If someone appears to be repeatedly personal, lean towards patience as they might not mean offense. If you are sure, however, then do not deepen the problem by being negative; instead, simply place them on ignore by clicking the unhappy yellow face to the right of their name.
- Manlobbi
Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) ❤
No. of Recommendations: 0
interesting times .
No. of Recommendations: 0
A question for the deep critical thinkers not the usual suspects. The question of the day is, IF brk had declared a 1 % dividend would the stock have held 415- 420, as a result of increased demand from new buyers ? Thank you.
No. of Recommendations: 7
"A question for the deep critical thinkers not the usual suspects. The question of the day is, IF brk had declared a 1 % dividend would the stock have held 415- 420, as a result of increased demand from new buyers ? Thank you."
I'll take a shot at it.... Whatever bounce the stock would get from an announcement would likely dissipate fairly quickly. With that said, I do think there is a sweet spot in there for when this company converts into a dividend stock. It's obviously not a new question and Warren has talked about it many times. He has said that it's likely Berkshire will pay a dividend eventually but that he A) thinks we can achieve more growth through other capital deployment and B) doesn't want to burden shareholders with tax consequences. I agree with him and and so do the majority of shareholders.
Now regarding that "sweet spot" I think it comes at a time where he (or Greg) feel the company is fully valued and there aren't many long term big opportunities. As a conglomerate Berkshire perpetually sells at a discount. Even after this latest runup. It's just that we're so used to it being stodgy with price growth that it feels like it's gotten expensive but compared to the rest of the market it most definitely is not. I know you won't like this but I trust management to do what's right regarding a dividend policy. I've owned the stock since 2001 and it's served me well. I know they put shareholders first so why would I doubt their ability to make a decision on such an important thing?
No. of Recommendations: 30
Like many here, I don't particularly care what the share price does as long it is in a zone of reasonableness so that neither buyers not sellers get a bad deal - the exact same sentiment WEB has expressed many times. To paraphrase Ben Graham, I suppose I simply want more Berkshire weighers, not more voters.
As has been discussed extensively by others, a dividend is not generally an economically correct decision, especially at a firm with a long track record of owner-oriented capital discipline. I therefore see Meta's dividend announcement and the accompanying reaction as a counter-example: "We're going to stop wasting a fraction of your money. Isn't that great?". Just not a problem we have.
That being said, I agree with DTB that the last several years have been mediocre with respect to deployment of the cash pile (Apple excepted) and that, given the silence on T&T and other comments in this year's letter, do not look especially bright in prospect. Also, Harvey, I agree with you that WEB's buyback resistance/reluctance was/is irrational and conceivably still could be limiting the size of the buybacks (with an acknowledgement that there are legal and perhaps technical limits that could be in-play). If there were a shareholder vote on buying back more stock sub-IV, I certainly would vote yes.
Best,
Levendis
(first post by a 20+ year lurker!)
No. of Recommendations: 0
" Also, Harvey, I agree with you that WEB's buyback resistance/reluctance was/is irrational and conceivably still could be limiting the size of the buybacks (with an acknowledgement that there are legal and perhaps technical limits that could be in-play). If there were a shareholder vote on buying back more stock sub-IV, I certainly would vote yes.
Best,
Levendis
(first post by a 20+ year lurker!)" Good morning, WOW, you have been reading my rude, obnoxious, uninformed posts for 20 plus years and never felt compelled to take me out to the woodshed for a spanking? Very impressive patience, my brkville brother. No one doubts Buffett's heart has always been in the right place, period. However, being anal with respect to tax avoidance and being flat out wrong about his refusal to authorize a buyback, at material discounts to IV, in the 2006 donation letter, has cost the Foundations tens of billions of proceeds from his stock sales, imo. Brk should have acquired the, right of first refusal, on all Gates Foundation sales , and should have been opportunistically buying half those shares , or more, for the past 15 years. As you well know, I'm not back seat driving, I posted that in 2007 and many times thereafter. Also, there is no excuse for Buffett to refuse to disclose how much T and T have lagged the SPY and imo, Buffett only agreed to the buybacks because that was the only way to come close to his own self imposed bogey, spy. BTW,If I were Buffett I would not buyback one share of brkb at these levels for several reasons. I sold all my STEW in all accounts but I'm still long brkb in taxable accounts about 20 percent , so no point in making the case against my own book. For kids and grandkids living in Cali, talking LT cap gains is truly painful unless you love Newsom and team Biden. Most more often bud, you brought back fond memories, take care, HC.
No. of Recommendations: 0
" I've owned the stock since 2001 and it's served me well. I know they put shareholders first so why would I doubt their ability to make a decision on such an important thing?" Good morning, I guess I already answered the question in my previous posts. How did you like the way the financial press responded to the MSFT dividend policy in 2004? An admission by MSFT that its growth days were over ? I had 3000 shares of MSFT back then, and had them called away soon after in early 2005. With dividends reinvested would that be 100 million by now? Bad sale I guess. Take care and best of luck.
No. of Recommendations: 10
(first post by a 20+ year lurker!)
Fantastic!
I only lurked for a few years, then my verbosity got the better of me.
Let's hope it's not too long till your next comments : )
Jim
No. of Recommendations: 9
How did you like the way the financial press responded to the MSFT dividend policy in 2004? An admission by MSFT that its growth days were over ?
I'm not sure how the press reacted, but I sure know how the market reacted. Yes, it was perhaps taken as a signal that their growth days were over. It certainly wasn't taken as a signal to rerate the stock upwards.
They underperformed the average S&P 500 firm by a rather amazing 6.91%/year in the subsequent decade. Total return up 30% versus average firm 149%.
That's despite the underlying business doing very well in the next decade.
Sales per share rose 13%/year, cash flow per share grew 10.5%/year, EPS grew 11.0%/year, but stock total return (including that famous dividend!) was 2.61%/year.
Ending P/E was about 9.2
Interestingly, those ten year growth rates are almost the same in the ten years ending now, average of the three same figures only 0.3% better. But it's trading at about 37 times recent earnings.
Jim
No. of Recommendations: 0
" I'm not sure how the press reacted," read the stories I shared its funny bud.
No. of Recommendations: 3
“ That's despite the underlying business doing very well in the next decade.“ keep in mind Brk is very unique when it comes to the net net effect of buybacks. Brk buybacks actually reduce the issued and outstanding unlike MSFT etc which issues bazillions in options which reduces the positive effect of the buybacks.
No. of Recommendations: 0
“ Apple (AAPL) has reportedly canceled work on its electric vehicle initiative - Project Titan - and shifted some of the employees to work on generative artificial intelligence. It comes amid rising costs and competition that has worried many automakers, as detailed in Wall Street Breakfast: Winning The Race. Apple had spent billions of dollars on Project Titan, something that CEO Tim Cook once called "the Mother of all AI projects." The iCar was initially rumored to be fully autonomous, but eventually downshifted dramatically to Level 2+ from Level 4, which SA analyst Arne Verheyde said was a massive setback given the "already highly saturated market." I wonder how Buffett feels about this?
