{"id":181966,"date":"2025-11-15T11:46:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T11:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/181966\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T11:46:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T11:46:20","slug":"going-quiet-at-95-warren-buffett-shows-why-time-beats-returns-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/181966\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Going quiet\u2019 at 95, Warren Buffett shows why time beats returns \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/warren-buffett\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/warren-buffett\/\">Warren Buffett<\/a> says he is \u201cgoing quiet\u201d, having issued his final shareholder letter as chief executive of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/berkshire-hathaway\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/berkshire-hathaway\/\">Berkshire Hathaway<\/a> (disclosure: I own shares in Berkshire).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It seems a fitting moment to revisit the quietest force in Buffett\u2019s success \u2013 not investing acumen, but compound interest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Buffett, 95, once said his life \u201chas been a product of compound interest\u201d, and he wasn\u2019t being modest. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Psychology of Money author Morgan Housel notes that despite earning higher returns when he was younger, more than 99 per cent of Buffett\u2019s fortune was built after he turned 50, and about 98 per cent came after he turned 65.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Housel contrasts Buffett with the late hedge fund giant Jim Simons, who earned astonishing 66 per cent annual returns across his career, compared to Buffett\u2019s 22 per cent. Yet Simons\u2019s wealth was far smaller \u2013 about a fifth of Buffett\u2019s \u2013 because he started at 50. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The difference, Housel notes, isn\u2019t skill but time: Buffett simply compounded for longer. One more telling example: Housel imagines if Buffett had started investing at 30 with $25,000 instead of building wealth from childhood, and retired aged 60. Even earning the same returns, he\u2019d have ended up with about $12 million rather than $152 billion \u2013 99.9 per cent less. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In other words, if Buffett started investing in his 30s and retired in his 60s, few people would have known of him. Almost all of his wealth stems from the foundation he laid in his youth and the decades he let it grow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cHis skill is investing,\u201d writes Housel. \u201cBut his secret is time\u201d. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Warren Buffett&#x2019;s Berkshire Hathaway has reported figures for the third quarter (AP)\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/TOYRVK6PRSY42XRARBHOEGDEJA.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>Warren Buffett\u2019s Berkshire Hathaway has reported figures for the third quarter (AP) <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Little wonder the definitive biography of Buffett is titled The Snowball. One wonders what Buffett would make of Ireland\u2019s approach to compounding. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Under the eight-year deemed disposal rule, ETF (exchange-traded funds) investors must hand over 41 per cent tax even if they haven\u2019t sold up. Eight years, of course, is barely enough time for gains to stretch their legs, let alone snowball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/work\/2025\/05\/12\/like-warren-buffett-business-leaders-should-admit-their-costly-errors-and-dumb-decisions\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Warren Buffett\u2019s approach to errors offers important lesson for other business leadersOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warren Buffett says he is \u201cgoing quiet\u201d, having issued his final shareholder letter as chief executive of Berkshire&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[615,79,18,19,17,617],"class_list":{"0":"post-181966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-berkshire-hathaway","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-warren-buffett"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115553552757193449","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}