[adventured]

Continuously? Ok, perhaps that would be almost impossible, to pull off 20% for 20 years without missing a year.

However, Buffett and Soros managed to average above 20% annual returns over 30 plus years.

For example in the 1960s Berkshire returned 28.3% per year averaged. In the 1970s it returned 22.2% per year averaged. In the 1980s it averaged 39.1% (!) per year. In the 1990s it averaged 20.5% per year.

Nobody would hold their breath on another investor matching Buffett or Soros. It is in fact possible though. The big problem for the Norway fund is obviously the scale. Berkshire at $360b in market cap, will struggle perpetually going forward with keeping up with the S&P 500 over time (as is frequently noted by Buffett).

[webbore]

The thing about both Buffett and Soros is that they get deals that the general investor, or even really good and kinda famous investor, would never get. For example, Buffet did 300 million in unsecured loans (but with front-of-line payback) with Harley Davidson in 2009 at 15 percent, essentially to cover customer financing (i.e. cashflow) not because the company was in any real trouble. You and I would be lucky to find that sort of return from the riskiest loan, let alone a profitable manufacturing company. AND, Buffet could have made more than a Billion extra if he'd bought stock instead of debt, so even when he's wrong he's still getting a sweetheart deal.

[morgante]

It's important to note that this discussion is about a massive sovereign wealth fund, not the average investor.

I absolutely agree that the average person should stick to passive index funds. But if you have nearly a trillion dollars to invest, you'd be a fool to stick to passive strategies.