[joeltrout]

I think Buffet has a great track record but it also indicates something else, he is overdue for a major mistake.

I respectfully disagree. He is no amatuer and didn't become the most successful investor and richest man in the world by being uniformed or without taking a gamble or two.

joeltrout

[EnergyUnlimited]

I think Buffet has a great track record but it also indicates something else, he is overdue for a major mistake.

I respectfully disagree. He is no amatuer and didn't become the most successful investor and richest man in the world by being uniformed or without taking a gamble or two.

joeltrout

He has access to insider information, so in principle he is safe with his investments.

However if some plans of Masters of Universe (read few dozens of corrupt criminals in US government & banking industry) have failed, then he is bound to lose a very big money.

Sooner or later he will...

[frankthetank]

Is the great oracle becoming delusional in his last days ?

...Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month — or a year — from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.

A little history here: During the Depression, the Dow hit its low, 41, on July 8, 1932. Economic conditions, though, kept deteriorating until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933. By that time, the market had already advanced 30 percent. Or think back to the early days of World War II, when things were going badly for the United States in Europe and the Pacific. The market hit bottom in April 1942, well before Allied fortunes turned. Again, in the early 1980s, the time to buy stocks was when inflation raged and the economy was in the tank. In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend. It lets you buy a slice of America’s future at a marked-down price.

Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

You might think it would have been impossible for an investor to lose money during a century marked by such an extraordinary gain. But some investors did. The hapless ones bought stocks only when they felt comfort in doing so and then proceeded to sell when the headlines made them queasy.

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. Indeed, the policies that government will follow in its efforts to alleviate the current crisis will probably prove inflationary and therefore accelerate declines in the real value of cash accounts.

Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree. Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

I don’t like to opine on the stock market, and again I emphasize that I have no idea what the market will do in the short term. Nevertheless, I’ll follow the lead of a restaurant that opened in an empty bank building and then advertised: “Put your mouth where your money was.” Today my money and my mouth both say equities.

Is this because he knows hyperinflation is coming and that fiat you have in your mattress is going to be used as toilet paper soon?

[jasonraymondson]

Raymondson says "Buffet, blow Me"

[frankthetank]

This is an Op-ed piece...

http://www.nytimes.com/

[WyoDutch]

And Alan Greenspan said this a couple years ago... (Proving once again that even arseholes sometimes can utter a sentence)...

"Don't sweat the debt: Along with benign inflation and rising home prices, Alan Greenspan says personal debt is no threat to the U.S. economy. Speaking to America's Community Bankers, a group representing smaller banks across the nation, the Federal Reserve chairman said the record level of debt being carried by American households does not seem to constitute a dire threat to U.S. economic well-being. He did note that high levels of personal bankruptcies gave him pause, as they indicate "pockets of distress" among American households. However, Greenspan said the vast majority of U.S. consumers "appear able to calibrate their borrowing and spending to minimize financial difficulties." The chairman addressed the concerns of some economists, who fear that the jump in home prices may merely turn out to be a bubble--and physics contains a manifest destiny for bubbles. But Greenspan said it was unlikely that either the high level of household debt or the big rise in housing prices represented serious threats, because Americans appeared to have sufficient resources to keep meeting their loan payments. "Short of a significant fall in overall household income or in home prices, debt servicing is unlikely to become destabilizing," Greenspan said."

And the rest.... as they say. Is history.

[scienceteacher]

He's losing billions right now! And shitting his pants. Ha Ha.

Sell all your stock now. Dow 4000. Get out now.

Then buy Buffett at 50% off.

[nobodypanic]

He's losing billions right now! And shitting his pants. Ha Ha.

Sell all your stock now. Dow 4000. Get out now.

Then buy Buffett at 50% off.

oh wait i already own some buffet.

[Eppo]

He's losing billions right now! And shitting his pants. Ha Ha.

Sell all your stock now. Dow 4000. Get out now.

Then buy Buffett at 50% off.

You don know that according to Forbes magazine, he made 8 billion dollars in the last 40 days and passed bill gates as the richest man in america right?

[Tyler_JC]

He knows what he's talking about.

There are a lot of high quality, profitable American companies that have seen their share prices collapse in the past two months.

"Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful."

Does anyone expect Exxon to go out of business any time soon? Microsoft?

Exxon is down 30% for the year. Does that make sense to anyone?

Marathon Oil is down over 50%. Has their business declined in value by 50%?

Being a guns and canned food doomer might keep you live, but it won't allow you to thrive.

[hironegro]

By Charles Piller | The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has been lauded for his plainspoken denunciation of the greed and foolishness behind the economic crisis. He's pushed the massive federal bailout of imploding banks as the essential response to an "economic Pearl Harbor."

When Buffett speaks, people in high places listen. He's so highly regarded that in a fall debate, both presidential candidates said they'd consider him for Treasury secretary.

A Sacramento Bee examination of regulatory records has found that his extensive holdings in financial firms have made Buffett, the world's second-wealthiest person behind Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, one of the top beneficiaries of the banking bailout.

Just 28 companies received more than 90 percent of the funds so far disbursed to financial firms by the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, hasn't received any of that federal aid, but Berkshire, based in Omaha, Neb., owns stock valued at more than $13 billion in the top recipients of TARP funds, including Goldman Sachs Group, US Bancorp, American Express and Bank of America, which analysts all thought were in deep trouble before TARP was approved in October.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/65496.html

I know warren well get a free pass because America’s love affair with the heartland, but in reality he's no better than the guys on wall-street.

[Novus]

Welfare for the rich. Got to love it.

[centralstump]

Seriously? Warren Buffett is the bad guy here?


This guy has been railing against derivatives and over-leveraging for years. He is a buy and hold investor. He is nothing like those quarterly bonused jackasses who caused this mess. An economy where people followed his lead would never ever need a bailout.



Furthermore, he talks incessantly about how the rich get a free pass on taxes.


Do some research.

[frankthetank]

Looks like a big deal:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway on Tuesday said it is spending $44 billion to buy out railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe, sealing the biggest acquisition in the company's history in what the famed investor called "an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States."

"Our country's future prosperity depends on its having an efficient and well-maintained rail system," Buffett said in a press release. "Conversely, America must grow and prosper for railroads to do well."

I think he is well aware of the energy situation and knows how important (efficient) rail is vs trucking... I guess if your looking towards the future, there ain't much else to spend your money on!

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/berksh ... 2009-11-03

[dinopello]

Woo hoo, I own BNI (the ticker symbol) as well as NSC. Looks like I can take either $100/share or equivalent shares in Berkshire Hathaway - any thoughts on which I should do ? Berkshire Hathaway A shares are currently trading at about $100,000 per share. I don't even know how fractional shares work - since I don't have $100,000 worth of BNI.

[gollum]

Warren Buffett has come out in the NY times praising the bankster bailout

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40230655/ns ... l_finance/

BANGALORE — Warren Buffett has praised the U.S. government’s efforts to bail out the economy during the financial crisis two years ago, preventing an economic collapse.

In a letter published by the New York Times, Buffett wrote that all corporate America's dominoes were lined up and were ready to topple at lightning speed in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008.

[Sixstrings]

I don't know all the details, but looks like Buffet made a very smart move by investing five billion or so in Goldman Sachs. There was an article on ZH the other day about Goldman wanting to buy Warren back out rather than have to keep paying him dividends now that they're rolling in cash.

The federal government blocked the move, and nobody really knows who's being protecting here Goldman or Buffet. Maybe Buffet wants his money back or maybe in the long run the dividends are worth much more.

[Tanada]

Dow Chemical has finally gained the right to convert $US4 billion ($5.4bn) of preferred stock into common shares, ridding the company of an expensive burden and depriving Warren Buffett of another lucrative crisis-era investment.

A recent rally in Dow stock on Thursday triggered a clause allowing the chemical giant to convert the shares. That will enable the company to start keeping $US255 million it has been sending to Mr Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway every year, and another $US85m owed to Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund, which owns $US1bn of the shares.

The company announced after the close it would convert the shares on December 30. It will hand Berkshire roughly 6 per cent of Dow’s common stock, while Kuwait gets about 2 per cent. It isn’t clear what the investors will do with the new shares, but Mr Buffett has indicated he’s a seller.

Dow would have to pay out about $US180m a year in ordinary dividends on the common stock, but investors and analysts have been waiting eagerly for the conversion as the move is expected to free up capital for other uses.

Dow sold the stakes in 2009 to help pay for its purchase of Rohm & Haas, a roughly $US15bn deal struck in 2008 that was aimed at expanding the company’s presence in high-margin specialty chemicals.

The deal soured when sales took a hit from the financial crisis and the debt it added proved burdensome.

Dow had agreed to pay Mr Buffett and the Kuwait Investment Authority 8.5 per cent interest, or a total of $US340m annually. That’s yielded Berkshire more than $US1.5bn — or as Mr Buffett likes to say, $US8 a second.

From 2008 to 2011, Berkshire shelled out roughly $US25bn for preferred securities of Dow, Bank of America, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, insurer Swiss Re and chewing gum maker the Wrigley Company.

In exchange for generous terms, the famed investor would lend critical support for a company or a deal it was trying to pull off.

At the end of 2009, Berkshire held preferred shares in five companies that paid an aggregate $US2.1bn a year in dividends and interest.

Mr Buffett has called the redemption of preferred shares “decidedly negative”.

Dow was able to force the conversion starting in April 2014 as long as its stock closed above $US53.72 in 20 of 30 trading days. While the stock occasionally breached the figure, as it did last December and this August, it never did so for long enough.

One Yale Law School professor studied the pattern and concluded there was less than a one-in-a-thousand chance the stock’s failure to trip the trigger was random.

Dow itself has suspected someone was shorting the stock at around $US53 and keeping it from breaching the trigger level for long enough, people familiar with the matter have said.

Under the original agreement, Berkshire was only forbidden from engaging in short selling or hedging its preferred stake until April 2014. Mr Buffett has declined to comment on whether he or his deputies were shorting Dow stock.

The conversion will make Berkshire Dow’s second-largest common-stock holder behind index fund giant Vanguard Group. But that may not be the case for long.

“Would I rather own Dow … than any other stock?” Mr Buffett said on CNBC in February. “If that were the case then I would have been buying it already.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/busines ... 65c55e7137

[Subjectivist]

Aww poor Mr. Buffet is only going to earn 100 million instead of 200 million from his Dow chemical stock this year.

Yes, its a financial burden to lose half your income from a source like this, but Dow is only one of many income streams Berkshire Hathaway has.

I think the fact that Kuwait is also losig a lot from this conversion makes it likely they will want oil prices to go higher to compensate. They already export all they can so the only way to earn more is to sell at a higher price.