Skip to main content

Buffett on recession, future deals

Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A) annual shareholders' meeting has accounted for the usual glut of Warren Buffett-related news items over the weekend.

Let's take a quick look at some of the highlights from the, "What Warren said" files.

MarketWatch reports that Berkshire Hathaway is eyeing German family-owned businesses as possible acquisition targets.

"Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is interested in acquiring family-owned businesses in Germany, Chairman Warren Buffett said Saturday.

Buffett is planning to travel to Germany and three other European countries in a few weeks to try to raise Berkshire's profile in the region, he said.

"We would like more family owners of Germany businesses who, when they feel some need to monetize their business, to think of Berkshire Hathaway," Buffett said. "If they care about their business we are their best call."

"We're nowhere near as prominent in Europe as we should be," he said."

Does Germany have some form of US-style estate tax which prompts families to sell their businesses, or are the Mittelstand companies hampered by red-tape and excessive regulation?

I am curious to know.

In any case, Berkshire Hathaway has gone global in its hunt for future acquisitions and investment opportunities.

And that's not all that Warren had to say. Both he and Charlie Munger weighed in on the risks to the financial system (Buffett feels the risks are declining) and the likelihood of a US recession (WB says we're in one now).

Here are Buffett's thoughts on the US economic picture (Reuters):

""The U.S. is in recession as I define it," Buffett said at a news conference. "I would define that as a situation where people are doing less well than they were three months, six months or eight months earlier and most businesses find themselves in that position too."

There you have it. Read on at the links below for more.

See also:

"Buffett: Recession has hit main street" - CNBC.

"Buffett hints at targets for his global buying spree" - Bloomberg.

"Live blog of Munger & Buffett Q&A session w/ shareholders" - CNBC.

Popular posts from this blog

Finance Trends 2019 Mid-Year Markets Review

Email subscribers of the Finance Trends Newsletter receive the first look at new articles and market updates, such as the following piece, sent out to our email list on Sunday (6/14).   Hello and welcome, everyone! If you received our last email notice over the July 4th holiday, you'll know that this weekend's newsletter will serve as a mid-year market update and a follow-up to issue #29, " How to Reinvest in a Rising Market ".   Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let's start the show...  Finance Trends Newsletter: Our Mid-Year Market Review When we last spoke, back in February, the U.S. stock market was rallying off its December-January lows. As the S&P 500 and Nasdaq reclaimed their 200 day moving averages in February and March, it became increasingly apparent that a lot of retail investors (and perhaps some institutional investors) were left under-invested while watching this recovery move from the sidelines.  The U.S. stock ...

Round trip stocks: momentum booms and busts

" No tree grows to Heaven ." - Old proverb adopted by Wall Street. What happens to hot momentum stocks when their rocket fuel runs out? How long can they continue to fly before they come crashing back down to earth? Why is the stock that you paid $100 a share for now trading at $39? These are questions that many novice traders and investors may be struggling with in the wake of the most recent market correction. Momentum stocks have been hit hard as the Nasdaq 100 and Russell 2000 indices have moved lower in recent weeks. Caught unaware by the recent slide, some traders may be wondering when their beaten-down stocks will snap back and allow them to exit with smaller losses (or even reach the mythical "break even" point).  While growth stocks still firmly within their uptrends may form constructive technical bases and move higher after this correction, others may experience sharper pullbacks or break down into full "stage 4" declines (see chart below...

How to "Pull the Trigger" on Your Trading Ideas

In our last post, I quoted hedge fund manager, Jim Leitner on the importance of following up on your investment ideas.  Today I'd like to follow up and share some thoughts on how you can learn to consistently "pull the trigger" on your best trading setups and investing ideas. In order to help you do that, we'll take from the best and offer up key insights from interviews with top traders and trading psychologists like Alan Farley, Brett Steenbarger, and Doug Hirschhorn .  Now before we get to their key insights on overcoming trading anxiety and pulling the trigger on your trading ideas, let's remember what Jim Leitner said in his interview: "Learn to love to listen to people and when you hear something interesting, follow up on it. Don't just think, "Well that's an interesting idea" only to find out a year later that the company you could've bought shares in is now up 500-fold. You never want to say woulda, coulda, shoulda...