Warren Buffett: Waiting patiently for the right pitch
Cash is piling up faster than Warren Buffett can invest it
Excerpt:
Warren Buffett has the kind of money problem most people would envy: a growing mountain of cash. Nearly $73 billion piled up at Berkshire Hathaway by mid-summer, more than Buffett's conglomerate has ever held before.
And the total continues growing every day Buffett doesn't make a major investment because Berkshire's 90-odd businesses generate roughly $1.5 billion in cash every month. ...
Buffett compares investing to baseball, except that investing is a game where the hitter can stand at the plate indefinitely waiting for the right pitch.
"The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don't have to swing at everything," Buffett said in "The Warren Buffett Way." ''The problem when you're a money manager is that your fans keep yelling, 'Swing, you bum!' "Comment: Investment tip. Have some cash for a down day! Image source (cropped) (Carl Yastrzemski)
Market cap of 357 billion--about 21% of all assets are cash earning bupkus. If that's not an indictment of the Obama economy, I don't know what is.
ReplyDeleteWell, I guess one could add "stock buy-backs" as a sign, too. :^)
One other thought; 18 billion a year in new cash means that the P/E for BRK-A is around 20. Historically that's high, can't blame Buffett.
ReplyDeleteYahoo reports the P/E at 13.92
DeleteBRK-B
We have some. Doesn't pay a dividend and as a retiree I need dividend income. But we have some and are holding it long term.