织的各个层面。

Teams getting to know each other, not top person to top person, but deeply enmeshed throughout organizations.

我认为从机构的角度来看，能够与基金经理共度顺境与逆境至关重要——你读一份宣传册、和对方聊一个小时，其实并不能真正了解他们在面对困境时会如何应对。

And I think from the institution's perspective, the ability to follow a manager through thick and thin, that you can read a brochure, you can talk to somebody for an hour, you don't really know how they're gonna handle adversity.

你无法真正了解一个人的品格。

You don't know character.

因此，需要很长时间才能看到这种表现出来。

And so, it takes a long time to see that play out.

从管理者的角度来看，观察客户的行为也同样有帮助。

And the same thing from the manager perspective that it helps to see how the client behaves.

他们会成为好的长期合作伙伴吗？

And will they be a good long term partner?

当你最需要资金时，资本会到位吗？

Will the capital be there when you need it the most?

因此，我认为这种一致性或许是长期投资成功最重要的关键之一。

And so, I think that alignment is perhaps one of the biggest keys to investment success over a long period of time.

你如何看待Baupost的遗产？

How have you thought about the legacy of Baupost?

假设你再继续做四十年，但终有一刻，你可能不再亲自参与了。

Let's say you do this another forty years, but at some point in time, you may not be doing this.

我非常清楚，我不能、也不应该永远做下去。

I'm very cognizant that I can't and shouldn't be doing this forever.

我认为沃伦和查理是很好的榜样，他们即使到了九十多岁依然在工作，但我觉得我不应该再管理Baupost超过十五年左右。

I think Warren and Charlie are great exemplars that you can still be doing this into your nineties, but I don't think I should be running Baupost more than another fifteen or so years.

也许我还会以某种方式参与其中。

Maybe I'll still be involved in some capacity.

在某些情况下，人们已经很好地做到了退居二线但仍发挥作用。

People have done a good job in some cases of stepping back, still playing a role.

我希望，只要我思维清晰，投资能力就是一种累积叠加的技能——你可能不熟悉世界上最新的技术变化，但你对什么是好的入场点和出场点、风险可能在哪里，有着丰富的洞察。

And I'd like to think as long as I'm sharp that the investment skill set actually is cumulative additive thing, where you may be not familiar with the latest change in technology in the world, but you have a large amount of perspective on what are good entry points and exit points and where risks might lie.

因此，我希望Baupost在我卸任后依然能取得成功。

So I'd like to think Baupost will succeed past my tenure.

我认为它会成功的原因是，我们为客户带来了极大的价值。

The reason I think it is, we've been a great thing for our clients.

客户在糟糕的年份里亏损极少，却赚取了大量收益。

The clients have made a lot of money with very little drawdown in the bad years.

Baupost的团队取得了成功，我们如今是一家拥有250多人的公司，许多人在这里度过了整个职业生涯。

And the team at Baupost has prospered and we've got a two fifty plus person firm, and a lot of people have made their entire careers here.

我们非常自豪地指出，这里不仅有工作五到十年的员工，还有许多人在这里工作了二十年、二十五年甚至三十年，我们都热烈庆祝这些周年纪念。

We're very proud to say we have people that have been here not just five or ten years, but many people twenty, twenty five, thirty year anniversaries, which we enthusiastically celebrate.

对员工和客户都有益的好事，理应持续下去。

A good thing that serves interest of employees and clients ought to be around.

我必须逐步退居二线。

I will need to pull back.

我需要继续像以往那样授权，并找到更多可以委派的任务。

I will need to continue to delegate like I've been doing and find more things to delegate.

我仍在持续这样做。

And I continue to do that.

我不断鼓励人们承担更多责任，提供晋升机会。

I continue to push people to take on more responsibility, give people promotion opportunities.

事实上，我认为如今我们不仅拥有比以往更深厚、更优秀的合伙人团队，而且在过去三、五、七、十年间加入公司的中层员工也人才济济，他们已经展现出巨大潜力，并在高水准上做出贡献。

And truly, I think right now, we not only have a deeper partner group than we've ever had and as talented as ever, but we also have a very, very deep middle of people that have joined the firm in the past three, five, seven, ten years who have tremendous potential already contributing at a high level.

因此，我对未来可能带来的变化感到非常兴奋。

So I'm really excited at what the future can bring.

但我知道，这很大程度上取决于我是否愿意放手责任，以及我能否巧妙地做到这一点，让变革真正落地。

But I know a lot rests on my willingness to give up responsibility and my ability to do it cleverly so that it takes hold.

所以，你推动这件事的动因是你对格雷厄姆和多德《证券分析》第七版的修订。

So the impetus for you doing this was your editing of the seventh edition of Graham and Dodd's Security Analysis.

我很想听听你对价值投资的一些反思，特别是你邀请来为本书撰写关于不同投资领域新章节的贡献者们？

I'd love to hear any reflections you have on value investing of some of the contributors that you brought in to the book to write new chapters on different investment disciplines?

我是第六版的联合编辑，当时我们有一个想法，那就是我们不会简单地删减第五版或更早的版本，而是提供全新的案例。

I was a co editor of the sixth edition, and we had the idea in that edition that none of us were gonna take the fifth edition or an earlier edition and strip it down and provide fresh examples.

这需要五到十年的时间。

It would have taken five or ten years.

当然，像我这样有全职工作的人不可能做到这一点。

Nobody certainly nobody with a day job like mine could do that.

因此，我们为每一个重要章节都撰写了新的内容。

So we wrote covers over each of the important sections.

所以我们写了一段历史视角。

So we wrote about a historical perspective.

吉姆·格兰特提供了这部分内容。

Jim Grant provided that.

吉姆是一位如此杰出的历史学家。

Jim's such a brilliant historian.

罗杰·洛温斯坦提供了关于自上一版以来市场变化的视角。

Roger Lowenstein provided a perspective on what the market had been up to since the prior edition.

他们两人都为这一版重新回顾了这些内容。

And so they both did a reprise of that for this edition.

吉姆的文章非常出色。

Jim's piece is fabulous.

我以为他不可能超越自己了，但他又写了关于格雷厄姆时代的世界是怎样的，以及投资者今天应该如何看待那个时代，正如我所强调的，金融历史的重要性。

I didn't think he could top himself, but he wrote again about what the world was like in Graham's day and how an investor ought to think about that today, the importance of financial history as I emphasized.

罗杰则写了过去十五年的情况。

And Roger wrote about the last fifteen years.

坦白说，这对我非常有帮助，因为亲身经历和在耳边听到逐字逐句的复盘是不一样的。

And frankly, it was very helpful for me because living through it still isn't the same as like a play by play in your ear.

但回忆起过去十五年里各种潮流和泡沫现象，以及这对价值投资者来说是多么漫长而痛苦的过程，因为资金往往流向成长股，流出价值股。

But remembering all of the fads and bubbly aspects of the last fifteen years and how long and painful that's been for value investors because money has tended to flow into growth and out of value.

其中一些情况，顺便说一句，确实是合理的，因为颠覆性变化让许多企业的长期前景受损了。

Some of which, by the way, justifiably because disruption and a lot of businesses have had their long term prospects damaged.

但即便如此，我认为在很多方面，这都是一种过度反应，因为人们变得越来越缺乏耐心，也不再愿意长期持有任何投资。

But nevertheless, I think in many ways, a big overshoot as people have become less patient and less willing to hold any investment through thick and thin.

我认为我们意识到的最重要的一点是，格雷厄姆和多德讨论的是股票。

The most important thing I think we realized is that Graham and Dodd wrote about equities.

他们也讨论了信贷。

They wrote about credit.

但他们没有涉及国际市场。

They did not write about international.

因此，我们增加了一个关于国际投资的章节，以及它与国内投资的不同之处。

And so we have a section on international investing and what's different about it.

他们没有写到私人资产类别，而这些实际上非常重要。

They didn't write about private asset classes, which are really important.

它们对鲍普斯特来说非常重要。

They're really important to Baupost.

我认为作为思考价值所在的一种方式，它们总体上也非常重要。

I think they're really important in general as a way to think about where value is.

大卫·艾布拉姆斯那一节讲述了投资公共和私人资产的经验教训，以及它们如何相辅相成，让你在两者上都做得更好——这正是沃伦·巴菲特所说的：我之所以成为更好的商人，是因为我是投资者；我之所以成为更好的投资者，是因为我是商人。

The David Abrams section on the lessons of investing in both public and private assets and how they hand in hand can make you better at each, which is what Warren Buffett says, that I'm a better businessman because I'm an investor, and I'm a better investor because I'm a businessman.

然后是塞思·亚历山大，他是戴夫·斯文森的另一位杰出门生，也是你我都认识并欣赏的人，他撰写了关于捐赠基金管理和运作的内容。

And then Seth Alexander, who's another wonderful protege of Dave Swenson and somebody you and I both know and appreciate, wrote about endowment management.

我之所以希望包含这一部分，是因为我想获得的不仅是选股或选债者的视角，而是真正从事向基金经理拨款的人的视角。

And I wanted that because I wanted the perspective not just of somebody who's picking stocks or bonds, but somebody who's actually in the business of giving out money to money managers.

一个思考如何在很长一段时间内管理大量资产，并以独特方式实现这一目标的人，这种方式与该领域其他人的做法截然不同。

Somebody who's thinking about stewarding a large pile of assets over a very long term period and doing it in a unique way that is differentiated from what everybody else in the field is doing.

我知道，当前捐赠基金管理模式中，我找到了最典型的例子。

And I know I got the best example of that out of current endowment management.

塞思真是个了不起的思想家，也是个很棒的人。

What a great thinker Seth is and a wonderful guy.

他欣然接受了这个机会，而我原本不确定能不能请到他。

And he jumped on the chance to do this, which I wasn't sure I'd be able to get him.

但说实话，这些贡献者群体非常广泛。

But truly, it's a broad group of contributors.

我们有托德·康布斯，他是沃伦·巴菲特的得力助手之一。

I mean, we have Todd Combs, who is one of the right hand men of Warren Buffett.

他在公众场合很少发言，但他写了一段非常精彩的内容，讲述自下而上的基本面分析对他及其投资方法的重要性。

He doesn't talk much in public, but he has a great section about bottom up fundamental analysis and how important that is to him and his approach.

我们还有一位不太常露面的人，多米尼克·米埃尔，她写了一本关于自己投资的精彩著作，名为《困境中的少女》。

We have somebody who's not been heard from that much, Dominique Miel, but she wrote a beautiful book about her investing called Damsel in Distressed.

她在 Canyon Partners 工作时专注于困境债务。

She was focused on distressed debt when she was at Canyon Partners.

她风趣幽默，文笔极佳。

She's funny and a wonderful writer.