Actually I wasn't kidding when I said he read the AAPL thread. I read that thread and it had some very good analysis and discussions on why one should long AAPL. Turned out they were all correct. It showed we have some very good traders among us.
Maybe he knew he was going to buy it. He says he started buying businesses because he was just too big to buy stocks without driving the price up before he could get his full load on.
he gets the best information possible and has all the right relationships with govt and the federal reserve. I am sure he had inform the Apple parts suppliers and retail sales and everything else imaginable. He probably knows when the fed will raise interest rates. and when he does something the fed wants him to do and loses money... they connect with a someone who will give him billions of dollars in a fake options trade. That is not to say he was not good at what he did to get himself into the position he is today. But, when the FED and Obama and and everybody else with billions is your friend. You are going to make money.
Andrea Farzzini of AQR/ Yale, wrote a paper a few years ago on Buffett's performance IE 0.76 alpha, high returns at a relatively low volatility and the conclusion of AQR's analysis was his superior stock selection.
1956 return to Omaha '100 percent the right decision' for Warren Buffett http://www.omaha.com/news/return-to...cle_ba537660-b065-5bb8-8f3b-aa90d3aacde2.html
Buffett's 3 rules to success in the markets 1) don't be in the prediction game 2) Don't be swayed by the market, make up your own mind 3) it's ok to be on the sidelines from book "Warren Buffett's Ground Rules" by Jeremy Miller