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- Manlobbi
Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) ❤
No. of Recommendations: 4
Years ago when Buffett used to be on CNBC more regularly (around the annual meeting and annual report) he would often say 'we don't want to go over 10%...when we sell we are trying to stay below that threshold for companies who actively repurchase'- The airlines were aggressive repurchasers at that time. I remember when Buffett went over 10% in Delta, because he liked that the CEO thought the stock was cheap and borrowed money to repurchase. He went over 10% and admitted later that it was a mistake to go over. To me this is/was weird at the time, because, hey, he's Warren Buffett, to make a mistake like that seemed strange, when he was on record before that saying he prefers not to go over 10%.
We have had various quick buys and sells recently. TSM/MKL/HPQ/PARA- I don't know if all of these were his.
The TSM one was strange- his reasoning was because of the geopolitics which was well known before he bought.
Is it possible that Buffet may be showing a bit of age here, maybe a little impulsive, are there safeguards in place at headquarters to stop him in his tracks should he want to buy something.
Todd: "hey Warren, why did you buy MKL?, It's really kind of small and can't move the needle...CB is much better and can get more money into it"
Warren: "good idea, I'll sell it and go into CB"
I wonder how hard it is to shut him down while he is alive, but making mistakes...
No. of Recommendations: 2
Todd: "hey Warren, why did you buy MKL?, It's really kind of small and can't move the needle...CB is much better and can get more money into it"It looks like MKL never even made it into Berkshire's top 20 holdings:
https://www.dataroma.com/m/hist/p_hist.php?f=BRK. So, I suspect Ted or Todd bought it.
No. of Recommendations: 18
Seems a bit harsh in some ways...
For example, "The TSM one was strange- his reasoning was because of the geopolitics which was well known before he bought. "
I think there isn't much doubt that the geopolitical situation got a lot worse during the recent period of ownership. The balance of probabilities seems to have shifted a lot. I rather wonder whether Charlie would have bought BABA units at Daily Journal now...despite his oddly Panglossian view of Chinese "leadership", I think most people appreciate that things have changed.
TSM/MKL/HPQ/PARA- I don't know if all of these were his.
Were any of them his? I always assumed not. $2-3bn isn't really his style--that's the rule of thumb that he himself stated.
Here's the big test that matters: has any position permanently lost >1% of the overall portfolio? Not yet. Not since I was born, anyway. So far, his ability to match position sizing to the apparent margin of safety has worked out. Investing at scale isn't about picking big winners, it's about avoiding big losers.
Thought of that way, the intersection of geopolitical deterioration, Apple's fraction of total portfolio, and recent Apple position trimming seems to make some sense to me. I'm really happy about it, and that has nothing to do with the current valuation levels of Apple's stock. I think that geopolitical exposure was not only the biggest risk at Apple, but that the geopolitical risk embedded within Berkshire's Apple position was (and so far remains) the biggest single risk in a Berkshire share. Berkshire would survive a catastrophic loss from Apple, but it would hurt.
Jim
No. of Recommendations: 1
Have you seen the main Chinese large cap tech stocks, They've been on quite a run recently. Tencent, JD and BABA in particular.
No. of Recommendations: 3
TSM/MKL/HPQ/PARA- I don't know if all of these were his.
Were any of them his? I always assumed not. $2-3bn isn't really his style--that's the rule of thumb that he himself stated.
Of that list, TSM, HPQ and PARA were Warren's positions. We don't know about Markel but it sounded like Gaynor had talked to someone at Berkshire and knew of the reason they sold but wasn't going to share it. Gaynor did not say it was Buffett that had bought some MKL, and the position was small and short-lived, so I assume it was Ted or Todd.
