Would Buffett Consider Google a Great Investment?

Some recent fussing over Google (GOOG) has followed from an unlikely source—the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) annual meeting. During a Sunday press conference, Charlie Munger quipped that “Google has a huge new moat. In fact I’ve probably never seen such a wide moat.”

Unfortunately, Charlie’s brevity and the reporters’ lack of curiosity leave the reader to surmise what he really means. Warren Buffett kindly filled a bit of the gap when he added that Google’s search-linked advertising is “incredible.”

At a basic level, their observations are hard to dispute. Any time a brand name enters our common lexicon, one can assume that their product has attained sufficient “share of mind” to command pricing power. Even the most ardent Yahoo-er (YHOO) would not be so uncouth as to “yahoo” the web for an answer.

As if seeking confirmation, many leaped to conclude that Buffett and Munger now find Google a great investment.
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Bidders aiming for chance to eat with Warren Buffett

By: Will Reisman

05/29/09 8:00 PM PDT

Bidding for a lunch: An annual auction to sit down with powerful investor Warren Buffett starts next month, with proceeds from the event benefitting the Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. (AP File Photo)

SAN FRANCISCO — He’s worth nearly $37 billion, is responsible for some of the most influential investing methods in the world and commands an almost messianic following, but deep down Warren Buffett is still a kid at heart.

That description comes from a Mohnish Pabrai, a Southern California investor who had the chance to grab lunch with Buffett last year — an opportunity that will soon be extended to someone else. An annual auction to sit down with the powerful investor starts next month, with proceeds from the event benefitting the Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco.

Along with his friend, Guy Spier, Pabrai put up $650,000 to meet his idol as part of the charity, which has raised $4.3 million for Glide, a local nonprofit organization that serves low-income residents. Having put up the highest bid for the event in 2007, Pabrai, his wife, two daughters, and Speir sat down with Buffett for a lunch in New York City last June.

“My two daughters ordered hamburgers, and Buffett told them that anything they left on their plate, he would eat,” said Pabrai, who is based out of Orange County. “It was amazing that, even at 78, he still is very childlike and innocent, yet also an absolutely brilliant man.”

Pabrai said he talked with Buffett for three hours during their lunch together, with topics ranging from managing philanthropy foundations to how much one should leave for a tip after dinner.

“I had someone videotape the lunch for me,” said Pabrai. “And I watched it later and realized we talked about 54 different subjects.”

Buffett agreed to do the charity with Glide 10 years ago, and the auction quickly became so popular that it moved to eBay in 2003.

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Volkswagen Turns to Warren Buffett's Electric Car Company In Scramble For Batteries

By: Alex Crippen
Executive Producer

Fortune Magazine

Volkswagen says it has signed a "memorandum of understanding" with Chinese carmaker BYD to explore "options for partnership in the area of hybrids and electric vehicles powered by lithium batteries."

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought a 10 percent stake in BYD last fall, and Buffett has been personally promoting the company's efforts. (See last month's WBW post Fortune Puts Warren Buffett In "Car of the Future" Driver's Seat.")

A Volkswagen executive is quoted in a company statement as saying, "Volkswagen will consistently expand its successful ‘BlueMotionTechnologies’. Hybrids and electric vehicles will play an increasingly important role, of course. Particularly for the Chinese market, potential partners such as BYD could support us in quickly expanding our activities."

Dow Jones notes that many of the world's biggest automakers are scrambling to "secure supplies of batteries for alternative vehicles" and reports that BYD is also talking to Ford Motor [F 5.34 -0.06 (-1.11%) ] about "similar arrangements."

"One major obstacle in the race is that there's not enough capacity in the industry to produce lithium-ion batteries -- a factor that is pushing auto makers like Volkswagen to team up with multiple lithium-ion battery suppliers. Aside from BYD, Volkswagen already has signed letters of intent with Japan's Sanyo Electric Co. and Toshiba Corp., another Japanese battery producer."

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Housing Market is near bottom says Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett and Alan Greenspan say the housing market is near bottom.

Peppy real estate agents and gloomy stock-market traders alike eagerly embrace that supposition. Wall Street is so hungry for good news that stocks rallied at the barest hint of upbeat indicators several times this month.

Source: St Francisco Chronicle

Volkswagen adds China's BYD as electric car ally

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Volkswagen (VOWG.DE) plans to explore the options for a partnership with China's BYD Co (1211.HK) in the area of hybrids and electric vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries, Europe's largest carmaker said on Monday.

Volkswagen is the first major industrial partner for BYD, a battery specialist and the fledgling maker of the F6DM plug-in hybrid that sold a 10 percent stake to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N) in September for $230 million.

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3 Stocks on Buffett's Wish List?

Does the Oracle of Omaha want these stocks?

"A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread."
-- Warren Buffett, Oct. 16, 2008
It was a tough year for the world's richest man -- according to data from Forbes, Warren Buffett's net worth declined in value by a staggering $25 billion in 2008.

So let's not be too hard on ourselves if we, too, owned a few stocks that lost substantial portions of their value last year. Instead, let's pay close attention to what masters like Buffett are doing on the heels of such a dismal market year.

Let's cut to the chase
Buffett has been using the $44 billion cash hoard he had at the end of 2007 to buy stocks ... in the midst of an economic crisis.

Sure, Buffett may be insane, but as the world's richest man, his record speaks for itself. So when he wrote in that October New York Times editorial that he's buying now because it is likely that "the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up," Fools would do well to take heed.

These opportunities
What opportunities might The Oracle see today? According to Berkshire Hathaway's most recent 10-K filing, he's interested in buying companies at a fair price that have:

1. At least $75 million of pre-tax earnings.
2. Consistent earnings power.
3. Good returns on equity with limited or no debt.
4. Management in place.
5. Simple, non-techno-mumbo-jumbo business.

These criteria are designed to ensure that the stocks on Buffett's watch list are large, well run, understandable, and posses durable moats -- sustainable competitive advantages that allow a company to maintain high levels of profitability and growth over long periods of time. Those are the rare companies that you want to buy when they're cheap, then hold for a long time as they continue to grow and prosper.

To try to identify the stocks that may be populating Buffett's wish list, I built a screen based on these traits using Capital IQ, an institutional software database. My research turned up 71 stocks. Confirming that we're on the right track, several of the companies that popped up -- Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) are two standouts -- are already owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

Here are three more candidates:

Company	7-Year Annual Earnings Growth	Return on Equity	CEO Tenure	Industry	Analyst Coverage
Medtronic (NYSE: MDT)	19%	51%	2 Years	Healthcare Equipment	30
Petrobras (NYSE: PBR)	21%	24%	4 Years	Integrated Oil & Gas	19
Southern Copper (NYSE: PCU)	59%	25%	5 Years	Metals & Mining	16

Data from Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

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Berkshire, basically, every month generates cash says Warren Buffett

Berkshire, basically, every month generates cash – Warren Buffett SOURCE: Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Berkshire's cash erodes

Berkshire Hathaway pulls back on making large stock purchases after its cash hoard is slashed.

BY ERIK HOLM

Bloomberg News

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, the largest shareholder in Kraft Foods and Coca-Cola Co., is scaling back stock purchases after the firm's cash holdings fell to their lowest in more than five years.

Berkshire is spending less as the firm comes closer to the $10 billion that Buffett says is the minimum he wants on hand to protect against calamity. The cash hoard, which had been at $47.1 billion in September 2007, fell below $20 billion in April after the company posted its worst loss in at least 20 years and Buffett directed funds to corporate debt and preferred stock.

''He's tapped out,'' said Jeff Matthews, author of Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett's Omaha and founder of hedge fund Ram Partners. ``He had to sell some of his stocks to buy stuff last fall. That's why he's not been making big stock purchases.''

Berkshire spent $624 million on equities including Wells Fargo & Co. in the first quarter, the smallest amount since at least 2005, according to regulatory filings by the Omaha, Neb.-based company.

Buffett is instead locking in returns of 10 percent or more by investing in preferred shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and General Electric and buying similar securities sold by Swiss Reinsurance. He has also purchased debt in companies including candy manufacturer Mars Inc. and wallboard maker USG. Such deals since September collectively pay interest of more than $1.8 billion annually.

''Berkshire, basically, every month generates cash,'' Buffett said at a press conference May 3, the day after the annual shareholder meeting in Omaha. ``We have not been buying a lot of equities.''

LOCKING IN RETURNS

The Goldman Sachs and GE investments also give Buffett the option to buy stock at prices set when the deals were consummated. The Swiss Re and USG purchases are among those that may convert to stock later.

''How can you turn something like that down,'' said Gerald Martin, a finance professor at American University's Kogod School of Business in Washington who has studied Buffett's investing history. ``He's hedging in the right way. He's buying these things in a period of uncertainty and locking in the return until the stocks recover.''

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Warren Buffett and Bill Gates Gather Fellow Philanthropists For "Informal Get-Together"

By: Alex Crippen
Executive Producer

Nati Harnik / AP Bill Gates and Warren Buffett share a laugh while answering questions from students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's College of Business Administration, in Lincoln, Neb., in 2005.

Warren Buffett and his friend Bill Gates reportedly joined with David Rockefeller Sr. to invite a group of the world's richest people to gather in one room earlier this month.

The agenda wasn't world domination. It was making philanthropy more effective.

Among the other well-known, and very wealthy names, attending the meeting on May 5 in New York City: Michael Bloomberg, Peter Peterson, George Soros, Ted Turner, and Oprah Winfrey.

The private meeting was not announced before-hand, or discussed publicly afterward, until a report on IrishCentral.com earlier this week.

AP Oprah Winfrey

The "unusual" and "unprecedented" gathering was then confirmed by several other news organizations, including ABCNews.com.

In The New York Times City Room blog, A.G. Sulzberger points out it "took weeks before anyone noticed" that some of "America's more prominent and successful capitalists managed to meet this month at Rockefeller University on the Upper East Side to discuss philanthropy."

While some headlines around the web have continued to call it a "secret" meeting, one of the few participants speaking on the record downplays that aspect.

Former Gates Foundation Chief Executive Patty Stonesifer tells the Seattle News:

"It wasn't secret. It was meant to be a gathering among friends and colleagues. It was something folks have been discussing for a long time. Bill and Warren hoped to do this occasionally. They sent out an invite and people came... This was about philanthropy and this group sharing their passions their interests. They each learned from each other about what could really make a difference."

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Warren Buffett talking about his extraordinary wealth and fortune

Warren Buffett talking about his extraordinary wealth and fortune ...and he says how he is lucky to be born who he is in the right time the right period with the right economical and political systems in place

How To Invest With Warren Buffett

Berkshire Hathaway is where Warren Buffett, the world's second-richest man (behind his good buddy Bill Gates), spreads his risk by investing in a variety of industries, from insurance and utilities to apparel and food, and building materials to jewelry and furniture retailers. Its core insurance subsidiaries include National Indemnity, GEICO Corporation, and reinsurance giant General Re. The company also owns Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, Johns Manville, Clayton Homes, Helzberg Diamonds, McLane Company, and MidAmerican Energy Holdings. Known as the Oracle of Omaha, Buffett holds more than a quarter of Berkshire Hathaway, which owns more than 70 firms and has stakes in more than a dozen others.

Invest With Warren Buffet

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is scaling back stock purchases

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the largest shareholder in Kraft Foods Inc. and Coca-Cola Co., is scaling back stock purchases after the firm’s cash holdings fell to their lowest in more than five years.

Michael Lewis Explains Why He's Not Betting Against Warren Buffett .. This Time

By: Alex Crippen
Executive Producer

A book review of Warren Buffett's authorized biography published last fall is featured on the cover of the latest New Republic magazine.

It's not especially timely, but it is especially interesting because the review was written by Michael Lewis, the well-known author of several business best-sellers, such as Liar's Poker and Moneyball.

Lewis likes The Snowball by Alice Schroeder, in part because she "sought to describe Buffett's psychological landscape as clearly as his financial one... For the reader, the results are pretty terrific ... but for Buffett they are no doubt upsetting."

In his lengthy review, Lewis focuses on some of the tidbits and themes from the book that Buffett might indeed not like very much, including his "pathological" childhood shoplifting, his life-long "diet of an eight-year-old", his "tendency to seek safe harbors", his physical and emotional "cowardice", and his "obsession with money."

Is Lewis attacking Buffett? Reuters blogger Felix Salmon sees it that way, writing a post headlined Michael Lewis Takes Down Warren Buffett.

Seeking Alpha and The Atlantic have posts defending Buffett, and Dealbreaker takes some pleasure in "excerpting the most juvenile parts" of the Lewis review.

But Lewis wraps up his piece with his own defense of Buffett.

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Berkshire Scales Back Stock Purchases as Cash Erodes

By Erik Holm

May 19 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the largest shareholder in Kraft Foods Inc. and Coca-Cola Co., is scaling back stock purchases after the firm’s cash holdings fell to their lowest in more than five years.

Berkshire is spending less as the firm comes closer to the $10 billion that Buffett says is the minimum he wants on hand to protect against calamity. The cash hoard, which had been at $47.1 billion in September 2007, fell below $20 billion in April after the company posted its worst loss in at least 20 years and Buffett directed funds to corporate debt and preferred stock.

“He’s tapped out,” said Jeff Matthews, author of “Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett’s Omaha” and founder of hedge fund Ram Partners LP. “He had to sell some of his stocks to buy stuff last fall. That’s why he’s not been making big stock purchases.”

Berkshire spent $624 million on equities including Wells Fargo & Co. in the first quarter, the smallest amount since at least 2005, according to regulatory filings by the Omaha, Nebraska-based company.

Buffett is instead locking in returns of 10 percent or more by investing in preferred shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and General Electric Co. and buying similar securities sold by Swiss Reinsurance Co. He’s also purchased debt in companies including candy manufacturer Mars Inc. and wallboard maker USG Corp. Such deals since September collectively pay interest of more than $1.8 billion annually.

“Berkshire, basically, every month generates cash,” Buffett said at a press conference May 3, the day after the annual shareholder meeting in Omaha. “We have not been buying a lot of equities.”

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Buffett’s Berkshire Boosted Wells Fargo Stake as Shares Fell

By Erik Holm

May 16 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. added to holdings of lenders Wells Fargo & Co and U.S. Bancorp in the first quarter as the shares traded at their lowest prices in more than a decade.

Buffett’s firm, the largest shareholder in San Francisco- based Wells Fargo, increased its stake in the bank by about 4.3 percent in the first quarter to 302.6 million shares, Berkshire said in a regulatory filing yesterday disclosing its U.S. stock portfolio as of March 31. Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire increased its holding of U.S. Bancorp by about 2.2 percent.

Banks that attract deposits at low rates were undervalued in the first quarter because investors wrongly believed that the entire industry was hobbled by risky bets and reckless lending, Buffett said at Berkshire’s annual meeting earlier this month. The KBW Bank Index fell 37 percent in the first quarter.

“All banks aren’t alike by a long shot, and in our view Wells Fargo, among the large banks, has some advantages the others do not,” said Buffett, Berkshire’s chief executive officer and chairman, at the company’s May 2 annual meeting.

Wells Fargo shares closed at $24.87 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange after falling below $9 in March. Buffett said he was speaking to a class the day the shares dropped that low and told students that, at such a price, “If I had to put all of my net worth into stock, that would be the stock.”

‘Where His Mouth Is’

Buffett is “putting his money where his mouth is,” said Gerald Martin, a finance professor at American University’s Kogod School of Business in Washington who has studied Berkshire’s investing history. “I don’t think he’s ever been this transparent about what he’s doing.”

Known as the “Oracle of Omaha,” Buffett has become a cult figure among investors, drawing a record 35,000 people for the firm’s shareholders meeting this year. Mutual funds and individuals mimic the stock picks to duplicate Buffett’s success, and a study co-authored by Martin in 2007 found that using this strategy for 31 years would have delivered annualized returns of about 25 percent, double the Standard & Poor’s 500.

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"Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful." -- Warren Buffett

"Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful."
-- Warren Buffett

Berkshire Added to Wells Fargo Stake as Shares Fell

By Erik Holm

May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. added to holdings of lenders Wells Fargo & Co and U.S. Bancorp in the first quarter as the shares traded at their lowest prices in more than a decade.

Buffett’s firm, the largest shareholder in San Francisco- based Wells Fargo, increased its holding in the bank by about 4.3 percent in the first quarter to 302.6 million shares, Berkshire said in a regulatory filing today disclosing its U.S. stock portfolio as of March 31. Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire increased its holding of U.S. Bancorp by about 2.2 percent.

Banks that attract deposits at low rates were undervalued in the first quarter because investors wrongly believed that the entire industry was hobbled by risky bets and reckless lending, Buffett said at Berkshire’s annual meeting earlier this month. The KBW Bank Index fell 37 percent in the first quarter.

“All banks aren’t alike by a long shot, and in our view Wells Fargo, among the large banks, has some advantages the others do not,” said Buffett, Berkshire’s chief executive officer and chairman, at the company’s May 2 annual meeting.

Wells Fargo shares closed at $24.87 today on the New York Stock Exchange after falling below $9 in March. Buffett said he was speaking to a class the day the shares dropped that low and told students that, at such a price, “If I had to put all of my net worth into stock, that would be the stock.”

‘Major Mistake’

Berkshire spent $624 million on stocks in the quarter, and sold shares of companies including oil producer ConocoPhillips for $739 million, Buffett said in a separate filing last week. The decline in ConocoPhillips stock contributed to Berkshire’s worst quarterly loss in at least two decades as Buffett, 78, worked to recover from what he called his “major mistake” of buying the shares with oil prices near their peak.
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Warren Buffett said his purchase of Conocophillips was a major mistake

Warren Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said his purchase of ConocoPhillips was a “major mistake” that contributed to Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire’s largest quarterly loss in at least two decades.

Berkshire Hathaway annual meetings in Omaha Nebraska Behind the Scenes with CNN Money

Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting , no signs of recession in Omaha ..!!!!

Warren Buffett's investment advice

CNN Money : The legendary investor says the last thing you should do is buy and sell stocks for quick profit.

Warren Buffett’s company posted its worst loss in at least two decades

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A US) dropped 5.5 percent, the most since Dec. 1, to $90,100. Warren Buffett’s company posted its worst loss in at least two decades as the billionaire chairman worked to recover from a “major mistake” of buying ConocoPhillips (COP US) shares before oil plunged from a record high.
Source Bloomberg

Author of "The Warren Buffett Way," Recommends Microsoft, Nokia, Cisco

Author of "The Warren Buffett Way," Legg Mason's Hagstrom Recommends Microsoft, Nokia, Cisco and other technology stocks .

he also discusses his expectations for the U.S. stock market and the outlook for Microsoft Corp., Yahoo! Inc., Nokia Oyj, Cisco Systems Inc. and Google Inc. (Source: Bloomberg)

Author of "The Warren Buffett Way," Recommends Microsoft, No
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Will gold soar on Buffett speech?

Commodity Online
WASHINGTON: Did Warren Buffett ever help gold? A fast check shows that he never helped gold. But this week’s his address to the AGM of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders may help gold in a big way.

He said inflation is coming back and the US dollar will fall. Buffett, who has delivered compounded returns exceeding 20% a year to shareholders for more than four decades, did not mention gold by name. But that will matter little to the yellow metal’s continuously growing group of supporters. They are sure to interpret this as further evidence that gold’s best days lie ahead.

Trade sitting at the comfort of home. Start with a mere 50$

After dabbling in precious metals in the 1960s, Buffett, the Sage of Ohama, ignored them until a well publicised trade in silver between mid-1997 and early 1998. The decision to accumulate 130m ounces was based on factors specific to silver’s supply and demand at the time.

Once he’d closed out the position, Buffett jokingly describing it as the perfect trade — except that we bought too early and sold too late. Since then he has publicly and consistently shunned precious metals, mainly because he prefers assets which generate dividends.
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Warren Buffett on CNBC Things are going to be tough for a while but I am confident in the future of America

Things are going to be tough for a while ...The Best years for Investments are the years of recession this is a good time to buy stocks The Unenmployment will continue to rise