Posted on 08/18/2020 8:45:37 AM PDT by Red Badger
Warren Buffett has given up his long-held conviction against buying gold — and he’s meanwhile getting out of Goldman Sachs.
The totemic tycoon revealed in filings late last week that he has scooped up more than 20 million shares of mining giant Barrick Gold Corp. even as he unloaded nearly all of his nearly 2 million shares in Goldman Sachs.
The 89-year-old investing icon’s sudden embrace of the precious yellow metal — which has has previously derided as “useless,” saying that “anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head” at the idea of investing in it — took many on Wall Street by surprise.
But it’s what the Oracle of Omaha did with his other bank stocks that have top analysts talking. In addition to dumping Goldman, Buffett cut his position in JPMorgan Chase by more than 61 percent and sold off more than a quarter of his remaining stake in Wells Fargo.
At the same time, Buffett didn’t touch his 245 million shares in Bank of America, which he has lately beefed up in stock purchases that have left him holding roughly 12 percent of the company.
“Bank of America is a franchise that can be held for the next 100 years,” Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo told The Post. “Goldman is in the middle of a revamping from Wall Street to Main Street, and the jury on that will remain out for a while.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
That strawberry Ensure ain’t half bad :)
Creating excess liquidity was likely necessary to prevent a lock up of the financial world with the COVID 19 shutdown, but actions have consequences, even if it was unavoidable, and I sort of think it was.
I could be wrong. It is difficult to read the Oracle of Omaha.
One thing I believe may happen in November is total chaos due to “mail-in voting”. I think the election totals in the blue states are going to be fuzzy and suspect as “more votes are counted” because there is no accountability in a system where left or right organizations can mail multiple ballots to voters, pets, and dead people. Combined with ballot harvesting there will be plenty of billable hours for lawyers on both sides. This is deliberate.
If Biden wins the left and media will say it was a success. If Trump wins they will resist for another 4 years declaring the President is “illegitimate” because every vote was not counted. You can take that to the bank.
Creating excess liquidity was likely necessary to prevent a lock up of the financial world with the COVID 19 shutdown, but actions have consequences, even if it was unavoidable, and I sort of think it was.
Pure politics.
He’s looking to start the quatro-annual September Stock Market crash.
You are right about inflation. Trump is pretty much stuck and I don’t give him high marks for fiscal conservatism either when it comes to spending.
In order for Trump to pass any new spending the democrats demand he match his for theirs. In order for Trump to be re-elected he has to spend money.
This is our new normal - both parties get most of what they want with lavish spending and our children are left with the bill.
If Biden wins capital gains taxes will go up like crazy, and the lefties have it in for any of the whales that want to protect whats theirs. I’m not sure when BoA’s ex-dividend date is, but that date and their earnings date would be worth keeping an eye on if you have any banking stocks. I think it’s more notable that he invested in actual gold and not merely a gold portfolio (on paper) stock. JMHO.
and our situation is way past a human solution.
Unfortunately you may be right. The only way for people to wake up and learn is when they are faced with something causing bodily harm or impacts their pocketbook. I venture to say that not too far down the road we may be faced with some natural disasters as we are headed further into the 3600 year cyclical event causing people to rethink what they were doing. Something very similar to what triggered the ten plagues and eventually caused the exodus, which took place give or take about 1500 B.C. Ancient Chinese records show that about the same time the Chinese had vey similar problems, not unlike what they are having RIGHT NOW. In other words those were global events, with everything going crazy. So far the US has been relatively lucky avoiding many of the disasters which have struck other places and I hope it continues, but I would not count on it.
lead ?
That’s definitely one of them. ;)
Interesting, concise perspective Leaf, seems grounded in fate (the die is cast as Julius said at the Rubicon) than in free will.
If what you say is true (beyond that “Trump isn’t God”), then it would matter only by what means and when we arrive at the ultimate destination of destruction.
If things go this way, Buffett buying gold is futile as well. Like a man in very deep water with nothing nearby, trying to hold onto gold bars and stay above water... drowning is path. Does he not come to his senses and let go to get to shore and survive?
The headline makes you think he bought physical gold.
Right, the escalating $27 trillion national debt has nothing to do with it.
The national debt was just $20 trillion when Trump took ofice 4 years ago. $7 trillion in 4 years. Of course the national debt was only $5 trillion when baby Bush took office in 2000. So from $5 trillion to $27 trillion in 20 years.
Gee, that can’t be the reason for buying gold, I’m sure (said with sarcasm).
And the deficit is accelerating. If Nancy keeps the House and if Covid goes another year, the debt will be $40 trillion before 2030.
But yeah, why would anybody invest in gold? Sheesh.
As it was supposed to!.....................
Yep, that is the way it is going and I don’t see any reason for this to change any time soon. Even if the GOP retake the House and keep the Senate, they will still overspend. They will give the Rats most of what they want the way they always cave in to political pressure and media pressure.
While Buffett’s purchase of about 21 million shares of Barrick might seem like he is changing his attitude about hard gold (bars), his investment in Barrick makes considerable sense. Note that the stock symbol for Barrick is “GOLD” so when the news states that Buffett buys “gold”, the actual news is that he bought a huge quantity of a stock in a mining company with with the symbol of “GOLD”.
From Buffett’s standpoint, Barrick pays a pretty good dividend plus has increased in value. A good stock for Buffett to add to his portfolio. (Which in reality is only about 0.3% of the entire B-H portfolio).
The big deal here is that Barrick is probably going to be the miner who will develop the Pebble Mine in Alaska. Pebble is the largest undeveloped Copper, Gold, Silver (and some Rare Earths too), in the world. And unlike lots of mines around the world, there is little concern for the eventual developer that some foreign country’s dictator will take it over after development.
Northern Dynasty (NAK) has spent years proving that this is a huge deposit and they just received the FEIS (Final Environmental Impact Study) from the COE. Completely favorable and contrary to the Greenies, there are no Salmon anywhere near this proposed mine. Alaska traded forested “State” land for this bare, dirt area that the Fed’s owned. Specifically for mineral mining.
Within the next two weeks, the ROD (Record of Decision) will be filed and the Fed’s will then turn it over to Alaska for their approvals. Alaska really wants this mine. Jobs, income, development for the local tribes.
Note that Trump had the Governor of Alaska down for a chat a few weeks ago.
And that’s why Buffett bought a huge chunk of Barrick. It’s an incredible opportunity for years and years of very profitable mining. And that’s the rest of the story.
I don’t see our debt crisis stopping with our current political structure. It is depressing, but the end seems very inevitable to me.
Trump talks about “restructuring our debt” sometimes, but that will not fix the problem and it is only a band-aid for our main problem - spending.
Um, no.
Nobody reasonable would think a mega-investor taking a large position in gold would be buying trainloads of physical metal and storing it in a vault somewhere. That would be outright just silly to think that. Unless you think he just went out and bought a few hundred coins, which would be even more silly.
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