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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: Texirish ✹  😊 😞
Number: of 22346 
Subject: Re: Todays Barron's, Buffett moves on from buy and hol
Date: 02/18/23 10:00 PM
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No. of Recommendations: 18
hclasvegas
Do you think he is deliberately, deceiving ,the markets by allowing others to believe all these trades are his, in view of how the stocks react to the news, aka , misinformation? Thanks.

An emphatic NO. I don't think WEB cares to deceive anyone. Why should he?

If you're that interested, in past years I did try to look at who did the investments. In the 13-f's, if I were paying attention, there was a column that indicated who was involved. Most of them involved only WEB. IF it involved others, you could tell. That basically answered the question about who was involved. I think most people on Wall Street understood that long before I did.

Since this has not been a concern of mine for some years, I'll leave it to current students of the 13-f publications to see if this is still available.

With time, these levels of detail have become much less important to me. Do T&T investments really impact BRK - or just those trying to follow them? Or Buffett.

I doubt it's changed. You just have to pay close attention.

Basically, I can make only one of four decisions about BRK. Buy, Sell, Hold, or Sell a little for living expenses. Those are the only decisions I focus on now. Other posters now provide a lot of the details I used to chase for myself about IV and such to make such decisions. So I've stopped. Frankly, I don't think it's that hard to do.

Book plus Float still works for me, although I pay attention to what others so generously share. It's an old correlation, but it changes only slowly. I think that's because it includes a number of factors that offset each other. Old acquisitions are understated, but new ones are at 1.0 book and don't change that fast. even sometimes in a negative fashion. Cash is 1.0 book. Equities are at 1.0 book with some fairly small adjustments for deferred taxes. More cash held for downsides, so less for investment impacting float value. More competition keeps prices more in line. Owned businesses don't change that quickly. On and on. If you back out the 1.0 segments, the others don't seem that far out of line. The big regulated businesses are easy to cross check versus competitors.

Many variables, but still only impact the above four decisions. Not that hard to judge. And those judgments don't happen that often.

Given that, I no longer find it a good use of my time.

Or worry about being deceived by WEB.

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This community has written 21,850 posts about Berkshire Hathaway. The article-length ones it recommended most:
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