WEB took no big swings in 2022. Nasdaq was down 33% and S&P was down 20%. This is similar to the 2020 when he did not take any big swings in 2020 when everything went down by 40% during the Covid panic. He did buy back lots of shares in 2020 and 2021 but dialed back in 2022.
BRK is getting sizable no-risk interest on 100B + cash hoard.
Missed opportunity or waiting for perfect pitch ?
Bets on how many shares of TSM he ended the year with? Also OXY and CVX combined to amount to something.
WSJ:
“Overall, Berkshire spent $66 billion buying stocks in the first nine months of the year. That is more than 13 times its spending over the same period in 2021.”
huh ? This is wrong.
Buybacks are clearly disappointment but not worried about that much. The real worry is Buffett’s retirement and all the changes that could bring.
re: “huh? This is wrong.” –
I quoted the WSJ, which took the number directly from Berkshire’s Q3 Statement of Cash Flows. I didn’t say it was net purchases. Berkshire bought $66.246 Billion of equity securities in the first 9 months of 2022. Berkshire sold $17.343 Billion of equity securities in the same time period. Net purchases were $48.9 Billion.
In 2021, BRK bought back $21B of its own stock. I am not sure how WSJ is looking at this but the 13 times number seems incorrect.
I will add one correction to my post. BRK did acquire Alleghany Corporation for US $11.6 billion in 2022 so they took one swing. TSMC was $4.1B.
The Wall Street Journal (and I) are saying that Berkshire bought $66 Billion of equities during the first 9 months of 2022. We are not saying anything about Berkshire repurchasing their own stock. The 13x figure is gross equity purchases first 9 months of 2021 (~$5 Billion) vs gross equity purchases same period in 2022 (over $66 Billion).
That is the problem. It is a $21B omission.
Are we talking about 2021 or 2022? I didn’t realize there was a $21B buyback in 2022.
During Q3, Berkshire bought back $1.05 billion of its own stock, taking Berkshire stock buybacks for the first three quarters of 2022 to $5.25 billion. That was “considerably lower” than $20 billion in share repurchases during the first nine months of 2021
Pete
everyone is talking past everyone!!!
Divi, if your point is Berkshire didn’t invest aggressively last year, because market went down, it is clear for sometime market price movement is not influencing WEB’s purchase or investment decision. Still, your assumption is completely wrong.
If you look at the cashflow statement of 3Q, you can see there is $66 B investment in equities, even if you take into account sale of securities, there is $49 B investment.
So your argument holds no water.
Berkshire didn’t aggressively buyback doesn’t change the fact that WEB has aggressively invested in buying securities to the tune of $49 B Net purchase.
yeah I just figured they were doing it on purpose and gave up on them. There are only like 3 people left on this board so probably not worth the brain damage
