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INVESTING
Seventeen years ago, in 1999, Warren Buffett gave a provocative speech that was subsequently published in the midst of the tech stock euphoria that captivated investors.
At the time, some people were quitting jobs to day-trade stocks, and CNBC blared during the daytime in offices around the country. Everyone wanted a piece of the action, since making money in stocks seemed easy. The Nasdaq index skyrocketed 85.6 percent in 1999.
Speaking in front of newly minted IPO multimillionaires, Buffett's killjoy speech threw cold water on the long-term outlook for investors. The first slide showed the performance of the stock market from 1964-1981. The Dow Jones industrial average started that span at 874.12 and ended at 875.00. Buffett noted that, even though GDP in the United States rose 370 percent over that period, the Dow went nowhere....