It takes a lot chutzpah to bet against Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) — arguably the greatest investor in history. Yet much to my own surprise, that’s exactly the position I've unexpectedly found myself in.
Here’s how it all happened:
In late February, Marketwatch published my article, “Has Warren Buffett lost it?”
In that article, almost as an afterthought, I noted that I didn’t think Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) would be willing to bet that shares of his Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A -0.08% would outperform a U.S. small-cap index over the next 10 years.
Frankly, I didn't think the bet would be so controversial. After all, Berkshire has struggled to match the returns on theS&P 500 SPX -0.08% since the dot-com bust in 2000. And as U.S. small caps have outperformed the S&P 500 consistently by a couple of percentage points each year across many decades, I thought the bet was a no-brainer.
Then longtime Berkshire investor David Rolfe (Trades, Portfolio), of St. Louis, Mo.-based Wedgewood Partners, contacted me, indicating that he was willing to take Buffett’s side of the bet.
