Buffett said “That was the only
time Donald Trump went to the American people and said, ‘I’m a winner, invest
in my company.’ … Over the next 10 years, the company loses money every year,
every single year. He takes $44 million in compensation. If a monkey had thrown
a dart at the stock page it would have made 150%. People who believe in [Trump]
came away losing well over 90 cents on the dollar. They got back less than a
dime.”
Considering that Trump’s public company was formed in 1995, when the
stock market was still on a tear, this seems to be a fair assessment. Even with
the “dot com crash,” a random selection of stocks would have been a better
investment.
Buffett is perhaps too charitable. From 1995 to year’s end 2004, the
S&P 500 did gain a 157% return. But if our brave monkey turned on dividend
reinvestments and sported a return close to the S&P 500, then there would
have been a 203% return
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