Legendary investors Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger enlightened us with their wisdom at the Berkshire Hathaway 2021 Annual Meeting on May 1st. I share the best highlights and my key takeaways and reactions.
If you’re interested in learning how to take control of your finances and start becoming an investor like Warren Buffett, check out my free PDF guide.
The meeting looked like it wasn’t in sunny Los Angeles but as if everything was normal in Omaha where Buffett reunited with Charlie! Buffett sure hopes we all come back to Omaha on April 30, 2022!
Buffett reflected briefly about the quarterly earnings and was eager to get into a couple of history lessons on what can change in 30 years with the top 20 largest companies in market cap.
What stood out to me is Buffett saying you would have won if you were aboard an index fund for the last 30 years. Unlike Charlie, Buffett recommends the S&P 500 index fund and never recommends Berkshire to anybody. Buffett likes Berkshire but said “the person who doesn’t know anything about stocks at all and doesn’t have any special feelings about Berkshire, ought to buy the S&P 500 index.”
The other big theme that stood out to me was Buffett and Charlie discussing how new entrants to the stock market and the professionals have been treating it like a casino, and the gambling impulse has become very strong worldwide.
“We don’t think valuations are crazy,” said Buffett with interest rates so low, but they are seeing inflation and our economy is red hot. Buffett and Charlie find it pleasant that monetary and fiscal policies worked: 85% of the people are happy with getting $1400 stimulus checks when a couple years ago 40% of the population couldn’t come up with $400. But there are consequences to everything in economics.
“Interest rates are to the value of assets what gravity is to matter.” Buffett and Munger “consider it to be the most interesting movie we’ve ever seen in economics” and we’ll see where it all leads.
Buffett and Munger also discussed share repurchases (aka buybacks) and dividends. Buffett talked about how he made the mistake of overpaying and how you’ve got to have a margin of safety when you do deals, like offering an energy solution to Texas.
In classic style and without fail, Charlie let it rip on how he really feels about cryptocurrencies (bitcoin) and those who make money selling things that are bad for people.
There were diverse questions ranging from climate change, insurance, risk management, railroads, colonizing Mars, and taxes.
Best of friends Charlie and Warren remain continuous learning machines, and Buffett said they’ll “figure out everything possible to make sure Berkshire 50 to 100 years from now is every bit the organization that it is now.” And that’s their promise to faithful shareholders who continue to see Berkshire as a lifetime savings vehicle.
I got SO MUCH WISDOM out of these two, and I hope you did too! I look forward to making more investor friends. Add me on instagram: michellemarki! 🙂