Warren Buffett editorial in NYT: Buy American. I Am.

Post by jimbokun » Fri, Oct 17, 2008, 1:50 PM UTC

jhancock wrote: post #10

floozyspeak wrote: post #7

I bet he's gettin something on the side to basically step into the ring of fear here and fire the flare of "now's the time". I don't think people really dispute that now is the time. The problem is the view point. You basically have to put money in and swear not to look at it again until 2013. Because the day by day view of that investment is heart attack unfolding as the bad news isn't going away, the affects of the…

I mostly agree. You have two choices with buying American stocks now: 1 - play the day trade game and squeeze out margins as the market is wild from day to day 2 - play long, buy great deals and hold for years. The only people that can play option 1 well are serious traders that have tons of time, cash, and really know what they're doing (or just have dumb luck, but applies to anything you might do with money). The o…

Post by jhancock » Fri, Oct 17, 2008, 1:56 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #21

jhancock wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree. You have two choices with buying American stocks now: 1 - play the day trade game and squeeze out margins as the market is wild from day to day 2 - play long, buy great deals and hold for years. The only people that can play option 1 well are serious traders that have tons of time, cash, and really know what they're doing (or just have dumb luck, but applies to anything you might do with money). The o…

Aren't the people who play game number 1 largely responsible for the current financial mess? Maybe not day traders per se, but that sort of mentality of everyone thinking they are in the top few percent of investors and able to beat the market.

Post by jedc » Fri, Oct 17, 2008, 2:17 PM UTC

prakash wrote: post #13

A word of caution: Don't invest if you can't sleep soundly at night. Buffet can probably afford to lose a few billions here and there, but you probably can't.

Post by mattmaroon » Fri, Oct 17, 2008, 3:01 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #16

mattmaroon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately you can't imitate him with high accuracy the way you could with an ETF since they have a number of wholly-owned subsidiaries. That's also what allows their stock to get out of alignment with market value of their holdings.

You can get a good idea of whether Buffett thinks Berkshire is undervalued or overvalued by whether he uses cash or stock for acquisitions, though. When the stock is overvalued, he'll trade overvalued Berkshire stock for undervalued other stocks. When the stock is undervalued or fairly-valued, he'll use cash for the purchase. Everything recent has been done with cash, AFAIK.

Post by richcollins » Fri, Oct 17, 2008, 3:28 PM UTC