2020: The Dow has turned $1 into $100.

Warren Buffett: Ben Graham, my boss, once sent me over to the public library in New York to dig up some information for him. What would take five minutes on a computer now took a little more effort back then. I remember finding the exact quote he wanted—it was on page 545 of a book, and I knew where to look. Ben Graham was one of the three smartest people I’ve ever met. He was the dean of the securities business, wrote the classic Security Analysis in 1934, and published The Intelligent Investor in 1949, a book that changed my life. He was just unbelievably smart.

When he testified, with the Dow at 404, he opened with a memorable line in his written testimony: “The stock market is high, looks high, it is high, but it’s not as high as it looks.” But he still emphasized, “It is high.”

Warren Buffett: And since that time—if we turn to the next slide—we’ve really felt the American tailwind at full force. The Dow, let’s see, it went down on Friday, but when we made this slide, it was around 24,000. So, you’re looking at a market today that has turned every dollar into $100. All you needed to do was believe in America by holding a cross-section of American companies. You didn’t have to read The Wall Street Journal, check your stock prices daily, or pay high fees to anyone. You just had to trust that the American miracle would continue.

From 1929 until well, really until 1954, when the Dow finally got back to 380, we had a tough, testing period. People lost faith to some degree—they couldn’t see what America could become. But we’ve seen that nothing can ultimately stop America. We’ve encountered challenges and interruptions along the way.

One of the most daunting times was the Civil War, when one group of states was fighting another. And then we had the Great Depression, one of the harshest economic tests. And there may be challenges now. But in the end, the answer is clear: never bet against America. I believe this is as true today as it was in 1789. It was true during the Civil War, in the depths of the Depression, and I believe it’s true now.