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The week's question
In March 2025, in the thread "Re: OT, out", Umm asked the members: "Do you think it is because America is made up of magical soil that makes businesses based in America magically profitable?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)
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Author: mungofitch ✹✺ SILVER
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Number: of 22354 
Subject: Re: Dividends
Date: 01/15/24 10:20 AM
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No. of Recommendations: 18
"We know that the worst case that happened in the past can definitely happen."
...
the question is how to prepare. China attacking or blockading Taiwan would trigger a shock as would war with Iran.


Personally, I take an odd inspiration from history: it's not the geopolitical things that you have to worry about. Most of them can't be spotted on a long term chart. e.g., if you look only at days the market was open, you can't even pick out Sept 11 2001. The two-trading-day drop was only the 6th worst in 2001, and was almost the same as the preceding two-trading-day drop Sept 5-7. The market rose during a surprising number of crises, for no obvious reason.

Rather, the bigger worry is a 15 year stretch of extremely low valuation levels. Or, given where we are today, perhaps even a 15 year stretch of historically average valuation levels would be crushing to a lot of people. That's probably even harder to predict than a nasty geopolitical shock.

Jim
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This community has written 21,861 posts about Berkshire Hathaway. The article-length ones it recommended most:
BRK: Why Not XOM? · 62 recs · 2024
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Summary of 2Q 2026 · 55 recs · 2026
3Q Summary · 53 recs · 2024
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