Posted on 08/30/2024 8:28:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
NEW YORK — There’s a new member of the $1 trillion company club in the U.S. — and for the first time, it isn’t a technology company.
On Tuesday morning, shares of Berkshire Hathaway briefly rose high enough to give the conglomerate holding company a market value of $1 trillion. Topping the list of the most valuable companies are Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft, which all are worth more than $3 trillion. Other companies trading above $1 trillion include Alphabet, Amazon and Meta.
Among those companies, Microsoft, which was founded in 1975, is the oldest. Berkshire Hathaway, meanwhile, was founded in 1839 as a textile manufacturing company. Its current CEO, Warren Buffett, took a majority stake in the company in 1965.
At the start of the year, Buffett, who will turn 94 on Friday, warned in his annual letter to investors that more skyrocketing performances are likely a thing of the past.
“Berkshire should do a bit better than the average American corporation and, more important, should also operate with materially less risk of permanent loss of capital,” he wrote. “Anything beyond ‘slightly better,’ though, is wishful thinking.”
In the letter, he also said, “we have no possibility of eye-popping performance.”
However, since his Feb. 24 letter was published, shares of the company are up more than 13%, and year-to-date they’re up a whopping 28%.
In recent months, Berkshire Hathaway has been in selling mode. It cut its stake in Apple by 50% last quarter. Then on Tuesday, the company disclosed it had sold nearly 25 million shares of Bank of America worth close to $1 billion.
But the company has also made some new purchases. It recently acquired stakes in cosmetics store chain Ulta Beauty and aircraft parts maker Heico.
Berkshire Hathaway continues to maintain many of its top holdings, including a 21.3% stake in American Express, a 9.3% stake in Coca-Cola and a 6.5% stake in Chevron, as of June 30. It also owns Geico, BNSF Railway and Dairy Queen, among several other companies.
Much of his wealth was made buying politicians to create favourable policies.
He is the reason for the shutdown of Keystone, because it affected the profitability of his railway.
faced with the headwinds of such immense size, and his and Charlie Munger's mortality, what are the odds Berkshire can continue returns achieved during the last 50 years?
His final act should be to liquidate everything and return the money to shareholders.
A FB frenemy hates rich “greedy” CEOs, but loves WB. Credits the latter for his successful retirement strategy.
n.b., Ted Weschler, one of Buffett’s deputies, traded his own $70,000 IRA contributions into $264 million, so I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss the investment savvy of the next generation of Berkshire leadership.
https://blog.umd.edu/davidkass/2021/08/27/how-ted-weschler-turned-70000-into-264-million-in-a-retirement-account/
“Much of his wealth was made buying politicians to create favourable policies.”
Which politicians and which favorable policies, and who else did those policies help?
An interesting article, and no doubt Wechsler is a smart investor. But that’s not the problem: Buffett has said all along that its “easy” to get big gains on a small amount of money, but having big gains on $1 Trillion will simply be impossible.
the law of large numbers
bkmk
“$1 Trillion will simply be impossible.”
The larger your investment pot, the lower your percentage gain needs to be. Warren Buffet has helped hundreds of thousands of people become millionaires. I very grateful for what he’s done for me.
Fair enough. As BRK (B) shareholder, though, my hope isn’t for long-term 20% annual returns. Rather, the idea is that Berkshire might *slightly* outperform the S&P 500’s annualized returns by perhaps 25 to 100 basis points over the long-term.
Buffett is wisely tempering people’s expectations. Its part of his forthright character, which is also a reason he is so successful.
Even though he has warned people about future expectations, despite that, I would still rather have my money in Berkshire vs. treasuries or a simple S&P tracking fund.
who else did those policies help?
Them selves it’s why they do what they do it’s another reason the swamp hates Trump he didn’t.
BH makes money by destroying businesses. They buy shorts and depress stock rates, in addition to holding some company stocks for slow growth. BH will use proxies to sabotage a company’s rep so they can short the company (or buy low). They have no loyalty to the companies they buy; they will destroy a company and its revenues if it will make them more money. I’d soon praise a socialist (and I’d never do that) before I’d praise vultures like BH.
BRK is a good long term growth position to have as a chunk of a portfolio. No dividends just growth and volatility.
Morningstar fair market price is only $427 vs the current price ~470 but then Morningstar has continued to have to increase its fair market estimates for BRK for years and years.
That’s how billionaires operate. They have the government create policies that favour them.
I’ve already mentioned Keystone. The cancelling of Keystone just happened to favour his railroad.
His buying obama and Biden to block the Keystone pipeline caused at least 70,000 people to lose their jobs in the US and Canada. It also raised the price of oil as his trains charge a lot more then a pipeline would to transport the oil.
He’s created millions of jobs and thousands of millionaires.
I’d have to see the actual evidence regarding Keystone but even if true it’s minimal compared to all the good he has done.
Hating success is the new American sport, it’s disgusting and Leftist.
PolitiFact
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/nov/18/...
No evidence Keystone pipeline was canceled for Warren Buffett’s …
WEBOct 27, 2021 — Our ruling. A Facebook post claims the Keystone Pipeline was blocked by Obama to benefit Buffett. That’s incorrect. The Keystone XL Pipeline has been blocked multiple
“The world is driven by envy, not greed.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.