I can try. Firstly, worth mentioning the quote is a bit facetious, witty, jocose...Jolly old Warren Buffett can often be a bit playful and sort of sarcastic when talking about investing in public but it seems few people pick up on it.
Also maybe worth mentioning the quote is based on a well known "2 Rules" phrase format. For example:
“There are 2 rules of life. Rule number 1 is ‘Never quit.’ And rule number 2 is ‘Don’t forget rule number 1.’” - Duke Ellington
and
"There are 2 rules for success. Rule 1: Never tell everything you know. Rule 2:.. ;)"
OK with that said, I wouldn't overthink the quote. Obviously you can't really guarantee you will "never lose money" and so it's not really a rule and even Buffett loses money sometimes.
If I had to guess what he means: I would say use the quote as fun/serious reminder to think about risk ahead of reward and remember concepts like margin of safety that help protect you from loses even if a stock doesn't go up like you expect and hope.
Besides the obvious of "Don't lose money because that's bad", he's referring to how losses can quickly wipe returns.
If you're shooting for 10% per year and you lose 5%, you need to then get a gain of more than 5% to get even again, pushing you to take worse risks.
Hence, by simply focusing on a strategy of "Not losing money" you can come out ahead.
This was also the original Hedge strategy where you short some stuff and buy some stuff so you can get some of the gains without participating in all the losses. For instance, if you can capture 70% of market ups while only taking 70% of the downs, you'll beat the market.
waqf|9 years ago
qwrusz|9 years ago
Also maybe worth mentioning the quote is based on a well known "2 Rules" phrase format. For example:
“There are 2 rules of life. Rule number 1 is ‘Never quit.’ And rule number 2 is ‘Don’t forget rule number 1.’” - Duke Ellington
and
"There are 2 rules for success. Rule 1: Never tell everything you know. Rule 2:.. ;)"
OK with that said, I wouldn't overthink the quote. Obviously you can't really guarantee you will "never lose money" and so it's not really a rule and even Buffett loses money sometimes.
If I had to guess what he means: I would say use the quote as fun/serious reminder to think about risk ahead of reward and remember concepts like margin of safety that help protect you from loses even if a stock doesn't go up like you expect and hope.
dave_sullivan|9 years ago
If you're shooting for 10% per year and you lose 5%, you need to then get a gain of more than 5% to get even again, pushing you to take worse risks.
Hence, by simply focusing on a strategy of "Not losing money" you can come out ahead.
This was also the original Hedge strategy where you short some stuff and buy some stuff so you can get some of the gains without participating in all the losses. For instance, if you can capture 70% of market ups while only taking 70% of the downs, you'll beat the market.