Warren Buffett was asked in an interview in the spring of 2019 how closely he is following his biggest stock investment, Apple. The interviewer mentioned that people are concerned that Apple hasn’t released any new products lately and so on, and asked what Buffett thinks about that.
Buffett quickly answered: “Well, if you have to follow the company closely, you shouldn’t own it!” “Really!?” the interviewer said surprised.
Buffett continued: “If you buy a farm, do you go to the farm every day or every other week to look at it? Do you check closely how far the corn has grown, or do you worry about if this is going to be a year of low prices, or of high prices, and whether exports are affecting your earnings?”
“It doesn’t grow faster if I stare at it. It doesn’t help to cheer at it. I know there is going to be some years when prices are going to be good, and there are years when prices aren’t going to be good. I know there will be years when yields are better than others.”
“I don’t care about economic predictions. I do care about whether the farm is well tended to, and whether productivity is increasing over the long term. If you owned the best auto dealership in town, would you go in everyday and check how many customers drop in?”
He summarized: “Things are going to be different in a business day to day, and year to year. You shouldn’t buy the business if the day-to-day is important!”
If you’re concerned everyday about how the business is going and you feel you have to follow it very closely, perhaps you do not own a wonderful business?