Warren Buffetthe successful American businessman who recently lamented not knowing where to invest his money, revealed that he had spent tens of billions of dollars on the stock markets since the beginning of the year and also mocked wall street.
This 91-year-old billionaire answered questions from Berkshire Hathaway shareholders for more than five hours on Saturday along with his right arm charlie munger98, during the annual general meeting of the business conglomerate that was held for the first time since 2019 in person in Omaha, Nebraska (center).
Although the markets have been faltering since the beginning of the year, berkshire he identified business opportunities and bought more than 51,000 million dollars in shares between last January and March.
The participation of the conglomerate in Chevron It went from 4,500 million dollars at the end of 2021 to 26,000 million towards the end of March, with which the US oil company is now part of its four largest investment bets, along with American Expressthe technological Manzana Y Bank of America. The company also acquired 14% of the Western Petroleum.
In addition, since the beginning of the year, it bought 11% of the manufacturer of computers and printers hp and increased its participation in the video game publisher by 9.5% Activisionabout to be acquired by the giant Microsoft.
berkshire it also plans to buy the Alleghany insurance company for $11.6 billion.
As a result of the strategy, the war chest of cash-funds accumulated for particular purposes or times-of berkshirewhich also sold $10 billion of shares in the first quarter, fell from $147 million to $106 billion in the same period.
But investors need not worry, he said. Buffet: Berkshire “will always have a lot of cash” immediately available to protect itself in the event of economic turmoil.
Bitcoin “produces nothing”
Warren Buffet took advantage of the moment he shared with Greg Abel, his presumed successor, and Ajit Jain, the group’s vice president of insurance operations, to poke fun at the stockbrokers of wall street where he estimates that “they make much more money when people bet than when they invest.”
What berkshire was able to buy 14% of Occidental Petroleum in two weeks, for example, shows that most “of the big companies in the United States have turned into poker chips.”
As for bitcoin, buffett he maintained: “I don’t know if in five or ten years it will be worth more or less than today. But what I am sure of is that it doesn’t produce anything.”
your acolyte charlie munger he also mocked bitcoin, financial advisors, as well as Robinhood, the free trading app that allows you to buy cryptocurrencies and invest in wall street. He also did not rule out a shareholder proposal to separate the roles of Berkshire’s chairman and CEO.
“It’s as if Odysseus came back from his victory in the Trojan War (…) and a stranger told him ‘I don’t like the way you held your spear when you won this battle,'” he sarcastically exemplified.
The proposal was rejected by the shareholders, as well as several resolutions that asked the conglomerate to provide more information on climate change or social diversity.
Although the question of his succession is increasingly raised due to his advancing age, neither Buffett nor Munger gave any indication of a possible retirement.
berkshire saw its net profit fall 53% in the first quarter, to $5.5 billion.
The operating profits of the companies owned by the conglomerate, which range from insurance companies to trains, energy and frozen desserts, remained together practically at the same level: 7,040 million dollars.
But the value of the corporation’s investments in the markets, which can be highly volatile from quarter to quarter, has plummeted since the start of the year, leading to a notional loss of $1.58 billion.
But Berkshire’s share value held up, up 7% since the start of the year, when the S&P 500 index, which represents Wall Street’s 500 largest companies, lost more than 13%.
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