Warren Buffett Issued a Market Warning That History Says Investors Should Take Seriously
Investors can become their own worst enemies if their expectations aren't grounded in reality.
Overview
Warren Buffett has imparted a lot of market wisdom over his decades of investing. Some of it's witty. Some seems fairly obvious once you think about it.
A few of his more serious nuggets involve warnings -- in other words, you'll put your portfolio in danger if you don't wise up. 1999 is a perfect example. Stocks prices were soaring as the internet began transforming the global economy and the way we live. Investors had begun growing accustomed to huge returns.
Details
Buffett saw the problem though. The tech revolution was just fine, but the expectation of what investors thought it would do for their portfolios wasn't. In his 1999 letter to Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA)(NYSE: BRKB) shareholders, Buffett wrote that investors were getting "wildly optimistic" about future returns from stocks.
Source
Originally published at www.fool.com.