Warren Buffett: Billionaire wants to work past 100
Warren Buffett, the world's newest octogenarian billionaire, has been beating the stock market for decades. But in the difficult 2000s, the legendary investor has really shined.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett laughs as he appears for a town hall style meeting with business students at Columbia University in New York in 2009. Mr. Buffett says he plans to work past 100.
Mike Segar/Reuters/Files
Warren Buffet, the world's newest octogenarian billionaire, says he plans to work past 100.
“I plan to work past 100 but to do so I may have to learn to think outside the box,” he told the Wall Street Journal's Deal Journal.
Many of his investors certainly hope he will stay on the job, since he may just be hitting his prime.
Since 1965, the legendary investor's Berkshire Hathaway has averaged annual returns of 20 percent, better than double the rate for the Standard & Poor's 500 index. And that performance is not based solely on gains early in his career.
In the four five-year spans since 1990, he has beaten the S&P 500 three times. The only time he didn't, during the dot-com boom of 1995 through 1999, Berkshire still gained 178 percent (the S&P 500 gained 220 percent).
Since then, he's really shined. The past decade has not been kind to stocks generally. From 2000 through 2009, the S&P 500 lost 24 percent. But Mr. Buffett gained an amazing 77 percent during that time.
His winning streak continues. So far this year, Berkshire Hathaway is up 19 percent; the S&P 500 is down 4.5 percent.
The world's No. 3 billionaire is in good company. Of the richest 100 billionaires in 2010, all but two made money in the past year, according to data from Forbes magazine. Thirteen of those billionaires are older than Buffett is.