These Investors Earned 20% to 33% Returns Using The Same Philosophy on Completely Different Stocks

The Investing for Beginners Podcast precocious revisited 1 of the astir influential ideas successful modern finance. That was Benjamin Graham's conception of buying with a borderline of safety. In fact, according to big Andrew Sather, Graham's Columbia students went connected to compound superior astatine bonzer rates utilizing the aforesaid principles applied to wildly antithetic portfolios. Walter Schloss earned 21% a year. Tweedy Brown earned 20% a year. Warren Buffett earned adjacent to 30% a year.  Sequoia Fund earned 18% a year. Charlie Munger earned 20% a year. Rick Guerin earned 33% a twelvemonth implicit 18 years.

The takeaway for idiosyncratic investors is that the doctrine travels adjacent erstwhile the stocks bash not overlap. Two surviving practitioners marque that lawsuit intelligibly today: Warren Buffett astatine Berkshire and Tom Gayner astatine Markel.

Buffett's Quality Compounders

Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B) trades astatine astir 14 trailing net and a 1.4 price-to-book ratio, with a 10.5% instrumentality connected equity and a 19.3% nett margin. The banal has compounded 236.81% implicit the past 10 years, adjacent aft a 5.43% year-to-date pullback.

The equity portfolio reads similar a Graham syllabus written successful user brands and franchises. Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) conscionable posted Q1 2026 EPS of $0.86 against an $0.81 estimation with 12.1% gross maturation to $12.47 cardinal and a 43.4% instrumentality connected equity. American Express (NYSE: AXP) delivered EPS of $4.28 versus $3.99 expected, with billed concern of $428.0 billion, up 10% twelvemonth implicit year. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) raised its dividend 3.1% to $1.34 per quarter, extending a 64-year streak, and reported $24.06 cardinal successful Q1 2026 revenue. JNJ shares person gained 48.18% implicit the past year.

Each sanction is mainstream, with durable currency flow, pricing power, and decades of compounded superior returns. American Express CEO Stephen Squeri summarized the Amex broadside of that thesis connected the latest call: "We delivered 10 percent FX-adjusted gross maturation and 18 percent EPS maturation successful the quarter. Card Member spending grew 9 percent FX-adjusted, the highest quarterly maturation successful 3 years."