Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)
No. of Recommendations: 1
Sorry for an OT post on one of the two US Policy boards but I find it very interesting that the moment I started writing this post the S&P was up over 3.2%, a huge move, while BRK-B was up only 1.9%.
This is such a stark difference that it might be worth talking about or at least noticing it. Even more so as BRK-A at that very moment was up only 1.3%, as if either A shareholders did sell or especially B were bought (Now, a little later, that huge difference between A and B is gone). Are those big temporary differences saying something about who is buying A's and who B's? Though it's about Berkshire maybe nevertheless interesting?
No. of Recommendations: 0
Berkshire has massively outperformed the S&P YTD
No. of Recommendations: 4
I wouldn't read much into it.
Volatility has been through the roof lately for almost everything, including Berkshire.
Consider:
From a year ago till the end of last month, the average B-share daily trading range (high-low)/midpoint was 1.41%, maximum 4.20%.
Month to date, the average has been 3.61%, maximum 9.04%.
Just imagine if you knew what time each day's high and low were going to take place...
The weighing machine will be back at some point. At around $795k per share, that may not actually be good for Berkshire's price for a while, but it's how things go.
Jim
No. of Recommendations: 1
Volatility has been through the roof lately for almost everything, including Berkshire.
......
Just imagine if you knew what time each day's high and low were going to take place...
Right. Even those intraday movements are extreme lately.
I am just wondering what this extreme volatility means in the greater picture, with Berkshire one day clearly profiting from the "flight to safety", the next day when all is going up heavily kind of "neglected". As if practically every day rotation is going on. Remembering your posts, Jim, my hunch is this is in line with your observation that bear markets develop slowly, that the "buying the dips" reaction needs quite a while to disappear, that it needs time for temporary hope to be replaced by permanant frustration/depression, explaining the markets first going sideways, but with constant ups and down.
No. of Recommendations: 10
Sorry for an OT post on one of the two US Policy boards but I find it very interesting that the moment I started writing this post the S&P was up over 3.2%, a huge move, while BRK-B was up only 1.9%.
Why are you so worried about daily price movements? Price movements are mostly random in the short term. Just think if you like to continue to be an owner of BRK for the next 10 years or not.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Remembering your posts, Jim, my hunch is this is in line with your observation that bear markets develop slowly, that the "buying the dips" reaction needs quite a while to disappear, that it needs time for temporary hope to be replaced by permanant frustration/depression, explaining the markets first going sideways, but with constant ups and down.
A good rule of thumb is that the stock market exists to frustrate the maximum number of people for the maximum amount of time.
I am waiting for Jim's 99-day rule to kick in. I think he posted on METAR about it. What is it now, day 45-50?
No. of Recommendations: 6
Why are you so worried about daily price movements?
Fair question, so let me be honest now: I am not worried about that. I found it interesting, yes, but I mainly used my post as a vehicle, trying to transport a message. That I labeled a post about Berkshire as "OT" and wrote about "one of two US policy boards" was sarcasm, borne out of desperation about what's happening here since, when, 1 week? 2 weeks? More? That my beloved Berkshire board degenerates more and more into a politics board, with posters I very much appreciate seemingly unable to stop feeling provoced to continue this politics BS.
I can't believe that it is me who is writing this, as actually I am the one who has a problem with the repeated calls to have this board narrowed down to a "all things CLOSELY related to Berkshire only" board. I am the one who love to see my favourite posters discuss broader themes --- but what's going on here is simply too much for me to stand.
So, after admitted to having "cheated", that this was the real motivation behind my "OT" post about Berkshire, to kind of wake people up to what's going on here, I will give up. The attraction of politics is too strong. So I will rather continue to harmlessly discuss (and learn by it) Hindu mythology with our Knight, and otherwise will try to shut my mouth.
To answer the rest of your question:
Just think if you like to continue to be an owner of BRK for the next 10 years or not.
Yes, but less so at the moment. I wrote about the very special tax situation I am in, with nearly half of my Berkshire shares being bought before 2009 and therefore in Germany where I still live so-called "Altaktien" which are exempt from capital gains tax. As I am thinking more and more about leaving Germany the current relatively high price of Berkshire is a perfect opportunity to harvest the immense profits from them tax-free, as in any country I might move (apart from Monaco) they would be taxed. Therefore since 1-2 months I am selling those, after the opening today having sold nearly the rest of them --- and thereby reduced my Berkshire holdings from since many years always over 60% of net assets to now around 40%.
Yes, I do intend to hold the ones I have now for the next 10 years and to even eventually buy back the ones I sold --- IF the price comes down and IF I am convinced for me as foreigner the political/jurisdiction situation in the US won't create blocks for me to freely move that investment out of the US again should I wish to do so. But currently I am very satisfied with having heavily reduced my Berkshire holdings. The stock price made it easy.
No. of Recommendations: 13
That my beloved Berkshire board degenerates more and more into a politics board, with posters I very much appreciate seemingly unable to stop feeling provoced to continue this politics BS.Two years ago, a Canadian writer named Cory Doctorow coined the phrase "enshittification" to describe the decay of online platforms. The word immediately set the Internet ablaze, as it captured the growing malaise regarding how almost everything about the web seemed to be getting worse.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/as-interne...Like everything in the Internet, the “ enshitifiaction” of this board was inevitable.
No. of Recommendations: 6
Like everything in the Internet, the “ enshitifiaction” of this board was inevitable.
That sounds a lot like my page two rule. The comments section of any news article is often worth looking at, but page two and below will likely be "enshittified" beyond relevance. Heck, page three and beyond is likely to have Nazi references.
It has been interesting to see what people think. I hope the political discussion does not go one forever, but I have to say, my questions and concerns about BRK are not so much related to BRK management, Ted and Todd purchases, buybacks, holding periods, allocation, or any of the other factors I used to ruminate about. My main concerns are political.
I hope that does not go one forever either.
