Please consider Warren Buffett rips Wall Street for turning the stock market into ‘a gambling parlor’
Buffett Quotes
- “Wall Street makes money, one way or another, catching the crumbs that fall off the table of capitalism.”
- They [Wall Street] make a lot more money when people are gambling than when they are investing.”
- Large American companies have “became poker chips” for market speculation. He cited soaring use of call options, saying that brokers make more money from these bets than simple investing.
- “It’s almost a mania of speculation,” Charlie Munger, 98.
The Wall Street Journal has additional quotes in it’s piece Warren Buffett Says Markets Have Become a ‘Gambling Parlor’.
- “It’s a gambling parlor,” Mr. Buffett said Saturday of the markets over the past few years.
- “I don’t think we ever had anything quite like we have now in terms of the volumes of pure gambling activity going on daily,” Mr. Munger said. “It’s not pretty.”
Spotlight on Energy
Despite Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, President Biden and the progressives wanting to shut down “big energy” and oil production, Berkshire Hathaway has a different idea.
Buffet bought Occidental Petroleum Corp. OXY and dramatically ramped up its stake in Chevron Corp. CVX.
Energy is now one of Berkshire’s top four stock investments.
Annual Meeting Kickoff
Warren Buffet, age 91 was very humorous at the annual meeting. His partner Charlie Munger is 98.
This led to a lot of jokes about age and dementia.
Following an opening round of applause, and a thank you, Buffett kicked off with an opening joke: “I don’t hear anything from the index funds, where are they?”
Twenty years ago Buffet said “We try to find businesses that an idiot can run, because eventually an idiot will run it.”
Today, Buffett offers a new twist.
“Charlie Munger and I are a combined 190 years old. …. Our new test is we try to find something that a guy with Alzheimer’s can run, and you don’t have as much completion for businesses like that.”
Audience Participation
Here’s a great clip of a young high-school age girl asking Buffet for one investment idea.
Q: “If you had to pick one stock to bet on, which would you choose … in what will likely be a very difficult market?”
Buffett A: “The best thing you can do is be exceptionally good at something. Your abilities cannot be take away from you, inflated away from you. The best investment by far in anything, is develop yourself. It’s not taxed [applause]. That’s what I would do.”
Buffett’s answer was exceptional. Munger’s answer was on Bitcoin and I will cover that in a second post.
Despite the exceptional answer, here’s a closer look at Berkshire Hathaway by Jim Bianco.
Relative Performance
Better in Bear Markets
Disney Bonus
The Hook
Nonsensical earnings estimates, ridiculous forward PEs, and thinking things look cheap following big declines are all part of the hook to keep investors in bad idea.
For discussion, please see S&P 500 Earnings Estimates for 2023 Rise, It Won’t Happen.
This post originated at MishTalk.Com.
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