Global Courant 2023-05-07 02:49:54
Berkshire HathawaySaturday’s annual shareholder meeting featured dozens of questions on topics such as investment strategy, artificial intelligence and politics for the legendary investors at the helm of the conglomerate: Chairman Warren Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger
But it wasn’t all strictly business. Buffett and Munger — who are 92 and 99 years old, respectively — cracked jokes and shared wisdom from decades in the investing world during the more than five hours they spent answering questions.
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Tens of thousands who gathered at the CHI Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska, were made to laugh multiple times by non-aged jokes.
Shareholders watch Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger from the overflow room at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting on Saturday, May 6, 2023 in Omaha, Neb.
Rebecca H. Gratz | AP
Here are some of the best moments from the “Oracle of Omaha” and Munger:
King Charles and King Charlie
Buffett was referring to King Charles III’s coronation in England, also scheduled for Saturday, when he proposed to Munger. Charles was the 40th monarch to be crowned at Westminster Abbey in a tradition dating back to 1066. according to NBC News.
“Waking up this morning I realized we had a competitive broadcast somewhere in the UK… They were celebrating a ‘King Charles’ and we have our own ‘King Charles’ here today.”
More people are doing ‘stupid things’
Munger said value investors should be prepared to take smaller returns as competition heats up. But Buffett said yes still given opportunities so many people have a short term view and often do stupid things in a panic.
What gives you opportunities is other people doing stupid things… In the 58 years we’ve run Berkshire, I’d say there’s been a big increase in people doing stupid things, and they’re doing big, stupid things .
‘deworming’
Munger said it is “insane” to learn that one should diversify when investing in common stocks.
One of the nonsensical things taught in modern university education is that massive diversification is absolutely mandatory when investing in common stocks… That’s an insane idea. It’s not that easy to have a huge abundance of good opportunities that can be easily identified. And if you only have three, I’d rather have my best ideas than my worst.
And he said investors need to know themselves and their strengths.
We’re not that smart, but we kind of know where the edge of our smartness is… That’s a really important part of practical intelligence. … If you know the edge of your own abilities fairly well, you should ignore most of our experts’ views on what I call portfolio “de-wrestling.”
“Keep the godd—stock”
Munger had some simple advice when it comes to Berkshire Hathaway in an estate. And he didn’t mince words to share it.
Well, at Berkshire we have a simple estate planning problem. Just keep the godd—stock.
Write your obituary and live it
Buffett gave advice on how to live and spend and invest in a way that isn’t harmful.
“You should write your obituary and then try to figure out how to live it. That’s something you’ll learn as you go… You just want to make sure you don’t make mistakes that will take you out of it. game or almost take you out of the game. You should never have a night worrying about investing, assuming you have any money to invest at all. … Spend a little less than you earn, and you can get something “spend more than you earn. … Then you’re in debt, and chances are you’ll never get out of debt. I’ll make an exception about a mortgage on your house.”
Not smarter, but wiser
Buffett said investors don’t have to be experts in technical aspects of companies if they can understand the fundamentals and commit to always learning.
We are interested in owning a wonderful company forever. … We learn a lot as we go along. … We learn how consumers behave all the time. I will not be able to learn the technical aspects of business. It would be nice if I knew, but it’s not essential. … We have a company at Apple … I don’t understand the phone at all, but I do understand consumer behavior. … We are constantly learning, from all of our companies. … We don’t get smarter over time, we do get a little wiser by tracking it over time though.
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