Down goes the Dow

Warren Buffet drops the bomb at his big conference just now, intends to retire at end of the year.

Also makes a statement highly critical of taffif policies.

207 years ago!

"There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual can believe them." - Orwell

meh

the Republicans are sticking together very tightly right now...I'm not worried at all about a rump faction throwing a spanner into the works.

Great call (again) from Goldman a year ago, to buy utilities.

I like the idea of owning utes. They're around 5% of my portfolio. Should do better than most stocks in a recession, or in high volatility, and you have the AI energy demand story in the background. And of course you get the high dividend.

I suppose the worry is that trump won't let them increase prices, in an effort to hold down inflation.

1 year:

Utils: +19.5%

SP500: +11.6%

Warren Buffet took over Berkshire Hathaway in 1965. Since that time it is up nearly 700 times more than the S & P.

Yes. Demonstrates the strength of good leadership.

Let's just leave it there.

I read that from an article on Yahoo finance and am wondering how it can be up more than 700 times than S & P.

Not digging too deep into the whole story, but he was traditionally a value investor, buying up beaten down companies, turning them around. Then in later years, took some big bets on the likes of Apple, that obviously didn't do so badly, either.

Interesting remarks recently regarding tarrifs and current trade policies.

That mutiple doesn't sound right, at all.

Ran a stock chart comparison and it only goes back to 1985 for A shares, and was only at a mutiple of 18 times that of the SNP 500 for that duration.

Checked wikipedia and they confirm that the numbers seem skewed, based on their statement:

"The company is often compared to an investment fund; between 1965, when Buffett gained control of the company, and 2023, the company's shareholder returns amounted to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.8% compared to a 10.2% CAGR for the S&P 500."

Have to wonder if they are counting dividends in the SP500 figure. That would change the numbers.

But regardless, he's a business immortal.

One of my favorite Buffett stories is sort of a neg. Not sure if it's true.

Bill Gates at one point becamethe richest man in the world, and becomes friends with the greatest investor in the world, Warren Buffett.

Naturally at some point, Gates asks his friend Warren what should Gates do with his $billions of MSFT shares.

Buffett, being a cautious man, said 'you have to diversify - you can't have so much of your wealth tied up in one stock.'

So Gates sells, pays billions in cap gains, puts together a more diversified portfolio.

Of course we now know the result...by taking Buffett's advice, Gates missed out in billions of missed appreciation of MSFT stock. Gates would have been far better off in terms of raw wealth by staying with the MSFT shares and not diversifying.

So I ask my clients...did Buffett give Gates bad advice? Did Gates make a mistake by taking it?

Good one.

Over the years, I heard numerous Microsoft employee stock option gone wrong stories. Seriously, just about every way it could backfire, I heard of some that fell prey to it.

But Buffet is quite a character. I hear that he's going to stay on as Chairman and Abel to become CEO. A changing of the guard, somewhat.

Google/Alphabet news today about rumor via Bloomberg and possible Apple AI search feature addition, really delivering a blow to Alphabet.

Good story. Buffet said to diversify but if I am not mistaken I believe he had about half of Berkshire in AAPL.

That was in public company holdings, if I am not mistaken.

Rumor has it Bill Gates was diversifying on Epstein Island, Melinda found out.

Interesting story on John Hussman’s father:

So Hussman is anti-Trump and encouraging others to follow suit.

Good for him.

Im having trouble squaring that with Igy’s views. Have I misled myself believing that Igy voted for Trump 45 and 47? If I got that wrong, i probably owe somebody an apology for my wrong-headed thoughts.

Believing that politicians in this country largely serve themselves, are corrupt at the core, seek power over service, should be a universal belief. I have long said we get the lack of leadership we deserve. American society is sick physically and morally.