Berkshire Hathaway Loads Up On Financial Stocks

Discussion in 'Stocks' started by ASusilovic, Aug 16, 2007.

  1. Yes and No. The builder company that Buffet bought is in manufactured housing, which is counter cycle to the ordinary builders. So when the other home builders peaked, the manufactured home builder bottomed. It is as simple as that.
     
    #11     Aug 16, 2007
  2. you mean Buffett does not have a new "trophy wife" every year that ends up in divorce court to fatten up lawyers, and he has not done a facelift and penile implant? Yes he is very silly and strange man!
     
    #12     Aug 17, 2007
  3. And apart from that, he despises dishonesty in business and greedy managers and so far - knock on wood - has never been involved in anything fish like options scandals, cooked up balance sheets or insider transactions. Oh, and he donates most of his money to charity to help the poor get better education. Yea, what a "moron" that old geezer is...

    I wish we had more business leaders of his character IMO
     
    #13     Aug 17, 2007

  4. Look at the chart of BRK.A and BRK.B what has this stock done for anyone lately? Whats the beauty in those white elephants sitting on the wall? I am amazed.
     
    #14     Aug 18, 2007
  5. LOL here we go!!!!! As predicted.
     
    #15     Aug 18, 2007
  6. People look at whether the stocks he buys go up. But the way he truly makes his money is from selling calls. Imagine selling premium with 100 mil shares. While the market is heading down, he's cashing in on premiums, then the stocks go right back to where he bought them. He only buys companies that will whether the storms and come out unscathed.
     
    #16     Aug 18, 2007
  7. I have never heard that Buffet sold calls on any of his underlying stocks. However, I have read

    - he sold "portfolio insurance" covering major world indices worth ~$14bn to some pension fund or equally large institution, backed by the Berkshire Hathaway balance sheet. As far as I am concerned, that is selling a put option.
    - he borrowed out USG stock (I believe he owns 15% of the company) to some hedge fund so they could short the stock en masse. They paid him some 4% annualized for borrowing out the stock, then covered at a loss and gave it back to Buffet. He mentioned in some interview that he is always willing to borrow out any of his holdings to short sellers, at the right price.
     
    #17     Aug 18, 2007

  8. Warren Buffet is a trader. He trades Options just like anyone else would have. You assume he just buys stocks and sits on them for years? That is not what he does. His revenues comes from many sources and since the companies purchased are value oriented those stocks usually donot fail and the option strategies are highly successful.
     
    #18     Aug 19, 2007
  9. i know he has done convertibles in the past. i think it was saloman bros, or maybe goldman. if i remember, he got a 9% divvy with option to convert - he had a good margin of error on the divvy and underlying collateral, and the upside of the conversion - sweet trade! Lowenstein wrote a very good book on buffet, it is an excellent read. buffet & munger have huevos, they step in and make big bets, they are disciplined and they are consistent - they are pretty frugal too and they wont hold & hope ala H&R Block.

    years ago, i read that buffet had compound gains of 24% annually. power of coumpound interest and tax efficiency of holding LT.
     
    #19     Aug 19, 2007
  10. Has anyone done a valuation on BRK.A and BRK.B ? What is the intrinsic value and is this stock price discounted ? I know there is a moat there, a wide and deep moat.

    Please don't cut and paste from Morningstar website, I would be ashamed at myself for not posting it.
     
    #20     Aug 19, 2007