Anirudh Sethi Report

The children of Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK-A) (BRK-B) Warren Buffett, were interviewed for National Geographic.

The following video of Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK-A) Warren Buffett, gives great insight into how he thinks before making an investment, how he created value added for the company, and increased sales substantially. No wonder why he is a billionaire and top trader and investor.

In the video, he discusses his purchase of See’s Candies, which operates over 200 retail shops in the western United States. You will also see Buffett’s sense of humor. If you have never had See’s Candies, you need to try some at your first opportunity. You will love the peanut brittle, my favorite.

If you think there are investment opportunities with other candy companies, here are a couple worth looking at.

Hershey (HSY), founded in 1894, is the largest manufacturer of chocolate in North America and one of the largest chocolate and candy companies in the world. Hershey’s Kisses were invented in 1901 and their chocolate chips were introduced in 1928. The stock has a P/E of 22, a forward PE of 17, with a flavorful yield of 2.8%. It sports a PEG ratio of 2.39.

Tootsie Roll Industries Inc. (TR) is known for its ever famous Tootsie Rolls. It also produces Apple Pops, Charms, Sugar Daddy, Sugar Babies, and Tootsie Roll Pops. The stock has a P/E and forward PE of 26 and sports a yield of 1.3%.

From the wires today:

“OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Warren Buffett’s company reported a 40 percent drop in second-quarter profit Friday because the improvement at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s operating companies couldn’t overcome $1.4 billion in paper losses on derivative contracts. Berkshire’s strong performances from its railroad, insurance and manufacturing businesses was overshadowed by the plummeting value of the Omaha company’s derivatives — many of which are tied to the value of four major stock markets.”

From Buffett himself in 2002:

“The derivatives genie is now well out of the bottle, and these instruments will almost certainly multiply in variety and number until some event makes their toxicity clear. Central banks and governments have so far found no effective way to control, or even monitor, the risks posed by these contracts. In my view, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal.”

From Bloomberg recently:

“Buffett’s well known for his criticism of derivatives. Yet Berkshire in recent years has become a big player, with some $60 billion in derivatives contracts. Under any new derivatives regulation, Berkshire would be likely to have to produce collateral for new derivatives contracts it writes. This would limit the attractiveness of new derivatives deals for Buffett, who has boasted that Berkshire rarely does a deal that calls for it to produce collateral. But that’s not why Buffett has been pushing back against the financial reform bill in the Senate. Instead, Buffett says he’s concerned that the legislation would impose collateral requirements on existing contracts — which he says would be illegal. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., made the same case this week as he defected from the Democrats backing the financial reform bill. Whatever his logic, pushing back on derivatives reform has the interesting side effect of aligning Buffett, with his sterling reputation, with the widely derided Wall Street banks.”

Buy and hold? Buying strong businesses? Derivatives are weapons of mass destruction? Bailouts of many of the components of BRKA? Does anyone have the cajones to criticize Buffett? There has to be at least one emasculated weenie out there who will come on here and tell me that I can’t criticize America’s wealthiest just because he is rich. Right?

The Buffett myth is just that — a myth. If not for the fall 2008 bailouts, he would be on the senior circuit revising history along with Greenspan. Why my stark view on this lovely sunny morning in beautiful Southern California? Cause no matter how many books populate Amazon, all preaching about how you can become the next Buffett, they are all disingenuous fairy tales.

Warren Buffett’s lunch auction rose to a record of $2.63 million in the 11th annual charity fundraiser.

That’s about 24 percent higher than the previous record, set in 2008 when hedge-fund manager Zhao Danyang of Hong Kong paid $2.11 million. The chance to have lunch with the celebrated billionaire investor drew nine bidders and 77 bids, according to EBay Inc. The online auction started June 6 and ended at 10:30 p.m. New York time yesterday.

The winning bidder wishes to remain anonymous, according to Denise Lamott, a spokeswoman for the auction beneficiary, the Glide Foundation in San Francisco.

Buffett, the 79-year-old investor who is chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has raised about $8.56 million with the auctions to help the Glide Foundation, which serves meals to the needy. A group led by Courtenay Wolfe of Salida Capital won last year with a bid of $1.68 million.

“It’s actually a remarkable calibration of his value,” said Jeff Matthews, author of “Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett’s Omaha” and founder of hedge fund Ram Partners LP. “It measures what people think his worth to them is.”

Buffett’s insights on markets attract the attention of those looking for clues on his investment strategy. Past auction winners have said topics of discussion also included corporate governance and philanthropy. The top bidder gets to bring seven guests for lunch at Smith & Wollensky, the New York steakhouse.

Buffett’s stock picks and takeovers turned Omaha, Nebraska- based Berkshire from a failing textile mill to a $180 billion seller of bricks, power and insurance. Tens of thousands of people gather in Omaha each year at Berkshire’s annual meeting to hear Buffett expound on the economy and public policy. Read more…

One of the reasons J.D. asked me to join his merry band of GRS writers was so that I could add the occasional investing lesson to the line-up. Today, I’m going to hand that duty off very quickly to someone else, and then get to a life lesson from a great investor.

Today’s lesson comes from fund manager and former Motley Fool writer Whitney Tilson, whose Tilson Focus Fund (TILFX) has the best one-year return in Lipper’s multicap core category, according to Barron’s. In a recent interview on GuruFocus, Tilson said he began his investing career by reading all of Warren Buffett’s letters. If that sounds like good advice to you, every Berkshire Hathaway annual report since 1977 — which include Buffett’s letters — can be found at the Berkshire website. (If you have a yen to hear Buffett sing as well as read his words, check out his cameo in this GEICO video.)

The luck of the draw
But if you’d like some other kind of wisdom from Buffett, here’s a scenario that he often describes in speeches and interviews. (We’ve now moved into the “life lesson” part of this show.)

 It’s 24 hours before your birth, and a genie appears to you. He tells you that you can set the rules for the world you’re about to enter — economic, social, political — the whole enchilada. Sounds great, right? What’s the catch?

Before you enter the world, you will pick one ball from a barrel of 6.8 billion (the number of people on the planet). That ball will determine your gender, race, nationality, natural abilities, and health — whether you are born rich or poor, sick or able-bodied, brilliant or below average, American or Zimbabwean. Read more…

I just completed my read of “The Snowball – Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” by Alice Schroeder. This biography covers some 800 pages and provides a perspective on a unique individual. I must admit, he is much different than what I expected. The following is my summary of the major factors that have contributed to Mr. Buffett’s incredible success and wealth:

Singular focus – Since Warren Buffett was a young boy, he had almost a singular focus to accumulate wealth. He also believed his way to wealth would be through the stock market. At a very early age, he knew what he wanted and where he wanted to go. Successful people always have long-term visions of their life. This is a lesson especially for younger folks. You will only really succeed in life once you know what you want to accomplish. As Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you may end up some place else.”

Dedication – Mr. Buffett spends about 18 hours every day dedicated to investing capital. This is the type of dedication needed to succeed at his level. I doubt he wastes anytime in front of the television or shopping at the mall. Almost all his time is spent thinking and working on Berkshire Hathaway. This type of dedication can have its drawbacks as well. The book does not portray his family life in a very positive manner. He was separated from his first wife (it appears they did not divorce for P.R. reasons) and did not spend much time with his children as they grew up. There is only so much time in a day, and he spent it mostly on business-related activities. Read more…

Travelers
Nestle
Walmart
Wells Fargo
Exxon Mobil

source

Buying the number 1 railroad company was a smart move

WARREN BUFFETT Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway
I have no idea what the stock market’s going to do tomorrow, or next week, or next month or next year. But over a ten-year period you will do considerably better owning a group of equities than you will owning Treasuries. In fighting the economic war, we’ve taken action that sows the seeds of substantial inflation down the road. Not in the next six months or year, but ten years from now the dollar will buy a lot less than it buys today.

BOB RODRIGUEZ Chief executive officer, First Pacific Advisors
Don’t run with the herd. Being surrounded by people who are doing the same thing as you offers a false sense of protection. Being a loner is extremely uncomfortable, but it’s far better. Today, being a loner means owning short-maturity, high-quality debt on the bond side. And if the U.S. government continues to blow up the nation’s balance sheet through massive deficits, you should probably move at least 20% to 40% of your assets out of the U.S. Read more…

When reading Berkshire Hathaway’s annual letters or hearing him speak, one can always take away a few great quotes from value investor extraordinaire Warren Buffett. It should come as no surprise that he is so good at dishing out words of wisdom. After all, he is known as the Oracle of Omaha. We thought it would be prudent to assemble some of his best advice in one cohesive post.

1. “Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1″

2. “In a bull market, one must avoid the error of the preening duck that quacks boastfully after a torrential rainstorm, thinking that its paddling skills have caused it to rise in the world. A right-thinking duck would instead compare its position after the downpour to that of the other ducks on the pond.”

3. “The fact that people will be full of greed, fear or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable.”

4. “Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.” Read more…