[jvm]

Not that I disagree with you (although I think you may have misinterpreted EMH) but your argument is structurally identical to saying, "What if the odds of winning the lottery aren't so long after all? Lottery winners might beg to differ!"

[bcg1]

You could be right, but I don't consider investing to be the same as the lottery. Buffett and Rogers consistently beat the market, year after year, decade after decade.

The Quantum Fund (started by Jim Rogers and George Soros) had a 3365% return in the 70's, while the S&P 500 returned 47% (http://www.streetstories.com/James_Rogers.htm). Rogers also bet against Black Monday in 1987, wrote about the housing bubble and 2008 financial crisis as early as 2004 in his book "Hot Commodities", and called the collapse of the gold price in 2012 as well as the recent epic dollar rally.

"Why do you think the same five guys make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker EVERY YEAR? What, are they the luckiest guys in Las Vegas?" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128442/quotes?item=qt0379517)

You could be right and my understanding of EMH might be off base... but if all information was "priced in" I can't understand how such individuals could consistently be "right" when the broader market is "wrong".

[throwawaymsft]

Yes, it's strange that people think stock market investing is purely a game of chance. The reasoning is typically "A winning strategy would be universally communicated, adopted, executed, and priced out." Which is a strange way to think.

Go is a popular strategy game. Strategies that work should be encoded into computer algorithms and "priced out". Yet computers can't beat the best human Go players. Are the best human Go players simply lucky: they have no true strategy, and it's chance when they win?

(Hint: not every strategy is easily encoded into a deterministic algorithm. Expert human insight and judgment, that finicky beast, is not yet replicable by machines.)

[wstrange]

Buffet is far more than an investor.

He takes a large enough position to have considerable influence over how his companies are run. That kind of clout isn't available to most of us.

[eru]

Not only is he influencing management, he's also doing a good job at it.

[bcg1]

True, that's a good point.

[jvm]

"Buffett and Rogers consistently beat the market, year after year, decade after decade."

Berkshire Hathaway has not beaten the market since before 2008[1], marking 8 solid years of alpha=0.

[1] http://imgur.com/gallery/Gnnp4Ym/new

[airza]

This graph looks like they destroyed the market in 2014, though this is not my area of expertise.

[hchenji]

Is BRK.A overpriced just like BRK.B?