Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett on Saturday put fresh money behind Activision and Chevron and doled out sharp criticism against speculation in the market.
Speaking at Berkshire Hathaway’s first in-person annual meeting since 2019, Buffett went so far as to say the market’s turned into a “gambling parlor.”
The Oracle of Omaha also commented on inflation, building on prior remarks he has made. Buffett had previously said that inflation “swindles” equity investors, but noted Saturday that it “swindles the bond investor, too. It swindles the person who keeps their cash under their mattress. It swindles almost everybody.”
Buffett and his longtime partner, Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, fielded shareholder questions on a broad range of issues for hours.
Buffett also said that Berkshire had been increasing its stake in Activision Blizzard as part of a merger arbitrage bet that Microsoft’s proposed deal to buy the video game company will close. Additionally, Berkshire revealed it had ramped up its stock bets by more than $51 billion during the first quarter amid the broader market’s downturn.
Buffett also stressed the importance of cash as “new forms of money” like bitcoin pop up.
“The United States government affects that this became exchangeable for lawful money in the United States,” Buffett said, displaying an image of an old $20 bill. “That’s what money is.”
Check out full recap below for more from the two investing legends.
Berkshire bought more than $51 billion of stocks during Q1′s market rout
Berkshire bought more than $51 billion worth of stocks during the first quarter’s market turmoil, including sizable investments in Chevron, HP and Occidental. The buying at the start of the year marked a sharp reversal from 2021 that saw $7.4 billion of net sales in stocks.
The S&P 500 suffered a 5% sell-off in the first quarter, posting its worst quarter since the start of the pandemic. The rout continued in April with the equity benchmark down another 8.8% amid fears of surging inflation and rising rates.
Buffett says Berkshire is “better than the banks”
Warren Buffett has a long history of teasing investment bankers and their institutions – saying that they encourage mergers and spinoffs to reap fees, rather than improve companies.
Today, he noted that Berkshire Hathaway would always be cash-rich, and in times of need, would be “better than the banks” at extending credit lines to companies in need. While Buffett was talking, someone was shouting from the crowd in the CHI Center. It was unclear what the audience member was said.
“Was that a banker screaming?” Buffett joked.
Buffett warns shareholders about “new forms of money” and the importance of cash
Warren Buffett warned shareholders about “new forms of money” as he recalled the financial crisis of 2008 and said Berkshire Hathaway will “always have a lot of cash on hand.”
Buffett did not explicitly identify bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, though he has made headlines for calling bitcoin “rat poison” in the past and has said it has no unique value. Charlie Munger has also spoken with hostility about it.
“The United States government affects that this became exchangeable for lawful money in the United States,” Buffett said, displaying an image of an old $20 bill.
“That’s what money is,” he added. “It may turn out that it becomes worth dramatically less at purchasing power. It can become almost like paper money as it has in many countries. But that when people tell you that they’re reaching [for] new forms of money, this is the only thing that will pay bills.”
Berkshire put money to work after finding ‘little exciting’ in the market
In his annual chairman letter to shareholders in February, Warren Buffett said there is “little that excites us” in the market. But soon after, he put Berkshire’s money to work.
Berkshire at the beginning of March revealed a big stake in oil giant Occidental Petroleum. At the beginning of April, Berkshire announced a major stake in tech hardware stock HP. Berkshire’s first-quarter filing revealed the company significantly increased its bet on Chevron.
“We found some things we prefer to owning Treasury bills,” quipped Berkshire vice chairman and Buffett’s right-hand man Charlie Munger.
Buffett on his massive Occidental investment
Buffett scooped up 14% of oil giant Occidental Petroleum, worth more than $7 billion, in two weeks during March.
He pointed out that the stake was even larger when accounting for the index fund providers who own a huge chunk of the company.
“That’s not investment. You’re not buying from [investors]. I find it just incredible. You couldn’t do that with Berkshire. ... Overwhelmingly, large companies in America, they became poker chips,” Buffett said.
“That enabled us, in a two-week period, to buy 14% of a business that’s been around for decades,” Buffett said. “Imagine trying to [buy] 14% of the farms in this country. 14% of the apartment houses. 14% of the auto dealerships, or just anything, when already 40% were locked up some other place. It defies anything Charlie and I have seen, and we’ve seen a lot.”
The legendary investor said that the short-term volatility earlier this year fueled by “gambling mentality” allowed him to find good long-term opportunities.
Executives of Berkshire’s portfolio companies discuss impact of inflation
Ahead of the shareholder meeting, the executives of several Berkshire portfolio companies told CNBC how inflation was hitting their businesses.
One of those executives was Jim Weber, CEO of Brooks Running.
Weber said it was tough to raise prices for Brooks’ products but that he thinks some of the cost pressures could cool soon.
“We don’t have unlimited pricing power, but we have taken selective price increases where we think we can. But our whole industry is so competitive. It’s a big market place. ... I do believe in the supply chain that costs are going to mediate a bit,” Weber said.
Buffett wants Berkshire to be in a ‘position to operate’ should the economy stop
Buffett said he wants Berkshire Hathaway to be in a “position to operate” should the economy stop.
“We want Berkshire Hathaway to be there and in a position to operate if the economy stops,” Buffett said. “And that can always happen, it can always happen.”
Buffett played a significant role during the Great Recession, providing capital during a pivotal moment to companies such as Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. The move drew criticism from those who disapproved of the support of big banks.
The billionaire investor made those remarks while also praising the Federal Reserve’s role during the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic.
“The Federal Reserve has not gone,” Buffett said. He added the Fed will “do whatever is necessary. ... That’s what happened in 2008 and 2009, and that’s what happened in 2020, and you’ll hope it happens again next time.”
Buffett says he has "so much trouble" finding businesses to invest in
Warren Buffett said Berkshire Hathaway is open to investing in businesses anywhere, not just in the U.S.
“We have so much trouble finding good ideas that we can’t afford to ignore any,” Buffett said. “But they do have to be sizable.”
Buffett said while he does seek out new investments, he prefers to be approached proactively.
“We’ll pay any price, climb any hills to find businesses, but we actually prefer when they fall into our lap,” Buffett said.
Munger says today’s stock market "almost a mania of speculation"
Munger said today’s stock market has become “almost a mania of speculation.”
His comment alluded to both high frequency algorithmic trading and access new investors have that intensified during the pandemic.
“We have computers with algorithms trading against other computers,” Munger said. “We’ve got people who know nothing about stocks, being advised by stockbrokers who know even less.
“I understand the commission though,” Buffett joked.
After Munger likened the activity to a casino, where people play craps and roulette, Buffett expanded on the comparison.
“People and traders’ poker chips are pulling the handle,” he said. “They’ve got the system set up so that if you want to buy a three-day call on the stock you can do it and they make more money selling you calls than if you buy stock, so they teach you calls. Nobody’s going around selling calls on farms. That’s why markets do crazy things. Occasionally Berkshire gets a chance to do something. It’s not because we’re smarter. … we’re sane, and that’s the main requirement in this business.”
Munger blasts calls for separate Berkshire chairman and CEO
Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger had some stern words in response to a proposal to oust CEO Warren Buffett as chairman.
“It’s the most ridiculous criticism I ever heard,” Munger said.
“It’s like Odysseus would come back from winning the battle of Troy and so forth and some guy would say, ‘I don’t like the way you were holding your spear when you won that battle,’” he added, referencing ancient Greek epic “The Odyssey.”
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, the biggest public pension fund in the U.S., earlier this month said it would vote in favor of a shareholder proposal to remove Buffett from his chairman role while remaining CEO. The proposal’s aim stems from concerns about corporate governance with one person holding dual roles.
“Some guy that’s never run any business, doesn’t know anything — I don’t think too much of this activity,” Munger said.
Berkshire’s head of insurance explains how Geico has fallen behind rival Progressive
Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Ajit Jain, who runs all of the conglomerate’s insurance businesses, lamented about how Geico has fallen behind rival Progressive in the car insurance business.
“Each one have their plusses and minuses, but having said that, there’s no question that recently Progressive has done a much better job than Geico … both in terms of margins and in terms of growth,” Jain said.
“There are a number of causes for that, but I think the biggest culprit is as far as Geico is concerned … is telematics,” he added. Telematics refers to putting a device on a car that tracks driving patterns, in exchange for a lower insurance rate.
“Progressive has been on the telematics bandwagon for more than 10 years. Geico, until recently, wasn’t involved in telematics,” Jain said. “It’s a long journey, but the journey has started, and the initial results are promising. It will take a while, but my hope is that in the next year or two, Geico will be positioned to catch up with Progressive.”
Jain’s comments came after Berkshire reported earlier in the day a massive earnings drop in its insurance underwriting business for the first quarter.
Buffett says he has never been "good at timing"
Warren Buffett said he has never figured out how to time the markets.
“We haven’t the faintest idea what the stock market was gonna do when it opens on Monday,” Buffett said in response to an audience question.
“I don’t think we’ve ever made a decision where either one of us has either said or been thinking we should buy or sell based on what the market is going to do, or for that matter, on what the economy’s going to do. We don’t know,” he continued.
The Oracle of Omaha said he often gets misplaced credit for the stock winners he’s picked over the years, pointing out he’s also missed out on some big opportunities as well. Buffett said he failed to make some big purchases in the early days of the pandemic. In a single day in March 2020, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 12.9%,its worst day since 1987.
Instead, Buffett adheres to a value investing strategy, or picking stocks with attractive valuations, instead of focusing on the vagaries of the stock market.
“We have not been good at timing,” Buffett said. “We’ve been reasonably good at figuring out when we were getting enough for our money. And we had no idea when we bought anything, but we always hoped it would the down for a while so we could buy more. ... I mean, that stuff, you could you could learn in fourth grade.”
Munger says "just say no" to putting bitcoin in your retirement account
Charlie Munger is still down on bitcoin.
He responded to an audience member question asking what single stock they would invest in given how high inflation has been rising.
The Berkshire executives didn’t say where they would put their money, but Munger was clear about where he wouldn’t invest: bitcoin.
“When you have your own retirement account, and your friendly adviser suggests you put all the money in into bitcoin, just say no,” he said.
Munger’s answer was a thinly veiled reference tobig news from Fidelity this week, which will now allow employees to putbitcoininto their employee-sponsored retirement accounts.
Munger and Buffett have both long been critics of bitcoin, which has become increasingly attractive to certain investors for its potential as an inflation hedge.
Buffett describes his start to investing when he was 11 years old
A trip to the New York Stock Exchange when he was 9 years old was inspiring for Warren Buffett, who is known to have started investing when he was 11 years old.
“I went to the New York Stock Exchange, I was in awe of it,” Buffett said. “I got very interested in technical analysis and charted stocks and did all kinds of crazy things, did hours and hours and hours and saved money to buy other stocks and tried shorting. I just did everything.”
The investor bought a stock at 11 after spending his childhood reading books on the subject from the library and in his father’s office. He said his approach to investing later changed completely when he was 19 or 20 years old after reading one particular book passage in what he said must have been Benjamin Graham’s “The Intelligent Investor.”
“I looked at this book and I saw one paragraph and it told me I’ve been doing everything wrong. I just had the whole approach wrong,” Buffett said.
Buffett wants to make it clear he’s not the only one picking stocks at Berkshire Hathaway
Warren Buffett wants to make it clear that he’s not the only one at Berkshire Hathaway picking stocks.
“I see headlines in papers just time after time after time that say, ‘Buffett’s buying such and such,’” Buffett said. “I’m not buying such and such. Berkshire Hathaway is buying.”
The investor said a stock pick may have been made by other finance professionals in his organization without Buffett’s ever having heard of it.
“But the headline will attract more people if it says Buffett buying this than if it says Berkshire Hathaway, and we don’t know whether it is the people that work for him, the headline is designed to bring people into the story,” Buffett said.
“The easiest thing to do is basically shut up and not have a bunch of people facing consequences they didn’t ask for in the first place,” he said.
Buffett says inflation ‘swindles almost everybody’
When asked about his previous comments that inflation “swindles” equity investors, Buffett said the damage from rising prices was much broader than that.
“Inflation swindles the bond investor, too. It swindles the person who keeps their cash under their mattress. It swindles almost everybody,” he said.
Buffett pointed out that inflation also raises the amount of capital that companies need to have and that it isn’t as simple as raising prices to maintain inflation-adjusted profits.
The Berkshire Hathaway CEO cautioned against listening to people who claim to be able to predict the path of inflation.
“The question is how much ... and the answer is nobody knows,” Buffett said.
Buffett reiterated that the best protection against the inflation is investing in your own skills.
Buffett says Berkshire now owns 9.5% of Activision Blizzard
Warren Buffett said Berkshire Hathaway has been increasing its stake inActivision Blizzardin a merger arbitrage bet thatMicrosoft’sproposed acquisition of the video game company will close.
In the fourth quarter of 2021, Berkshire first purchased about $1 billion worth of Activision Blizzard stock, in a bet the company was undervalued. Buffett has saidBerkshire “had no prior knowledge”of Microsoft’s plan to buy the company when Berkshire made its initial investment.
In January, Microsoftannounced intentions to buy Activisionfor $95 per share. Its stock closed at $75.60 per share on Friday.
Buffett said he has been buying more shares of Activision since the deal was announced as the stock is trading way below Microsoft’s offer. Buying at these levels will yield a bigger return if the deal closes.
Buffett said Berkshire now owns about 9.5% of Activision. “If we went over 10%, we would file a report,” he said.
“If the deal goes through, we make some money, and if the deal doesn’t go through, who knows what happens,” Buffett said.
“We don’t know what the Justice Department will do, we don’t know what the E.U. will do, we don’t know what 30 other jurisdictions will do. One thing we do know is that Microsoft has the money,” Buffett added.
Buffett: ‘I look at Berkshire as a painting’
The possibilities for Berkshire Hathaway are endless in the eyes of Warren Buffett, who likened the company to a work of art.
“I look at Berkshire as a painting,” Buffett said. “It’s unlimited in size; it’s got an ever-expanding canvas, and I get to paint what I want.”
Buffett did acknowledge that he doesn’t know much about art, but added that “other people look at paintings and they see something, then they’ll see something additional later on, and they really have a different sort of perception in relation to that. To me, Berkshire is a painting, and I get to paint.”
“It’s in my head, and I see different things in it as I go along,” Buffett said. “It’s satisfying.”
Buffett calls Jerome Powell a hero
In addressing a question about inflation, Buffett talked about the massive stimulus during the pandemic as a key reason for the rising prices now.
“You print loads of money, and money is going to be worth less,” Buffett said.
However, he did not criticize the Federal Reserve for its actions to boost money supply and stabilize markets during the health crisis.
“In my book,Jay Powellis a hero. It’s very simple. He did what he had to do,” Buffett said.
Buffett says people are becoming more tribal
Warren Buffett said people are becoming more tribal.
“My general assumption — there’s no way to prove it — but essentially, people are now behaving somewhat more tribal than they have for a long time,” Buffett said.
“It’s fun to participate in, but it can get very dangerous when people say two plus two is five and the other says two plus two is three, you know, and they’re gonna give you those answers,” he continued.
The investor said the country seems as tribal as it appeared during the 1930s when public sentiment was split in the U.S. around Franklin Roosevelt. Buffett said he was raised in a household where he and his siblings weren’t served dessert until they “said something nasty” about Roosevelt.
“I don’t think it’s a good development for society,” Buffett said.
Buffett says he won’t buy bitcoin because ‘it doesn’t produce anything’
Warren Buffettreiterated his skepticism of bitcoin on Saturday, saying he would be unwilling to buy it for even extremely low prices because it produces nothing of value.
“Whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don’t know. But the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that it doesn’t produce anything,” Buffett said. “It’s got a magic to it and people have attached magics to lots of things.”
Buffett listed farmland, apartment buildings — and even art — as assets that had more tangible value than bitcoin.
“Assets, to have value, have to deliver something to somebody. And there’s only one currency that’s accepted. You can come up with all kinds of things. We can put up Berkshire coins, put up Berkshire money but in the end, this is money,” he said, holding up a $20 bill. “And there’s no reason in the world why the United States government … is going to let Berkshire money replace theirs.”
Berkshire’s business meeting concludes with shareholder votes
Berkshire’s formal business meeting followed nearly five hours of Q&A with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. Shareholders voted on a number of proposals at the meeting.
The proposal that garnered most attention was from the non-profit National Legal and Policy Center. It calls for the company to strip Buffett of his chairman role. Shareholders voted down the proposal backed by CALPERS, the largest U.S. public pension fund.
Brunel Pension requested the board of Berkshire to publish an annual assessment addressing how the company manages physical and transitional climate-related risks. The number of votes against the motion outnumbered the ones for it.
One shareholder also took issue with Berkshire’s climate change initiative. The proposal called for Berkshire to issue a report addressing if and how it intends to measure, disclose, and reduce the GHG emissions associated in alignment with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal, requiring net zero emissions. Shareholders voted it down.
The last proposal asked Berkshire to report to shareholders on the outcomes of their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by publishing quantitative data on workforce composition and recruitment, retention, and promotion rates of employees by gender, race, and ethnicity. The motion also failed.
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