Investment projects are about buying projects

Mr. Buffett always emphasizes that "buying stocks is buying a company." Duan Yongping further elaborated on this viewpoint in his Q&A on Xueqiu. David Li, on the other hand, discussed it in detail from various aspects in his book.

In my opinion, this viewpoint applies not only to stock investment but should also be applicable to token investment. When I applied this logic to token investment, I discovered some interesting phenomena.

Before analyzing how to apply this logic to token investment, it is necessary to share with everyone what "buying stocks is buying a company" means.

In simple terms:

When an investor wants to invest in a company's stock, he should imagine that if he had enough money, he would want to buy all the shares of the company, take the company private, and then destroy all the repurchased shares.

If he wants to do that, then he can buy the company's stock; if he doesn't want to, then he shouldn't buy the company's stock.

Thinking from this logic, we can clearly see what truly determines a company's real value from an investment perspective.

There is only one thing that determines its true value: the sum of all future free cash flows that this company can generate from now on is the intrinsic value of the company.

If a publicly traded company currently has a total market value of $100 million, and it can generate $10 million in free cash flow every year in the future, then if an investor buys the company for $100 million, cancels its stock, and no longer sells it, he will recover his principal in 10 years, and from the 11th year onward, he will be making money for free.

In the actual investment process, the questions investors need to consider become very detailed:

Can this company maintain at least $10 million in earnings every year in the future?

If this company encounters problems, can it turn things around in time?

Can this company ensure it survives for at least another 10 years?

Does this company have a competitive moat?

Is the leadership of this company reliable?

…

All these questions can be summarized by Mr. Buffett into two points:

How is the company's business model?

How is the company's corporate culture?

If the company's business model is good, it can have a strong enough moat to generate stable and substantial profits, earning at least $10 million a year, or even more.

If the company's corporate culture is good, it can solve problems in a timely manner and maintain a competitive edge in the long term—let alone surviving for another 10 years; surviving for another 100 years is also possible.

If these conditions are met, earning at least $10 million a year in the future will not be a problem, and surviving for another 10 years will be even less of a problem.

At this point, buying this company's stock is equivalent to buying a stable income asset with a net yield of 10% per year.

If these conditions are not met, then the company's value becomes difficult to assess and is questionable.

This logic can not only be used to determine a company's intrinsic value but can also filter out more than 90% of meaningless noise information.

If I buy this company, let's see how to filter out a bunch of seemingly sensational but actually meaningless noise information.

A Wall Street merger company offered a low acquisition price to another company in the same industry.

What does this have to do with my company? My company's business is not in trouble, my operations are still stable, and I can still earn $10 million a year in the future. Why should I care about what price Wall Street offers my competitor?

This morning, Wall Street crashed, and the S&P 500 index plummeted by 10 points.

What does this have to do with my company? The fluctuations in the stock market have not affected my business at all, nor have they affected my customers. I can still earn $10 million a year in the future. Why should I care about stock market fluctuations?

Tomorrow, the Federal Reserve is going to cut interest rates, and Wall Street is reacting, creating a strange market atmosphere.

Does the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut have anything to do with my company's operations? Will it affect my company's future earnings of $10 million a year? Perhaps it does, but such macro impacts, after multiple layers of transmission, have a negligible effect on the company's specific business. Therefore, I can also ignore this macro news.

Thinking in this way, the fluctuations in competitors' stock prices, Wall Street's crash, and the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts… can all be regarded as noise and ignored by investors who truly buy stocks from a value investment perspective.

But if we think carefully, how many stockholders in real life are not disturbed and anxious by these messages?

Why?

Because the vast majority of so-called stock investors are actually stock speculators.

This is why Mr. Buffett repeatedly states in his remarks that he does not pay much attention to macro factors, he does not predict the economy, and he does not care about stock price fluctuations.

However, if at this moment someone offers $2 billion to buy my company, I would then carefully examine the company and conclude that no matter what, even if it survives for another 100 years, it will never earn $2 billion. At that point, I would undoubtedly sell the company.

This is the reason why I would sell my stocks when the market price of the company is significantly higher than its intrinsic value.

Similarly, if I originally planned to buy this company for $100 million, but today Wall Street suddenly tells me that the company's price has crashed and can now be bought for only $50 million, I would not be disappointed; I should be ecstatic.

This is because when an investor truly understands a company's intrinsic value, during a market crash, the lower the price, the happier he should be.

However, when I am ready to buy this company, if the environment in which the company operates changes, and a planned economy becomes the company's future operating environment, with the company's production, pricing, and sales all arranged by the state, I must reassess my purchasing decision.

For example, when I am ready to buy the company, if the region where the company is located suddenly issues disruptive regulations frequently, and these regulations are issued without any process, transparency, or reason, and I have no way to appeal against them or win a lawsuit, I must also reassess my purchasing decision.

This is the faith pillar of Mr. Buffett's investment in U.S. stocks: market economy and legal system. As long as these two exist, he believes that miracles will still happen.

Next, I will use this logic to analyze the tokens in the crypto ecosystem and some typical companies.