Most investors chase price.
A few study structure.
Even fewer understand time.
This session of Market Masters was about the last two.
At the request of a viewer, we slowed things down and walked through one of the most overlooked advantages in all of investing: the ability to wait, and the discipline to buy only when the price makes sense. We looked at how Warren Buffett and Boaz Weinstein approach entirely different corners of the market — but with the same core principle: they get paid to be patient.
This wasn’t a breakdown of short-term catalysts or economic headlines.
It was a blueprint for how capital compounds when you don’t force it.
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Warren Buffett's Success
Everyone wants Buffett’s returns. Very few want his habits.
He built Berkshire Hathaway through a blend of patience, business acumen, and disciplined buying — but the heart of his strategy isn’t hard to understand. He buys quality businesses that generate strong cash flow, have a durable advantage, and can compound over time. And then he holds them longer than most people are willing to.
The first thing I laid out in this session was simple: Buffett’s success is mechanical.
He doesn't trade. He doesn't pivot. He doesn't react to headlines.
He waits for an opportunity — and when a business is trading below its intrinsic value, he buys.
That's it. He doesn’t need perfect timing. He just needs time.
What’s overlooked about Buffett is his adaptability. He made mistakes — I’ll get to those in a second — but he didn’t let them break his system. He adjusted when the market changed, learned from what went wrong, and kept moving. His edge wasn’t just buying cheap stocks. It was that he stayed in the game long enough for compounding to work.
There’s a reason I brought him up first in this session: because if you want to understand long-term investing that actually works, this is still the model. Not because it’s flashy. Not because it guarantees big moves. But because it protects downside, lets time do the heavy lifting, and avoids the constant pressure to be early.
Buffett Made a Lot of Mistakes
No serious investor should study Buffett without understanding his missteps.
They’re not minor. They’re not rare. And in many cases, they were expensive.
But what separates Buffett from everyone else is how he absorbed those losses without ever abandoning his framework. The strategy stayed the same. The execution improved.
A few of his bigger mistakes, in hindsight:
- Dexter Shoe Company (1993): Acquired using Berkshire shares — now estimated to have cost shareholders over $8 billion in opportunity cost
- Tesco (2006–2014): Misjudged the durability of the UK grocery chain’s margins amid rising discount competition
- IBM (2011–2018): Invested heavily in a legacy name during a transitional phase; expected more from the cloud shift than the company could deliver
- Airlines (Various): Took stakes in multiple carriers post-2016, only to unwind all positions at a loss during the early 2020 pandemic crash
- Precision Castparts (2016): Paid a premium for a business later impaired by the collapse in aerospace during COVID
- Kraft Heinz (2015–present): Overexposed to cost-cutting; long-term brand damage outweighed near-term margin wins
These weren’t tiny bets — several were billion-dollar decisions. But they didn’t derail the portfolio. Buffett’s long-term returns weren’t built on avoiding mistakes. They were built on making sure the winners more than covered the losers — and that capital never stayed too long with underperformers.
It’s a reminder that discipline is more important than precision.
And survival — not perfection — is what compounds.
Buffett's Performance vs. S&P 500
Buffett’s strategy works — and the numbers prove it.
From 1965 to 2024, Berkshire Hathaway delivered a compound annual gain of roughly 20%, compared to about 10.4% for the S&P 500.
Total returns during that window:
- Berkshire Hathaway: +5,502,284%
- S&P 500 (with dividends): +39,054%
That’s the reward for buying well, holding through cycles, and refusing to chase what’s hot.
But Buffett’s outperformance didn’t happen in a straight line. He underperformed for stretches. He got mocked for holding cash. He got written off more than once.
But the process never changed.
Consistency beats creativity. Edge doesn’t mean constant action. And the compounding curve belongs to those who can wait.
Buffett's Key Investment Criteria
Buffett doesn’t guess. He filters.
Here are the core traits he looks for when evaluating a business:
- Long-Term Competitive Moats: A durable edge that protects the company’s profits over time
- High Return on Equity (ROE): Strong profits generated from shareholder capital
- Low Debt-to-Equity: Preference for companies that grow using internal cash rather than heavy borrowing
- Consistent Cash Flow: A predictable engine of free cash that can be reinvested
- Attractive Intrinsic Value: A price below what the business is actually worth
- Great Management: Operators who are rational, honest, and capital-efficient
Buffett wants businesses he can understand, trust, and hold — even in rough markets. That’s the filter. Everything else is noise.
Buffett’s success shows what happens when you buy the right assets and let time do the heavy lifting. But he’s not the only one generating real edge in today’s markets. There are others doing it differently — not by holding forever, but by finding mispriced assets that the rest of the market has ignored.
One of the sharpest examples is Boaz Weinstein.
He doesn’t wait for the market to close the gap. He goes in and forces the value to surface. His strategy, particularly with closed-end funds, isn’t about long-term business ownership. It’s about spotting structural inefficiencies — and creating the catalyst for change.
Understanding Closed-End Funds
Closed-end funds (CEFs) aren’t flashy — but that’s exactly why they’re often mispriced.
Unlike ETFs or mutual funds, CEFs don’t issue or redeem shares based on investor demand. They raise capital once through an IPO, invest it, and then trade on the open market like stocks. But the underlying value of their holdings — the net asset value (NAV) — doesn’t always match the price the fund trades at.
This disconnect is the opportunity.
Many CEFs trade at discounts to NAV, meaning investors can buy a basket of assets for less than the assets are actually worth. Sometimes that discount is small — 3%, 5%, maybe 7%. But in other cases, it’s far wider — 15%, even 20% below NAV — especially when the fund has fallen out of favor or lacks liquidity.
Most investors ignore this space. There’s less buzz, less coverage, and fewer fast-moving headlines. But for someone like Boaz Weinstein, that’s exactly where the edge lives: illiquid, neglected corners of the market where price and value drift apart — and nobody’s watching.
CEFs create pricing inefficiencies by design. And once you know how to screen for them, those inefficiencies can be captured — without betting on the direction of the overall market.
Saba Capital Strategy with Closed-End Funds
While most investors wait for market sentiment to shift, Saba Capital takes a more direct approach: they create the shift themselves.
Boaz Weinstein’s strategy isn’t just about buying discounted closed-end funds. It’s about targeting the ones where he can be the catalyst that closes the discount.
Here’s how it works:
- Screen for funds trading at wide discounts to NAV
- Buy a large stake while the discount persists
- Engage with management and push for shareholder-friendly actions
- Exit after the discount closes — regardless of market direction
The alpha isn’t coming from the assets inside the fund. It’s coming from the structural mispricing — and the strategy’s ability to unlock that value through pressure and process.
This isn’t a bet on the economy. It’s a mechanical trade with repeatable conditions.
Key Metrics for Evaluating CEFs
If you’re looking to spot these opportunities, here are the key things to watch:
- Discount to NAV: The wider the gap, the more potential upside
- Average Daily Volume: Illiquid funds are harder to scale into or out of
- Leverage Ratio: Leverage magnifies returns — and risk
- Fund Mandate: Some funds are easier to pressure than others based on structure, bylaws, or governance
This is a game of spreads — not speculation. And Weinstein’s playbook shows how pricing inefficiencies can be captured, repeatedly, with discipline.
Final Takeaway
This wasn’t about theory.
Whether it’s Buffett holding for decades or Boaz extracting value in weeks, both investors work from a defined edge — and a disciplined process that doesn’t bend to headlines or hype.
You don’t have to copy them. But you’d be wise to study them.
If there’s one thing these strategies have in common, it’s that they work best when others are distracted — when volatility is high, sentiment is low, and everyone else is chasing the next big thing.
That’s when process pays.
If this resonated with you, I cover material like this — real frameworks, real setups, and what smart money is doing — every weekday at 8:45 AM ET on Market Masters.
It’s where we cut through the noise and dig into what’s actually driving the market each morning.
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Stay positive,
Garrett Baldwin