巴菲特1979年度信（十八）。2025-03-14

英文早读第234篇，选自巴菲特年度信，友才翻译。

The reasoning of managements that seek large trading activity in their shares puzzles us. In effect, such managements are saying that they want a good many of the existing clientele continually to desert them in favor of new ones - because you can't add lots of new owners (with new expectations) without losing lots of former owners.
那些追求自家股票出现大量交易活动的管理层的逻辑让我们感到困惑。实际上，这类管理层的意思是，他们希望相当多的现有股东不断地抛弃他们，转投新的公司。因为如果不失去很多老股东，你就无法吸引大量新股东（他们带着新的期望）加入。

We much prefer owners who like our service and menu and who return year after year. It would be hard to find a better group to sit in Berkshire Hathaway shareholder "seats" than those already occupying them. So we hope to continue to have a very low turnover among our owners, reflecting a consistuency that understands our operation, approves of our policies, and shares our expectations. And we hope to deliver on those expectations.
我们非常青睐那些喜欢我们的服务和经营理念，并且年复一年一直支持我们的股东。很难再找到比目前已经成为伯克希尔哈撒韦公司股东的这群人更优秀的群体来坐在公司股东的“席位”上了。所以，我们希望继续保持股东之间极低的换手率，这反映出我们拥有这样一群理解我们的运营、认可我们的政策并且与我们抱有相同期望的股东群体。而且我们希望能够实现他们的这些期望。

Prospects
展望

Last year we said that we expected operating earnings in dollars to improve but return on equity to decrease. This turned out to be correct. Our forecast for 1980 is the same. If we are wrong, it will be on the downside. In other words, we are virtually certain that our operating earnings expressed as a percentage of the new equity base of approximately 236 million, valuing securities at cost, will decline from the 18.6% attained in 1979. There is also a fair chance that operating earnings in agregate dollars will fall short of 1979; the outcome depends partly upon the date of disposition of the bank, partly upon the degree of slippage in insurance underwriting profitability, and partly upon the severity of earnings problems in the savings and loan industry.
去年我们曾表示，预计以美元计算的营业利润将会增加，但股权回报率将会下降。事实证明，这一预测是正确的。我们对1980年的预测依然如此。如果我们错了，那么情况会朝着更差的方向发展。换句话说，我们几乎可以肯定，以大约2.36亿美元（按成本对证券进行估值后的新股权基数）为基础计算的营业利润百分比，会从1979年达到的18.6%下降。以总美元数计算的营业利润也很有可能低于1979年的水平。最终的结果部分取决于银行处置的时间，部分取决于保险承保盈利能力下滑的程度，部分还取决于储蓄贷款行业盈利问题的严重程度。

121.turnover：翻转；周转
122.disposition：布置；处置
123.slippage：延误；下降；贬值；逾期
124.severity：严重；严厉