October 3, 1994
Starting with $10,000 in 1956 and today worth some $8.5 billion, with significant holdings in Coca-Cola, Capital Cities/ ABC and the Washington Post Company, Omaha, Nebr.-based Buffet is a major player on Wall Street. Financial consultant Hagstrom, who did not interview his subject but obtained permission to quote from his Berkshire Hathaway annual reports, here outlines Buffet's iconoclastic tenets for investing. Unlike many entrepreneurs who take over companies to sell them off in bits, Buffet buys and holds. He rejects the ``efficient market theory''; he doesn't worry about the stock market; and he buys a business, not a stock. He manages with a small staff, no computers and a ``hands off'' strategy. Learning his secrets here, now the rest of us can do a Buffet? Illustrations. Fortune Book Club dual main selection.