Buffett’s Follies

Most books on Warren Buffett are hagiographies – excessively laudatory writings that fail to point out the shortcomings (admittedly few) of the world’s greatest investor. This book tries to set the balance right. At the same time, it is not a nit-picker’s list of complaints about Buffett’s investment approach. Unlike what the title may convey (the choice of title, I suspect, was driven more by the desire to attract attention and boost sales), the book is remarkably even-handed. Most of us have formulated a number of heuristics (mental shortcuts) about Buffett — he is a value investor who invests only for the long term and prefers to hold a concentrated portfolio. The truth, as the author Vahan Janjigian (hi

This article was originally published on February 16, 2012.