英文早读第47篇，选自巴菲特年度信，友才翻译。

The Question of Conservatism
关于保守主义的问题

Because I believe it may be even more meaningful after the events of 1962 I would like to repeat this section from last year's letter:
因为我认为经过1962年的事情后他变得更有意义，我想再重复一边去年信中的这一部分：

"The above description of our various areas of operation may provide some clues as to how conservatively our portfolio is invested. Many people some years back thought they were behaving in the most conservative manner by purchasing medium or long-term municipal or government bonds. This policy has produced substantial market depreciation in many cases, and most certainly has failed to maintain or increase real buying power.
”以上关于我们不同领域操作的描述或许可以提供一些我们的投资组合如何保守的线索。很多人多年前认为他们最保守通过购买中期或长期的地方或政府债券。这个策略引起大幅的市场贬值在很多情况下，大部分显然失败于保持或增加实际购买力。

"Conscious, perhaps overly conscious, of inflation, many people now feel that they are behaving in a conservative manner by buying blue chip securities almost regardless of price-earnings ratios, dividend yields, etc. Without the benefit of hindsight as in the bond example, I feel this course of action is fraught with danger. There is nothing at all conservative, in my opinion, about speculating as to just how high a multiplier a greedy and capricious public will put on earnings.
担心，或许过于担心通货膨胀，很多人现在觉得他们表现的保守通过购买蓝筹股却几乎不管价格盈利比，分红率等等。既没有从举的债券例子中获益，我认为这系列行为充满危险。这一点都没有保守主义，在我看来，关于仅仅通过投机于贪婪的高的倍数和变幻莫测的公众将带来的盈利

You will not be right simply because a large number of people momentarily agree with you. You will not be right simply because important people agree with you. In many quarters the simultaneous occurrence of the two above factors is enough to make a course of action meet the test of conservatism.
你不会是对的仅仅因为大部分人现在赞同你；你也不会是对的仅仅因为重要人物赞同你。在很多情况，这两个因素同时发生就足以满足保守主义测试的程序。

"You will be right, over the course of many transactions, if your hypotheses are correct, your facts are correct, and your reasoning is correct. True conservatism is only possible through knowledge and reason.
“你会是对的，通过系列的交易，如果你的假设是对的，你的因素是对的，你的推理是对的。真正的保守主义只有通过认知和推理才有可能。

I might add that in no way does the fact that our portfolio is not conventional prove that we are more conservative or less conservative than standard methods of investing. This can only be determined by examining the methods or examining the results.
我想加上因为我们的投资组合是不寻常这一事实就证明我们相比于标准投资方法更加保守或不保守是毫无依据的。唯一能决定的是通过测试我们的方法或结果。

I feel the most objective test as to just how conservative our manner of investing is arises through evaluation of performance in down markets. Preferably these should involve a substantial decline in the Dow. Our performance in the rather mild declines of 1957 and 1960 would confirm my hypothesis that we invest in an extremely conservative manner. I would welcome any partner's suggesting objective tests as to conservatism to see how we stack up. We have never suffered a realized loss of more than 1/2 of 1% of total net assets and our ratio of total dollars of realized gains to total realized losses is something like 100 to 1. Of course, this refects the fact that on balance we have been operating in an up market. However there have been many opportunities for loss transactions even in markets such as these (you may have found out about a few of these yourselves) so I think the above facts have some significance.
我觉得最公平的方法去判断我们的投资方式有多保守来自于在下跌市场时我们表现的评估。最好他应包括一段道琼斯指数的大幅下跌。在1957和1960年相对温和的下跌中，我们的表现证实了我的猜想，我们以极其保守的方式投资。我会欢迎任何合伙人的建议关于看看我们多么保守的公平测试。我们从来没有经历过0.5%的总净资产实际损失，并且我们的总盈利美金和总亏损美金比例差不多时100比1。当然，这也反映一个事实总的来说我们一直在一个上涨的市场运作。然而仍然有很多亏损交易的机会即使在这样的市场（你们自己或许就发现了一些）因此我认为上面这些事实有一定意义。

In 1962, we did realize a loss on one commitment or 1.0% and our ratio of realized gains to losses was only slightly over 3 to 1. However, compared to more conventional (often termed conservative which is not synonymous) methods of common stock investing, it would appear that our method involved considerably less risk. Our advantage over the Dow was all achieved when the market was going down; we lost a bit of this edge on the way up.
在1962年，我们确实在一个交易上实现了1.0%的亏损，并且我们的盈利总额和亏损总额比仅仅小幅超过3比1。然而，相比于那些更加传统（经常冠以保守，但并不是同义词）的方法投资股票，似乎我们的方法相当低风险。我们领先道琼斯指数的优势在市场下跌时都实现了，在市场上涨时我们只落后一点点。

87.synonymous：同义的；等同于……的
88.considerably：非常；相当多的