Berkshire Hathaway as an alternative to an ETF?

DazedInPontoon said:
I have generally considered this a positive and not a negative. World's strongest market and world's reserve currency.
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the world's reserve currency can have huge falls, it went from an exchange rate of $0.9 to 1 euro in 2001 all the way down to $1.47 to 1 euro in 2008 thats a huge fall for international investors. Remember 2001 was also the height of the first US tech bubble which resulted in huge falls for both US stock markets and dollar, very painful for international investors. I was an investor in US stocks back in 2011, and it was great buying them when priced in cheap dollars back then.
Of course the Trump tariff thing is having a short term positive for US dollar but that is actually going to make the US even more expensive and uncompetitive, its very early days in the Trump thing. Every dog has its day
 
Not arguing with what you're saying, I just see greater risk in the other direction. You're always taking risk, you have to weigh the potential reward against it.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
people are looking for an alternative to ETFs and an investment trust or Berkshire Hathaway has been suggested.
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Just to be clear, there are also other large US/EU conglomerate companies that offer similar diversification in a single share that might be considered as a possible alternative to certain ETFs while not suffering from the relatively penal tax treatment.

For example:


 
mmclo said:
Access to small cap companies?
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I don't really understand the question. Maybe you can clarify?

- Investing in Berkshire Hathaway provides greater exposure to small cap companies that ETF's don't? It's a question really, I've seen suggestions that small cap can be an ignored area
 
Zenith63 said:
main takeaway is that ETFs fare much better than the headline tax rates suggest
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Yes but by comparing direct shares with ETFs you have to liquidate your share holding in order to compare them. However in reality you don't have to liquidate a direct share holding you can hold onto it for 30 years if you want to the same as a property, whereas you are effectively forced into liquidating ETFs and funds every 8 years to pay the tax. That's a huge disadvantage and highly unfair . Also you can harvest temporary losses on direct share holdings and buy back in and reduce tax bill on gains you may have on liquidating other assets. You also don't have that advantage with ETFs or funds.
 
mmclo said:
- Investing in Berkshire Hathaway provides greater exposure to small cap companies that ETF's don't?
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I don't think that BH really deal many (any?) small cap companies. Most of their wholly owned businesses and publicly quoted companies that they invest in are huge.
 
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