Berkshire Hathaway CEO, billionaire Warren Buffett made some candid confessions at his annual shareholder meeting on Saturday. Among them, his regrets over the sale of Apple shares, the circumstances surrounding the exit from airline shares, and the failure of the healthcare project.
"It may have been a mistake," Buffett said of the decision to sell some iPhone maker's shares last year. The move was also seen as a mistake by his business partner, Charlie Munger.
Airline stocks
The billionaire faced questions about why Berkshire did not seize the temporary market downturn that began in late March last year to grab more shares at lower prices. Instead, the conglomerate used the first weeks of closures in the United States to dump airline stocks as the pandemic limited travel and, later in the year, curtailed its banking holdings.
Shares of Delta Airlines and Southwest Airlines, the two companies owned by Berkshire, rose more than 45% after the end of May through the end of 2020.
Buffett said of that period, "I do not consider it a great moment in Berkshire's history," adding that the economic recovery exceeded their expectations thanks to government stimulus measures, according to Bloomberg, and seen by Al Arabiya.net.
Buffett also added that it would have been difficult for these airlines to obtain the federal aid that saved them if the wealthy investor was seen as a significant shareholder in those companies. He told investors on Saturday that he was still refusing to invest in airlines given the current travel pressure.
For his part, Munger explained that it would be a very difficult requirement to believe that money managers can always determine the perfect time to reach the bottom of the market to inject a lot of money into asset purchases.
Buffett also talked about the healthcare project that Berkshire, JPMorgan and Amazon set up to cope with the rising costs in the American health system, which have been described as like a "tapeworm," except that the project was eventually closed this year, and Buffett acknowledged the day. Saturday presents the challenges of trying to reform an industry with many stakeholders.
"We were fighting a tapeworm that was eating away at the American economy, but the worm won in the end," Buffett said.
On the flip side, Buffett emphasized that the boom in special-purpose acquisitions, known as SPACs, was unlikely to continue. While Munger has targeted cryptocurrencies, and the share of individual trades has increased strongly. Buffett and his partner have also rebuked professionals who drive people who follow a natural human instinct to gamble.
The Source: alarabiya