Rule 1: Never lose money.
By following this rule, he has been able to minimize his losses and maximize his returns over time. He emphasizes this so much that he often says, “Rule number 2 is never forget rule number 1.”
The Buffett Rule is the basic principle that no household making over $1 million annually should pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than middle-class families pay. Warren Buffett has famously stated that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary, but as this report documents this situation is not uncommon.
The principle of never losing money underscores the primary importance of risk management in Buffett's strategy. It speaks to the idea that successful investing is not just about making profitable investments, but also about avoiding losses wherever possible.
Buffett's dividend test
“The test about whether to pay dividends is whether you can continue to create more than $1 of value for every dollar you retain,” Buffett said. In other words, a company should probably pay a dividend when they do not have any opportunity to reinvest retained earnings profitably.
His conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, currently holds $325 billion in cash and equivalents, according to the firm's quarterly financial statements. Over $288 billion of that pile is in U.S. Treasury Bills, the textbook example of investing at the so-called “risk-free” rate.
The Buffett Indicator forecasted an average of 83% of returns across all nations and periods, though the predictive value ranged from a low of 42% to as high as 93% depending on the specific nation. Accuracy was lower in nations with smaller stock markets.
Many novice investors lose money chasing big returns. And that's why Buffett's first rule of investing is “don't lose money”. The thing is, if an investors makes a poor investment decision and the value of that asset — stock — goes down 50%, the investment has to go 100% up to get back to where it started.
That's why the 8% sell rule helps keep losses small and preserve capital. The rule is applied when a stock falls 8% below your purchase price, no matter what. But if the action immediately after the breakout is clearly negative, it's even better to sell early.
“It is a simple fact that billionaires in America can live very extraordinarily well completely tax-free off their wealth,” law professor Edward J. McCaffery writes. They can do so by borrowing large sums against their unrealized capital gains, without generating taxable income.
The Pareto principle or the 80/20 Rule - the fact that 20% of efforts cause 80% of the results across many areas of our life - is a critical mental model that has driven Warren Buffett's success.
The 90/10 rule in investing is a comment made by Warren Buffett regarding asset allocation. The rule stipulates investing 90% of one's investment capital toward low-cost stock-based index funds and the remainder 10% to short-term government bonds.
Rule No.
1 is never lose money.
Top Warren Buffett Stocks
Coca-Cola (KO), 400 million. Kraft Heinz (KHC), 325.6 million. Apple (AAPL), 300 million. Occidental Petroleum (OXY), 264.3 million.
2.1 First Golden Rule: 'Buy what's worth owning forever'
This rule tells you that when you are selecting which stock to buy, you should think as if you will co-own the company forever.
According to IBD founder William O'Neil's rule in "How to Make Money in Stocks," you should sell a stock when you are down 7% or 8% from your purchase price, no exceptions. Having a rule in place ahead of time can help prevent an emotional decision to hang on too long.
Buffett's Two Lists is a productivity, prioritisation and focusing approach where you write down your top 25 goals; circle your 5 highest priorities; then focus on those 5 while 'avoiding at all costs' doing anything on the remaining 20.
“Price is what you pay; value is what you get.” Buffett is probably the most famous practitioner of value investing, which involves buying stocks at a discount to their intrinsic value.
So, while the CAPE ratio is the world's most reliable stock market forecaster, it pays to think long-term, maintain a consistent allocation, and ignore the useless rambling of forecasters and our guts.
Debt to Equity Ratio
This key ratio is comparing the debt to the equity in the company. Warren Buffett prefers a company with a debt to equity ratio that is below . 5. In other words, for every $10 in equity the company should only have $5 in debt.