Well . . . I finally broke down and bought my motel room for next weekend's "Woodstock for Capitalists," also known as the annual shareholder meeting of Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, Nebraska. Price of admission? At least one share of stock. I happen to have 80 shares, so I'm good to go. Warren Buffett is now 80 years old and has named a successor, so I figure I'd better go now while I have the chance. What is this company called Berkshire Hathaway, and why on earth would its annual shareholder meeting require a sports stadium plus over-flow seeting to handle all the attendees? Berkshire Hathaway is a holding company, which means it owns pieces and whole parts of many different companies, including Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, See's Candies, Dairy-Queen, Fruit of the Loom, and Geico. Primarily, they're a big insurance company, so they're able to take the premiums paid by their clients and invest them aggressively into stocks and companies that make anything from bricks and paint to dilly bars and men's boxer-briefs. Last time I attended, in 2009, the premiums they don't need to keep locked up in reserve represented a "float" of $57 billion. So, no, you can't really copy Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's results by simply buying the same stocks they buy. Why not? You don't have a $57 billion float, nor do you know how to calculate a buying opportunity with nearly the precision of these billionaire octogenarians.
I'll write more from Omaha. For now, see if you can download the annual letter to shareholders. Some of my favorite and most informative reading, period. http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html
No comments:
Post a Comment