Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, the money managers Warren Buffett has chosen to likely succeed him when he leaves as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, didn't enjoy such a hot performance last year.
Combs' stock portfolio slipped 0.3 percent before dividends, and Combs' climbed 6.7 percent, according to calculations by
Fortune magazine. Both fell short of the 11.4 percent gain registered by the S&P 500 Index.
Combs suffered most from the 51 percent plunge of Chicago Bridge & Iron, his biggest position entering 2014, Fortune reports. Another miss for Combs was media company Viacom, down nearly 15 percent. However, some of his other picks did well, like defense contractor General Dynamics and credit card company Visa, up 44 percent and 17 percent, respectively.
Weschler's biggest miss was General Motors, which slumped 15 percent.
To be sure, last year was the first in which the performance of both Combs and Weschler trailed the S&P 500 since they joined Berkshire, which was 2010 for Combs and 2011 for Weschler. Buffett lauded their performance in his April annual letter to Berkshire shareholders.
Berkshire investors clearly weren't disturbed by the performance, as its shares jumped 27 percent in 2014.
Meanwhile, Buffett offered colorful imagery to emphasize the importance of buying low and selling high in an interview last month with Quicken Loans executives.
"This imaginary person out there — Mr. Market — he's kind of a drunken psycho," Buffett said, according to
Benzinga news service.
"Some days he gets very enthused, some days he gets very depressed. And when he get really enthused, you sell to him, and if he gets depressed you buy from him. There's no moral taint attached to that."
And how should we small fry approach investing?
"Pay no attention to headlines in the paper or people on television or anything, but put aside a little money each month," Buffett said.
"I'd put it in a very low-cost index fund. And if you do that regularly throughout your working career, you're bound to have a substantial amount of capital."
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