Why did Warren Buffett invest $6B+ in centuries-old Japanese trading houses?(thehustle.co)
thehustle.co
Why did Warren Buffett invest $6B+ in centuries-old Japanese trading houses?
https://thehustle.co/09292020-Japanese-trading-houses/
62 comments
> This would be a big hedge against dollar inflation in that case, which makes sense given how much the US Gov has spent already this year.
The irony, though, is that Japan is the leader in printing money. They have been doing it for many years and their interest rate has been 0 or negative for two decades. Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/interest-rate
The irony, though, is that Japan is the leader in printing money. They have been doing it for many years and their interest rate has been 0 or negative for two decades. Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/interest-rate
So considering that Japan both has been printing money and have had very low inflation for a long time, there is apparently at least some circumstances where printing money doesn't lead to inflation.
Krugman has been shouting about this for at least more than a decade.
Krugman has been shouting about this for at least more than a decade.
Krugman on Japan: http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/jpage.html
Unfortunately there is no publication date but the meta tags in the sources and the dates of linked documents hint to ~1999.
Also, for people who don't have the context, check out the "Lost Decade": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan).
> The Lost Decade or the Lost 10 Years (失われた十年, Ushinawareta Jūnen) was a period of economic stagnation in Japan from about 1991 to 2001, caused by the Japanese asset price bubble's collapse in late 1991. From 1991 to 2003, the Japanese economy, as measured by GDP, grew only 1.14% annually, well below that of other industrialized nations.
Unfortunately there is no publication date but the meta tags in the sources and the dates of linked documents hint to ~1999.
Also, for people who don't have the context, check out the "Lost Decade": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan).
> The Lost Decade or the Lost 10 Years (失われた十年, Ushinawareta Jūnen) was a period of economic stagnation in Japan from about 1991 to 2001, caused by the Japanese asset price bubble's collapse in late 1991. From 1991 to 2003, the Japanese economy, as measured by GDP, grew only 1.14% annually, well below that of other industrialized nations.
Does this support the parents thesis or are you adding this to counter?
it’s because their economy is heavily deflationary with lack of growth. so the printing just works to cancel the deflation
Krugman is very keynesian when it comes to economics. I also feel he is not the genius the media makes him to be.
Think of Modern Money Theory as this crazy theory that challenges our intuition but actually makes sense if you really understand it.
> there is apparently at least some circumstances where printing money doesn't lead to inflation
If everyone in the USA (and the world) decided tomorrow not to hold the USD any more, you'll have hyper-inflation in the matter of a few hours. Printing money is just one variable to inflation; and not really a very important one if you have lots of money flowing already in the economy.
Think of Modern Money Theory as this crazy theory that challenges our intuition but actually makes sense if you really understand it.
> there is apparently at least some circumstances where printing money doesn't lead to inflation
If everyone in the USA (and the world) decided tomorrow not to hold the USD any more, you'll have hyper-inflation in the matter of a few hours. Printing money is just one variable to inflation; and not really a very important one if you have lots of money flowing already in the economy.
> Think of Modern Money Theory as this crazy theory that challenges our intuition but actually makes sense if you really understand it.
How does one get to the point of understanding it?
How does one get to the point of understanding it?
Two things changed my view about MMT and money: 1- The way we "print" money is by issuing credit. That seems safe since it is credit and not actual "money printing" but as soon as that credit expire, you need to re-issue it again. So it's the same thing as printing in the longer run. If you want to reduce the money supply, you stop issuing credits. In MMT, you add taxes and this has the same effect. 2- By having an interest rate and issuing credit, money becomes a commodity. This is wrong as people should not ask banks so that they can make transactions. Money should be available to anyone who wants to make a transaction. Notice that I use the word available and not free. MMT is not about giving people money for free, but about making it available for anyone.
There is a whole class of people that built fortunes just by sitting on money. Working people had to pay these other people and for what?
There is a whole class of people that built fortunes just by sitting on money. Working people had to pay these other people and for what?
"Working people had to pay these other people and for what?"
The productive capacity this money enabled. Except instead of the gov doing it 1000 miles away, they had skin in the game, took risks and monitored the situation to ensure success.
The productive capacity this money enabled. Except instead of the gov doing it 1000 miles away, they had skin in the game, took risks and monitored the situation to ensure success.
I'm specifically talking about government bonds, since these have 0 risks. If risk is correlated to yield, these should have no more than 0% interest rate.
> I also feel he is not the genius the media makes him to be.
In his defense, he did win a Nobel prize in Economics.
In his defense, he did win a Nobel prize in Economics.
It's actually the banks which generate most of the inflation.
When someone deposits money into their bank account, the bank isn't required to keep the full amount in a safe. Banks are actually allowed to lend part of the money without even asking anyone. When they do this, they create money out of nowhere and inflate the economy.
If someone deposits $1000, they can lend some percentage of that value to other people. Something like $500. That's newly created money that isn't backed up by anything and exists only as numbers in a database. It will only become real money when the debt is paid... However, modern economies seem to built around having as much debt as possible.
Printed currency is nothing compared to this.
When someone deposits money into their bank account, the bank isn't required to keep the full amount in a safe. Banks are actually allowed to lend part of the money without even asking anyone. When they do this, they create money out of nowhere and inflate the economy.
If someone deposits $1000, they can lend some percentage of that value to other people. Something like $500. That's newly created money that isn't backed up by anything and exists only as numbers in a database. It will only become real money when the debt is paid... However, modern economies seem to built around having as much debt as possible.
Printed currency is nothing compared to this.
> Banks are actually allowed to lend part of the money without even asking anyone.
not just part of the money. most of the money (fractional reserve banking.) and recently, the fraction to be held in reserve was lowered to ~0 iirc
not just part of the money. most of the money (fractional reserve banking.) and recently, the fraction to be held in reserve was lowered to ~0 iirc
> not just part of the money. most of the money (fractional reserve banking.)
Yes, I agree completely. I didn't remember the exact exact figure so I said "part of the money" in order to be less wrong...
> recently, the fraction to be held in reserve was lowered to ~0 iirc
Wow that is ridiculous... Is that in the USA? What country did this?
Yes, I agree completely. I didn't remember the exact exact figure so I said "part of the money" in order to be less wrong...
> recently, the fraction to be held in reserve was lowered to ~0 iirc
Wow that is ridiculous... Is that in the USA? What country did this?
It was recently set to 0 in the US yes, but many other countries have the same 0% (for example, Canada, the UK, Australia, Sweden and others have all had a 0% requirement for many years).
Either fractional reserve banking itself is ridiculous, or a 0% net balance is the right number.
If withdrawals get out ahead of collections on debts held by the bank, FISA can (will) step in and make the withdrawing parties whole. The bank now owes FISA and can repay at leisure. This works even if the bank experiences a run, FISA has a bottomless wallet.
If credit issued exceeds 100% of "held" assets, that's clearly fraudulent, it will never work out. But compelling banks to hold some arbitrary amount of the leverage is pointless.
The bank is of course in trouble if defaults exceed the interest on loans, but that was already the case. A 0% balance surfaces this problem faster, and again, FISA pays out, acquires the outstanding debts in lieu of full repayment, and the bank goes bankrupt. No big deal.
If withdrawals get out ahead of collections on debts held by the bank, FISA can (will) step in and make the withdrawing parties whole. The bank now owes FISA and can repay at leisure. This works even if the bank experiences a run, FISA has a bottomless wallet.
If credit issued exceeds 100% of "held" assets, that's clearly fraudulent, it will never work out. But compelling banks to hold some arbitrary amount of the leverage is pointless.
The bank is of course in trouble if defaults exceed the interest on loans, but that was already the case. A 0% balance surfaces this problem faster, and again, FISA pays out, acquires the outstanding debts in lieu of full repayment, and the bank goes bankrupt. No big deal.
Oh, it's way worse than that. Under Federal bank regulations, a US bank must have Tier 1 Capital ratio of at least 4%.
A leverage ratio of 4% would mean that for every $1 of capital that a bank holds in reserve, the bank can lend $25. (1/25 = 4%)
A leverage ratio of 4% would mean that for every $1 of capital that a bank holds in reserve, the bank can lend $25. (1/25 = 4%)
> there is apparently at least some circumstances where printing money doesn't lead to inflation.
Not printing enough money. Sometimes the problem is not that you’re not doing the right thing, it’s that you’re not doing enough of it. Look at housing supply and prices in the US and in Tokyo. At one end you have places with a system designed to come as close as possible to a ban on new housing like San Francisco, with their never ending escalation of house prices and rents. At the other end you have places like Houston with quite moderate rises. In the middle you have New York which isn’t as bad as San Francisco or Seattle which has actually seen prices fall over the last two years they’ve built so much. Way over beyond that you’ve got Tokyo growing 50% in population in two decades with flat house prices and rents.
From 2016
> As FT’s Tokyo bureau chief Robin Harding wrote in the article, the city had 142,417 housing starts in 2014, which was “more than the 83,657 housing permits issued in the state of California (population 38.7m), or the 137,010 houses started in the entire country of England (population 54.3m).” Compare this, also, with the roughly 20,000 new residential units approved annually in New York City, the 23,500 units started in Los Angeles County, and the measly 5,000 homes constructed in 2015 throughout the entire Bay Area.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2016/08/12/tokyos-af...
Not printing enough money. Sometimes the problem is not that you’re not doing the right thing, it’s that you’re not doing enough of it. Look at housing supply and prices in the US and in Tokyo. At one end you have places with a system designed to come as close as possible to a ban on new housing like San Francisco, with their never ending escalation of house prices and rents. At the other end you have places like Houston with quite moderate rises. In the middle you have New York which isn’t as bad as San Francisco or Seattle which has actually seen prices fall over the last two years they’ve built so much. Way over beyond that you’ve got Tokyo growing 50% in population in two decades with flat house prices and rents.
From 2016
> As FT’s Tokyo bureau chief Robin Harding wrote in the article, the city had 142,417 housing starts in 2014, which was “more than the 83,657 housing permits issued in the state of California (population 38.7m), or the 137,010 houses started in the entire country of England (population 54.3m).” Compare this, also, with the roughly 20,000 new residential units approved annually in New York City, the 23,500 units started in Los Angeles County, and the measly 5,000 homes constructed in 2015 throughout the entire Bay Area.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2016/08/12/tokyos-af...
I wonder if the inflation from money printing can be used to level out deflation from 90's bad debt/bankruptcy/shrinking population?
The only issue will be when Japan has an ungodly amount of old people with no money to take care of them because the gov spent it all. And no population to tax because they stopped having children.
And no goods or services because not enough people are providing them.
The only issue will be when Japan has an ungodly amount of old people with no money to take care of them because the gov spent it all. And no population to tax because they stopped having children.
And no goods or services because not enough people are providing them.
Yes. This is called secular stagnation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_stagnation
http://larrysummers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/NABE-spee...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_stagnation
http://larrysummers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/NABE-spee...
Is it perhaps due to wealth aggregation? If the ultra-wealthy are hoarding money and not spending it with the same per capita velocity as the average person, then there’s less money “flowing” even though there’s more money around.
In the US I definitely think that is the case. The rich have a lot of money they don’t know what to do with because there’s no use to invest in new production when the rest of the population have no money to spend. So the interests stays low and the stock market skyrocket while everyone outside the top percentage just gets poorer.
The calls come from businesses that want to be taken over in full, not public firms where berkshire takes a 10% stake.
The equity investment made with proceeds from yen denominated bonds, so it doesn't imply a bet on a weaker dollar (the debt would be more expensive to repay if the yen were to strengthen)
The equity investment made with proceeds from yen denominated bonds, so it doesn't imply a bet on a weaker dollar (the debt would be more expensive to repay if the yen were to strengthen)
This isn't strictly true.
Berkshire has made large investments in companies (outside their insurance float capital) where they weren't buying 100% ownership. See their investments in Goldman Sachs, BofA, Pilot Flying J, Nebraska Furniture Mart, and others.
Buffett and Berkshire are attractive as an investor because they send a strong confidence signal and because they are known to be extremely hands off.
Berkshire has made large investments in companies (outside their insurance float capital) where they weren't buying 100% ownership. See their investments in Goldman Sachs, BofA, Pilot Flying J, Nebraska Furniture Mart, and others.
Buffett and Berkshire are attractive as an investor because they send a strong confidence signal and because they are known to be extremely hands off.
Funds are always looking to diversify in order to increase their returns while mitigating their risk. The problem is that in today's interconnected economy where funds are extremely diversified, shocks cascade and unrelated sectors wind up taking a hit.
Japan's stock market is unique, because their central banks own a large portion of their ETFs, which insulates them from these global shocks:
https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/world/2019-09-04-storied-i...
Japan's stock market is unique, because their central banks own a large portion of their ETFs, which insulates them from these global shocks:
https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/world/2019-09-04-storied-i...
Do you mean that financial shocks propagate because a leveraged investor may have to sell assets in market A to fund margin calls in the primary impacted market B, or that economic shocks propagate because supply chains are deep and brittle?
Financial shocks driven by passive index funds that hold pre-defined percentages of different asset types.
Let's say you have a diversified passive fund that holds 25% each of asset types A, B, C and D. If asset type A crashes and it's now 10% then B, C, and D will now be 30%. The fund will rebalance and sell B/C/D so they're back to 25% and the values of those asset types will decline. The values of A/B/C/D all correlate with one another even if they are fundamentally unrelated.
Let's say you have a diversified passive fund that holds 25% each of asset types A, B, C and D. If asset type A crashes and it's now 10% then B, C, and D will now be 30%. The fund will rebalance and sell B/C/D so they're back to 25% and the values of those asset types will decline. The values of A/B/C/D all correlate with one another even if they are fundamentally unrelated.
Most passive funds are cap weighted so this is not an issue.
Both happened in 2008
In my view, as an investor in Japan, these firms are the best entry points to getting access to business relationships (and key projects) across Asia. One can imagine these to be huge aggregators of business relationships and as central points (besides the banks which are getting away from cross-shareholder relationships) into the major _keiretsus_. This is the entry fee for being really in the know in corporate Japan.
And, as another commenter mentioned, getting a sweet arbitrage on the low borrowing rate and earning a nice dividend yield doesn't hurt.
And, as another commenter mentioned, getting a sweet arbitrage on the low borrowing rate and earning a nice dividend yield doesn't hurt.
> low borrowing rate
Japan used to have unbelievable low rates. Now its just normal.
Sometimes I look at Japan (and Europe) and see cheap stocks everywhere but the next day look again just to see value traps.
I'm not sure Buffet will live long enough to find out which one they are.
Japan used to have unbelievable low rates. Now its just normal.
Sometimes I look at Japan (and Europe) and see cheap stocks everywhere but the next day look again just to see value traps.
I'm not sure Buffet will live long enough to find out which one they are.
He's 90 years old. It's kind of amazing, he's investing like he'll live for another century.
I don't think he ever did it with the intention of being around to spend the money. He lives off his modest salary, drives an old vehicle, and still is in the same normal house as decades ago.
The money is more like points in a game to him I think, he just loves the game.
The money is more like points in a game to him I think, he just loves the game.
That is a well constructed image. In reality the man has multi million dollar vacation houses and is quite ruthless in business.
> In reality the man has multi million dollar vacation houses
Source?
He had a vacation home that he bought in 1971 for $150k, but sold it a few years ago. So far haven't seen anything that would suggest he's not as frugal as advertised.
Source?
He had a vacation home that he bought in 1971 for $150k, but sold it a few years ago. So far haven't seen anything that would suggest he's not as frugal as advertised.
He wouldn't own anything to his name. He would put his assets in an offshore trust.
Yeah, but if I had the kind of money he had, I would build a money bin on a hill and put 3 cubic acres of cash in it. Offshore accounts are just boring in comparison.
That's definitely fun. But not fiscally sound. And you don't become a billionaire by having fun, unfortunately.
I'd much rather to see someone putting crazy ideas into action having money...
I'd much rather to see someone putting crazy ideas into action having money...
Nah, you get to be a billionaire by being smarter than the smarties, tougher than the toughies, and making it on Square.
Liquidity service provider
Some people suffer a purpose crisis when they retire. Some people just enjoy what they do. Some people enjoy being at the top of an organizational hierarchy. Whatever the reason is, it's legitimate for a person to not retire if they choose not to do so.
I am curious if he will really honor The Giving Pledge upon death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge
I am curious if he will really honor The Giving Pledge upon death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge
I guess he's one of those people that have spent so much time working on their business that he won't really retire until he's passed away.
Also, I suppose he has a whole team of people helping him make those kind of decisions, so perhaps this just reflects the company's strategy instead of a personal one? (as much as they can be treated separately, which they may not)
Also, I suppose he has a whole team of people helping him make those kind of decisions, so perhaps this just reflects the company's strategy instead of a personal one? (as much as they can be treated separately, which they may not)
Buffett likes to tell the story of Rose Blumkin, who founded Nebraska Furniture Mart, and worked until she was 103. Once she retired, she was dead within a year. This is meant to serve as a warning to other Berkshire managers thinking of retiring.
Two other possible reasons:-
1. Buffett might be expecting US inflation to devalue the dollar.
2. He raised debt in Japan at 0% interest and is getting an approx 3% return by investing in these relatively stable companies.
They made a recent smaller bet on Barrick Gold ($588m holding), which is blatantly a bet on the price of gold remaining elevated / going higher over time due to profligate US spending and the consequences for the USD. Based on the size of the bet, this one (trading houses) is Buffett led and the Barrick investment is one of Berkshire's other two prominent investors (Ted Weschler, Todd Combs).
Given the sheer size of Berkshire’s holdings, that sounds less like a bet and more like a hedge.
It is pretty clearly #2 and I don't know why people are acting confused. He got a huge loan at roughly 0% and the main risk to mitigate is a currency risk. Investing in stable Japanese companies heavily reduces that risk and growth/dividends is basically free money.
Or both, which I suspected.
Given his record with airline companies there's a chance he's wrong, hey hey!
Berkshire has sold very low interest bonds denominated in Japanese yen to fund this investment. These companies many not generate huge ROI but they are collectively stable. When you buy them with near zero interest long term leverage, it seems like a good deal.
Berkshire also sold 1B EUR zero interest bonds. Except similar deals in the EU.
Berkshire also sold 1B EUR zero interest bonds. Except similar deals in the EU.
Great point. With interest rates so low for the foreseeable future, any consistent incremental growth can be leveraged quite hard. To the point of arbitrage. The market will invest in 'Buffet Safety' at x%, he can find a safe enough place to park the money for y% then that's it.
Whenever Buffet invests in something, part of the reason is always that he has identified that it has monopolistic or cartel like characteristics- or it can buy out competitors and gain some of those characteristics through his investment.
Would love to see this article rewritten to analyze the dominance of these firms in their market.
Would love to see this article rewritten to analyze the dominance of these firms in their market.
A second reason might simply be that he got an amazing deal. An interesting takeaway I got from reading University of Berkshire Hathaway is that people call him to buy their companies, usually not the other way around. It's possible that he got a call from struggling companies and decided it was a good deal.