Geoff Considine

So You Want To Invest Like Buffett? Here's An Easy Trick

Nice article. I am always interested in trying to copy the strategies of good managers. When I analyzed Berkshire Hathway's top holdings using Monte Carlo, they also came out looking really good on a forward-looking basis:

financial.seekingalpha...

I believe that this is very important for anyone thinking about trying to benchmark Berkshire Hathway's performance.

One thing to bear in mind. Buffett is a value investor and believes strongly in the value of strong consumer brands. If you are going to benchmark a portfolio like this, you should use an index that is refelective of his style. The years included in your study have been very good ones for a value-oriented style, so value indices are much better benchmarks than the S&P500. If you wanted to get a bit more sophisticated, you could create a composite benchmark that also has a higher weight to consumer products and other indices that capture the persistent style of BRK. Value indices have out-performed the broader S&P500 quite dramatically, so this would temper the results that you show that seem to suggest out-performance somewhat.