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- Manlobbi
Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) ❤
No. of Recommendations: 1
hopefully bad news isn’t coming? 🙏
No. of Recommendations: 1
an article dropped today in Fortune about Abel, more and more of these articles are out, WSJ with Howard Buffett, maybe he is going to step down.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Perhaps transitioning into the role that Charlie had?
No. of Recommendations: 0
I made a call, but I didn't expect a helpful response. Hopefully the kid is ok, not much we can do.
No. of Recommendations: 10
Maybe this line?
“…I’m just not doing interviews anymore. At 94, bridge isn’t the only activity that’s slowed down for me. I’m still having a lot of fun and am able to do a few things reasonably well. But other activities have been eliminated or greatly minimized.”
No. of Recommendations: 0
Maybe something in the annual letter is leaking out. Buffett writes the first draft in December, then sends it to Carol Loomis to edit. Maybe some of her Fortune colleagues got a peek.
No. of Recommendations: 4
Perhaps transitioning into the role that Charlie had?
What role did Charlie have?
It seemed to me Charlie's role was as a sounding board, not always consulted.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Maybe this line?
“…I’m just not doing interviews anymore. At 94, bridge isn’t the only activity that’s slowed down for me. I’m still having a lot of fun and am able to do a few things reasonably well. But other activities have been eliminated or greatly minimized.”
Annual meeting?
No. of Recommendations: 2
Sorry guys, I made a post showing how much I made from Berkshire puts I bought just last Monday. I'm sure that's why...
No. of Recommendations: 0
Someone made a very, LUCKY, purchase of the 462.5 puts that expire this Friday, at 2.00ish, about 500 contracts, early this morning, WHAT LUCK, but I don't see any other suspicious put buying. I wish I knew how to copy and paste the put action today but IF it can be done, I don't know how.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Something else is VERY odd. Stew is unc, it should be down as well unless they are talking a deal of some sort, but I doubt it. JUst a thought.
No. of Recommendations: 0
who is stew?
No. of Recommendations: 0
62% of STEW is not Berkshire on a big Up day for the rest of its stock holdings in the stock market and it goes ex-dividend in 2 days
No. of Recommendations: 3
No. of Recommendations: 1
Maybe the stock went from 440 to 472 in less than 2 weeks. Now it's bouncing higher in the afternoon.
No. of Recommendations: 0
<<and holds ~ $700M of BRK and ~30+% of the fund.<<
FYI..The A shares have a cost basis of almost nothing. "Stu" bought those shares decades ago.
The B shares have a much higher cost basis so that's what they sell when they trim. Which at over 40% of CEF not long ago--is a regular modest exercise. They're at about 38% of CEF A+B shares. And a payout which is effectively over 4% since it's at a 22.5% discount to NAV
No. of Recommendations: 1
No. of Recommendations: 1
MKL behaving similar.
Might just be an insurance sector thing.
I did recently read that BRK's exposure to the LA fires is small...and thankfully everyone drove away, taking their cars with them to safety. Good news for Geico.
No. of Recommendations: 5
“Maybe this line?
“…I’m just not doing interviews anymore. At 94, bridge isn’t the only activity that’s slowed down for me. I’m still having a lot of fun and am able to do a few things reasonably well. But other activities have been eliminated or greatly minimized.”
Who knows, but I still think (and hope)Warren will remain CEO in the near future. Hope he has simply continued to scale back on things that are not essential and has opted out of items and issues that may zap energy from him, so he can optimize his focus on the Key decisions at Berkshire. Hard to imagine Warren would step to the the side unless he feels he truly needs to do so. I still forget he is 94yo. Thoughts?
No. of Recommendations: 1
Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) Pilot Co is shuttering its international oil trading business, with the aim of refocusing on its Pilot Flying J service stations and truck stops in the U.S., Reuters reported Tuesday.
The company has dismissed nearly all employees running international trading, and instead plans to devote resources to growing its own North American businesses, according to the report.
Known for its service stations and truck stops, Tennessee-based Pilot began international trading after Warren Buffett's conglomerate took a 39% stake in the company in 2017.
Buffett bought the final 20% of Pilot in January last year, following a legal dispute with Jimmy Haslam over the company's valuation, after its pre-tax profit was cut in half from over $2.3B in 2022 to $1.06B in 2023.
Since then, Pilot's appetite for the risk attached to international oil trading has tapered, and the company let go of most of its international oil and fuel traders during recent months, the report said.
Pilot's revenue totaled more than $36B in the first nine months of 2024 and pre-tax earnings were $486B, both Y/Y declines, according to Berkshire's (BRK.A) (BRK.B) latest quarterly report.
More on Berkshire Hathaway
Berkshire Hathaway
No. of Recommendations: 2
MKL behaving similar.
Might just be an insurance sector thing.
didn't Markel close at an all time high today?
No. of Recommendations: 6
“Maybe this line?
“…I’m just not doing interviews anymore. At 94, bridge isn’t the only activity that’s slowed down for me. I’m still having a lot of fun and am able to do a few things reasonably well. But other activities have been eliminated or greatly minimized.”
Who knows, but I still think (and hope)Warren will remain CEO in the near future. Hope he has simply continued to scale back on things that are not essential and has opted out of items and issues that may zap energy from him, so he can optimize his focus on the Key decisions at Berkshire. Hard to imagine Warren would step to the the side unless he feels he truly needs to do so. I still forget he is 94yo. Thoughts?
I asked Google: Requirements for playing bridge well?
Answer: To play bridge well, you need a strong combination of concentration, logical thinking, card-counting ability, good memory, the capacity to read your partner and opponents, strategic planning, and the ability to adapt to changing situations at the table, all while maintaining a calm and focused demeanor; essentially, you need to be able to analyze information quickly, make calculated decisions, and effectively communicate with your partner through bidding and play.
Buffett's bridge playing has slowed because...?
My father-in-law was the same age as Buffett. We would play cards often. Up to around his 93rd birthday he performed well, often winning as he always had, but he would make crazy, irrational bids at times. Sometimes they would pay off, sometimes not. He suffered a rapid physical decline last year and died in April after a short illness. His older sister lived to 100 and played cards with us to about age 93 also. She had mental and physical decline.
Maybe Buffett's bridge playing has slowed due to lack of opportunity? You get to age 94 and many of your peers are not around anymore.
Or, maybe he knows he can't play at the level he used to? And if so, should that be a concern for his investment partners?
No. of Recommendations: 3
My thought is a diminished WB is still better than probably 98% of the investment crowd. But it’s still sad watching the man who has operated at such a high level start the inevitable slide.
Let’s just hope that Abel and company are able to keep this thing going at somewhat the same level of performance. I actually think Greg might be a bit better at whipping some of the subs back into fighting shape, like Geico and BNSF. But maybe I’m delusional. 😆
No. of Recommendations: 2
WSJ dated 1/10/25: Warren Buffett recently said he feels good and has no plans to step aside...
It's not clear when the WSJ reporter talked to Buffett, but she seemed to have interviewed Howard in person in July 2024, so I suspect she interviewed Warren around that time or slightly later?
The Fortune reporter tried to talk to Greg & Warren more recently but it seems that they both declined the request.
No. of Recommendations: 4
Todays Kingswell mentions the odd sell off & also recalls one of my favorite Warren Buffett comments on the definition of “success”.
“When people get to my age and they have the people who love them that they want to have love them,” said Buffett, “they are successful. It doesn’t make any difference whether they’ve got $1,000 or $1 billion in the bank.”
https://www.kingswell.io/p/the-berkshire-beat-janu...ciao
No. of Recommendations: 1
Todays Kingswell mentions the odd sell off...https://www.kingswell.io/p/the-berkshire-beat-janu...Thanks for that.
Kingswell: "Who knows what the future might hold, but Buffett’s email to Fortune did not strike me as hinting that retirement is imminent."
It's not imminent retirement that concerns me: “I couldn’t feel better about Greg”.
Buffett's retirement within the investing lifetime of most of us is inevitable.
No. of Recommendations: 16
For all of those concerned about the kickoff topic, that being a sharp drop in Berkshire's price while the broad market was strong, it all unwound today, and more.
Now Berkshire's price is doing better than the S&P 500 relative for basically any start date since end November.
Tempest in a teapot. et haec transibunt.
Jim
No. of Recommendations: 1
That made me grin.
Thanks, Jim.
m
No. of Recommendations: 8
Tempest in a teapot. et haec transibunt.
Enjoyed that. Oldest granddaughter got a minor in Latin as well as a Physics major. So I have a reference source. With that combination, she managed to break a long standing code in side notes on an original copy of Newton's Principia that had troubled William and Mary's copy for years. No brag - just fact.
My simplistic take on today - suddenly the world realized that maybe the USA isn't necessarily the smartest in AI. And panicked. I know it's probably way more complicated - but I'll take simple.
All my stogy blue chips - BRK, XOM. JNJ, were well up while the market dove down. Maybe the biggest spread I can recall for one day.
