No. of Recommendations: 16
I'm not a big fan of most "financial journalism", and I think too many people try to read too much into the various happenings at head office.
But I have to say, this is kind of interesting:
Berkshire was a net seller of equities in the last quarter. It was a big amount this time, but net sales aren't unusual. Also net sales the prior quarter, also not unusual to see a couple of quarters in a row. But it's actually the seventh quarter in a row with more equity sales than equity purchases. At some point it's tempting to read something into the trend. Watch what they do, not what they say?
The most obvious possible lesson is that the three stock pickers aren't seeing a target rich environment for buying good stocks at fair prices. Really the boss I guess, since he's the one who decides capital allocation. Another reasonable inference is that the recent higher short term interest rates make it a little less unattractive to sit on a bigger pile of cash while waiting, so it is (for the moment) acceptable to sit on more cash than usual.
The more out-there speculations are that there is in fact a big deployment of some type on the horizon, or that (atypically) management is anticipating a market rout, or that Mr Buffett has permanently given up on big allocations to publicly listed US stocks. I don't put much weight on that last one : )
Jim
