Warren Buffett told investors Saturday that Berkshire Hathaway has sold its entire stakes in the four largest U.S. airlines -- American, Delta, Southwest, United -- as the pandemic upends another bet on the sector that the famed investor had shunned for years before a surprise return in 2016... An embittered Buffett said in 2007 investor letter: “If a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down” and referred to a soured bet on US Air in the 1990s.
Airlines have always been a feast-famine business, moreso than other sectors (like hotels and petroleum products) with an entertainment angle and which rely on a good economy and stable costs (that's what made me want to include petroleum products in there).
Selling airlines when they're down is probably a dick move, uniless you take seriously Elon Musk's plan to fire passengers across the Pacific and everywhere else in a rocket (I don't).
Other sectors will probably bounce back first (including amusement parks, some other resorts, some hotels) but any airline that is currently trading at a multi-year low is worth analyzing. It's cheap now, if you have a reasonable guess that it won't be in a year, it's likely that fund managers and so forth who do this professionally won't wait until then.
It's worth pointing out that the Oracle of Omaha tends to bet big on companies which are analogous to buggy-whip manufacturers.
That’s ok, he’s done pretty well following his own instincts.
Railroads may not be as sexy as airlines but you can’t haul the coal to make the power to charge electric cars with a jet.
“Other sectors will probably bounce back first (including amusement parks, some other resorts, some hotels) but any airline that is currently trading at a multi-year low is worth analyzing.”
Buying some January 2022 call options on an airline etf seems like a pretty good bet right about now. Your downside is limited and your upside could be huge.
People with money will fly private jets... Unless there's a vaccine soon (and that's not likely) people people will fly less and less as time goes by...
There's a Dow Jones Newswires story, one paragraph, "Supply Chain Issues Expected When Theme Parks Reopen - Market Talk", dated May 1. Some of the pretty nice fat gains to the amusement park stocks went back on Thu and Fri, btw. Flat today.