Warren Buffett's Irish Mistake "In 2008 I spent $244 million for two Irish Banks"

spursfan1234 said:
he dosent have 40 billion in wealth. its 40 billion of paper profits (supposed profits). if he brought everything to the market to sell it would be much much less thatn 40 billion
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I don't know what your point is. His shares in Berkshire alone are worth $37,217,098,141 using todays share price. Doesn't take into account personal fortune accumulated over the years. Course it is paper wealth. Name me a billionaire whose wealth isn't. I don't see how that proves your theory that he can't survive in this current market or has made alot of wrong decisions
 
spursfan1234 said:
berkshire had their rating downgraded just two days ago by s+p

and his "wealth" which is nothing more than paper money fell by 25 billion dollars last year and will likely continue to fall this year
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Would those be the same people that rated all the Sub-prime Mortgage Securities and Icelandinc banks weeks before they collapsed with AAA? So what if they think Berkshire should be downgraded to AA-!! I don't understand why people pay eny attention to these ratings which have been proven completely out of whack with reality.

I must agree with Sunny here. It is way to early to be judging Buffett and you shouldn't be basing your own investments solely on what he or any other investor does. Saying that though, if you do want to judge his performance in the last year then do look at the facts:
1) Berkshire's share portfolio suffered ONLY a roughly 10% paper losss in 2008
2) The S$P 500 lost about 38% of it's value in the same time

I doubt you can show me an investor on the scale of Berkshire/Buffett that significantly beat a 10% loss in 2008.
 
I doubt you can show me an investor on the scale of Berkshire/Buffett that significantly beat a 10% loss in 2008.[/quote]

Alpha Magazine has found 25 and the majority of whom are trend followers that make money in up and down markets.


In relation to Buffett I saw this artical http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2009/03/16/is-buffett-the-biggest-bubble-of-all.aspx

The author could be right or could be wrong. All we can know, without seeing everything behind Buffett’s curtain, is the price of Berkshire Hathaway. It has trended down since last Sep. only to reverse in the last few weeks. If you had a trading system to capture that price move then you made money. But making predictions as this author has is real tough business. It always comes down to: Do you want to be “right” or make money.
 
spursfan1234 said:
berkshire are in serious trouble with derivatives. buffets style of investing which has been the famous "buy and hold" is flawed and certainly does not work in a period like we are in now i.e. deleveraging, less credit etc
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Spursfan..you were saying??

Buffett Back in the Money on Goldman Sachs Warrants After Rally
Share

April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is back in the money on warrants to buy shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., after the bank’s stock passed the $115 strike price negotiated by the billionaire investor in September.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aq7O1MStteaw&refer=home
 
spursfan1234 said:
berkshire are in serious trouble with derivatives. buffets style of investing which has been the famous "buy and hold" is flawed and certainly does not work in a period like we are in now i.e. deleveraging, less credit etc
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i agree to an extent in that buffet has always been fairly optimistic about the future in that he believes in investments over time frames of 5 years, however it would be interesting to see how he would have handled the 1930s depression, during his lifetime the us economy has grown strongly with temporary setbacks but with no 1930s contraction, as regards the irish banks he only invested small , therefore he probably did weigh up the risk, he didnt do a general electric or conoco philips type investment, buffet is supposed to be an expert on risk, investing large money into low risk
 
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