英文早读第120篇，选自巴菲特年度信，友才翻译。
Good ideas were a dime a dozen, such a premature ending would not be unpleasant. There is something to be said, of course, for a business operation where some of the failures produce moderate profits. However, you can see how hard it is to develop replacement ideas by examining our average investment in the Private Owner category - we came up with nothing during the remainder of the year despite lower stock prices, which should have been conductive to finding such opportunities.
好的主意分文不值，这样早产的结果也不会让人不开心。有些事要说，当然，对于商业运作一些失败产生不错的盈利。然而，你可以看到发展一个替代的想法是多么困难通过检查我们在私有化范畴的平均投资——我们在这一年接下来的时间什么都没有做尽管有了更低的股价，这本来应该传导到找到这样的机会。
Generals - Relatively Undervalued
一般类——相对低估值的
Our relative performance in this category was the best we have ever had - due to one holding which was our largest investment at yearend 1965 and also yearend 1966. This investment has substantially out-performed the general market for us each year (1964, 1965, 1966) that we have held it. While any single year's performance can be quite erratic, we think the probabilities are highly favorable for superior future performance over a three or four year period. The attractiveness and relative certainty of this particular security are what caused me to introduce Ground Rule 7 in November, 1965 to allow individual holdings of up to 40% of our net assets. We spend considerable effort continuously evaluating every facet of the company and constantly testing our hypothesis that this security is superior to alternative investment choices. Such constant evaluation and comparison at shifting prices is absolutely essential to our investment operation.
我们在这个范畴的相对表现是我们取得的最好的——因为一个持股，他是1965年末我们的最大一笔投资，在1966年末也是。这笔投资对我们来说每一年（1964年，1965年，1966年）我们持有他的都大幅优于股市表现。尽管任何一个单一年份的表现都可以是相当不稳定的，我们认为经过三四年很大概率倾向于未来优秀的表现。这一个股票的吸引力和相对确定性引起我在1965年11月介绍了基本准则7来允许单一投资最多占我们的净资产40%。我们花费了相当多的努力持续评估这家公司的每一方面并且不断测试我们的假设这只股票优于其它投资选择。类似持续的评估和以切换其它价格对比对我们的投资运作是绝对必要的。
It would be much more pleasant (and indicate a more favorable future) to report that our results in the Generals - Relatively Undervalued category represented fifteen securities in ten industries, practically all of which outperformed the market. We simply don't have that many good ideas. As mentioned above, new ideas are continually measured against present ideas and we will not make shifts if the effect is do downgrade expectable performance. This policy has resulted in limited activity in recent years when we have felt so strongly about the relative merits of our largest holding. Such a condition has meant that realized gains have been a much smaller portion of total performance than in earlier years when the flow of good ideas was more substantial.
那将会很开心（或者表示更加令人开心的未来）来报告我们在一般类——相对低估值范畴的结果有在十个行业十五支股票，尤其其中所有的都优于大盘表现。而我们没有那么多好的标的。如上文提到的，好的标的被不断地与现有标的衡量对比，我们不会切换如果效果是降低预期表现。这个策略导致了最近一些年有限的行动当我们感觉我们最大的持股相对价值如此强烈时。这样的状况意味着已结算获利比早些年占比降低很多，当好的标的稳定流淌更重要时。
The sort of concentration we have in this category is bound to produce wide swings in short term performance - some, most certainly, unpleasant. There have already been some of these applicable to shorter time spans than I use in reporting to partners. This is one reason I think frequent reporting to be foolish and potentially misleading in a long term oriented business such as ours.
在这个范畴我们的集中度限制于短期表现的大幅摆动——有些，很确定，是不好的。他们已经比我需要报告给合伙人更短的时间幅度。这也是一个我认为频繁报告是愚蠢的和潜在误导向我们这种长期表现导向的业务的一个原因。
61.a dime a dozen：一毛钱一打，不值钱
62.erratic：不稳定的；不规则的；不确定的
63.evaluate：评价；评估；估计
64.facet：方面；（事物的）部分
65.downgrade：使降级；降低；贬低
