In another thread I mentioned I am looking for value stocks. Since I haven’t found any fat pitches yet, I am letting my taxable account be in 25% cash and letting cash accumulate in my 401-K (tax-deferred account.)
Sitting on cash is giving me a bed rash! Help!
Out of desperation, I got out of WM (Waste Management) today, inspite of a 4% dividend, because, since Oct 2009, that loser has only gone up 20% or so. I bet it will take off now that I am out of it. (Did it with ADP - got impatient and got out at 40 and missed the last year’s runup).
Also added to BRK-B, no way this is worth only $85.
Graham’s words never rang truer - the best reason for formula investing is that it gives investors something to do.
i didn’t touch BRK.B not even at 65 (a mistake)…the eventual departure of buffet is a headwind and I don’t like stocks that pay zero dividends unless its GOOG…
Interesting you bring that up re: buffett. I think you have to keep in mind that Berkshire’s real strength is its underlying businesses, and not so much the investment function which can be handled just as well with the new fund managers who’ll likely manage the insurance float. Check out this link: http://gregspeicher.com/?p=2247 . My takeaway was given its negative cost of float and good managers, Berk has a big competitive advantage even without Buffett.
In my opinion Berkshire can do really well even if a tag team of qqqbee and transferpricingcfa run the firm.
Didn’t want to sidetrack the thread with discussion about BRK but - I agree with Palantir.
Apres Buffett:
Operating companies are and will be an increasingly larger pie. Buffett does nothing but take excess cash from them.
Ajit Jain will still make incredible deals.
Combs and Weschler can’t suck all that much (though going in and out of INTC was perplexing, maybe it hit their price target when it climbed 25%? If so, they are not people who buy dollar bills for 50 cents and have a larger margin of safety.)
I have to wonder what Buffett sees in debt-ridden newspapers of all things. Not from the horse and buggy aspect, but how do they plan to monetize their free online news? I might pay for WSJ online but might not for the local rag.
not disagreeing brk is an excellent operating company, but do you expect the stock to trade up when he passes? i don’t…so at these levels i will have to wait and see
…don’t underestimate buffet’s contribution by saying anybody can run it…most ppl buy that stock because of buffet…i’m not convinced the company will be the same without him
Speaking of Buffett, has anyone seen Whitney Tilson’s presentation estimating the value of BRKA at $180K per share? I went through his analysis which takes the sum of the parts (insurance, stocks, operations companies, etc) and adds them together. One small detail he missed is to subtract the liabilities associated with the insurance company.
I don’t understand how. Burlington’s trains will still run the same after Buffet…Lubrizol will keep making chemicals…Geico will continue having negative cost of float…DQ will keep making icecream…Ajit Jain will keep making great reinsurance bets…Todd and Ted will continue to generate good investment returns…Buffett is not really that important and will likely continue being less important in the future.
I think Ajit Jain is more important for dtd operations than Buffett. HE will be very hard to replace, investment managers on the other hand are more plentiful.
You could compare BRK and Buffett to Apple and Jobs. Actually, I think Jobs was significantly more important to Apple than Buffett to BRK. Apple took a small ding then moved on. I’d expect BRK to do the same - relatively speaking.
well, than they need to pay a dividend once he leaves …won’t be surprise to see that happen…
aapl is basically riding on the remains of jobs…jobs reinvented/invented smartphones…they will eventually flop as the innovation curve flattens…might take a few years…
Not true…that is why they have hired investment managers…sure B is a great investor, but there are other great investors out there who will do the same for Berkshire.
Throw in expected growth…GOOG has the more attractive PEG ratio; 1.0 vs 1.24 for BRK. GOOG could also run on auto-pilot and still print money. BRK needs to continue to make good investments. GOOG wins hands down.