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Non-Tech : Berkshire Hathaway Class B -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (905)	8/7/1999 9:33:00 AM
From: Benkea	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1652

Dale: "Like I said, smug and defensive. I would me more interested in an insightful analysis of why the magic Buffett formula isn't cooking along so well right now." I think you answered it yourself - "right now". BRK is built for the long-term. ALL investment or operational decisions are diametrically opposed to "right now". "You should read Jason Zweig's column in the latest Money magazine. It's a screaming indictment of anyone who tries to play the market in any way except traditional Wall Street fashion." WRITERS for magazines who opine about following the herd make obvious their poor plight as lowly paid journalists vs. being the #2 wealthiest and #1 investor in the world. From the 1997 report: "When the market booms, we tend to suffer in comparison with the S&P Index. The Index bears no tax costs, nor do mutual funds, since they pass through all tax liabilities to their owners. Last year, on the other hand, Berkshire paid or accrued $4.2 billion for federal income tax, or about 18% of our beginning net worth." If you believe this market rise is sustainable and/or continuable, then by all means, buy momentum. If however, you conceed (IMO) that we are late in the business cycles with a falling dollar, over-leveraged consumer (tapped out) and gov't, rising commodities, rising inflation, rising wages, declining productivity (the growth rate), and rising interest rates, momentum is the LAST place to be. Buffett sat around with his hands in his pockets in the late 60s as well. Some very large additions to BRK's net came as a result of Buffett's open hand in the mid 70s when others were screaming "get me out at any price". "It would help me determine whether to buy in again after selling at a small profit a few days ago." I loaded up the truck at $2000 late last year. I sold a great deal between $2350 and $2450. I have bought all that back and more. I continue to accumulate as recently as Friday at $2049. This is the time to be buying - not selling BRK, IMO. BRK is now 26% of the port and I have 14.5% in cash and 8% in bonds. Those will be the first assets redeployed into BRK should it drop further. I am not averse to exceeding the then resulting 50% weighting at that time should it drop further. You MUST differenciate between investing and trading with BRK. I made a sick amount of money on ICGE buying thousands of shares at $15.75 and selling 1/2 @ $24 5/8 and 1/2 at $29 3/4. However, that is momentum trading. I WILL make a sick amount of money buying BRK here. The WILL is the result of investing in a portion of a solid business at a reasonable price. If BRK continues to drop (to $1250 per share - book value - I wish), I would love to have 80% of the port there with the other in my 12% REITs for income and 8% cash for whatever.