No. of Recommendations: 26
Shouldn’t be perplexed.
Warren warned the value of one of Berkshire’s most important investments, the Utilities, has materially declined. That’s a really big deal. And the earnings, even accounting for currency, were somewhat disappointing.
If instead of announcing his reduction in responsibility in 6 months, he announced he discovered a pill that’ll make him 10 years younger—I think the stock still would have been down on fundamentals post earnings.
Abel was chosen many years ago, we now know. He’s been running Berkshire’s owned subsidiaries for quite a while. The exact timing of the CEO thing was a surprise but the news not at all.
Fundamentals matter though. They’ll improve. Be patient, this is still a prolific cash generating machine that’ll be worth far more in coming years. We just have to do the toughest thing in investing per: Charlie Munger—just hold the g-d stick. Very few have that talent, it’s tough. This stock can stay in the crapper for a very long time. That’s been the case for 40 years. It doesn’t correlate with the general market so get used to feeling like a genius in rough markets and an idiot when risk is on. It takes a while to used to :)
