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Weekend reading: Young Warren Buffett discussing the stock market crash

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Well here’s something I’ve not seen before – archive footage of a relatively youthful Warren Buffett discussing some long-forgotten bout of stock market turbulence.

For the first time I get a real sense of why not everyone who encountered the young Buffett and his already amazing results invested with him.

Instead of today’s cuddly grandpa billionaire, we see just the hint of a young buck on the make. Without the benefit of hindsight, we may even see a sharp-suited spiv!

In Buffett’s biography The Snowball [1] there’s a very interesting passage on how some potential investors who met Buffett thought he was too good to be true – that he was running a Ponzi scheme.

That’s why friends and family were the main backers of his early partnerships. They had more reason to trust him.

While I’m as big a fan of Buffett as anyone, I think this charming video is yet more evidence of why the chances of you finding the next Buffett are near-zero.

Even if you’re lucky enough to encounter him or her at a party or in an airport lounge, you’ll probably think he’s set to rip you off. And surely anyone who goes on to deliver Buffett’s long-term record is going to have some rough edges in the early days.

You’d be wise to distrust them, too. Whether by design or luck, the world doesn’t turn out many Warren Buffetts.

Is the bond market finally rolling over?

Just a quick extra note to say that Buffett might have another crash to opine about soon, and that’s a bond market crash.

Whisper it (although many are shouting it) but the first cracks do seem to be opening up at last.

Here are a few links on the subject:

Who knows if this will be yet another false start for the end of the great 30-year bond market bull run. The asset class has made more comebacks than Madonna.

But one company that must be feeling pretty smug is Apple.

If bonds keep selling off and thus bond yields keep rising, its $50 billion bond issuance a few weeks ago – almost the day before US 10-year yields spiked upwards – could be the equivalent of LastMinute.com getting its IPO away in March 2000, just as the dotcom stocks blew up!

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Product of the week: Tesco Bank [20] has launched three new competitive fixed rate mortgages. Its five-year mortgage charges a puny 2.49% and gets the thumbs up from The Telegraph [21]. But mind those hefty arrangement fees if you’re not a big borrower.

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Plug of the week: I have finally signed up for Prime at Amazon [39], which means I can now buy almost anything I want and it turns up at my front door the next day. For virtually all of human civilization, this would have made me a King. Now it costs £49 a year, and there’s even a free one-month trial.

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