Warren Buffett, the world’s third richest person and chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A, BRK-B) has been called many things over the years. …Buffett saw off the tech-doubters once before – by avoiding the tech crash of 1999 and 2000. At the time, he faced the same criticisms; that he was out of touch and didn’t understand the ‘‘new economy’’.
Ariel Hsing is table tennis prodigy with influential fans (USAToday)
Ariel Hsing doesn’t have the typical relationship with two of her uncles, Warren and Bill. Uncle Warren is Warren Buffett. Uncle Bill is Bill Gates. The two met Hsing over table tennis — the sport Hsing will compete in at the London Olympics. The 16-year-old from San Jose has attended three Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meetings, taking on all comers. She’s beaten them and quite a few others too, qualifying for the Olympics at the continental trials in April.
Buffett Would Invest Big In These 2 Tech Companies If He Could (SeekingAlpha)
Warren Buffett may like IBM (IBM), but I see it more as a low-risk investment vehicle than anything else. IBM provides 35% less volatility than the broader market and consistent growth, but it doesn’t have a meaningful discount to intrinsic value when factoring in future grown. Consensus expects 2012 EPS being $16.60 and then growing 11% thereafter to hit $25.20 by 2016. At a 13x multiple, this growth translates to a $328.25 future stock value. Discounting backwards by an 8% discount rate of 8% yields a price target of $223.40. This is roughly a 10% margin of safety – approximately 1,000 basis points below what is required for “value investments”.
Warren Buffett bucks trend, pumps money into print business (IndiaTimes)
Unfazed by predictions of the death of newspapers, billionaire Warren Buffett is pumping more money into print. In the past year, one of the world’s richest men and sharpest investors has put some $300 million into an industry that some view as heading the way of the horse and buggy. He added $2 million to Lee Enterprises, owner of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and Arizona Daily Sun. That is in addition to other holdings, including The Buffalo News and a stake in The Washington Post Co.
The Man Who Moves Markets With A Single Word (Fool)
Arguably a greater influence than Warren Buffett or George Soros. Some people’s position or reputation allows them to influence the world’s financial markets. You will often see this happen when news hits the market about Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B.US) having invested in a company; its share price will quickly rise because many investors like to mimic Buffett’s trades. George Soros is another investor that the financial world watches closely, and he has been known to make and break currencies (and governments) through his activities in the foreign exchange markets, such as when he sold sterling in 1992 to precipitate Britain’s exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
Quirky Trouble Signs: Office Chairs, Caustic Soda (Businessweek)
Two of the quirkier indicators of where the economy is headed are pointing downward. Office furniture leasing seems to be cooling off. And orders for industrial chemicals are slowing. Those may seem like trivial items to focus on, but many economists regard them as good barometers of the outlook for the economy as a whole. As recently as February, Warren Buffett was optimistically pointing to his furniture-leasing business as “reflecting the steady recovery we have seen in almost all of our non-housing businesses.” But today, Bloomberg News reports that the company is saying demand is “simmering compared to where it was at the beginning of the year, when it looked like the recovery, at least from our perspective, would have been pretty robust.” That’s according to Jeff Pederson, the new chief executive of CORT Business Services, a unit of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
RSI Alert For Contrans Group (Businessweek)
Legendary investor Warren Buffett advises to be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. One way we can try to measure the level of fear in a given stock is through a technical analysis indicator called the Relative Strength Index, or RSI, which measures momentum on a scale of zero to 100. A stock is considered to be oversold if the RSI reading falls below 30. In trading on Tuesday, shares of Contrans Group Inc. (Toronto: CSS) entered into oversold territory, hitting an RSI reading of 28.2, after changing hands as low as $8.30 per share. By comparison, the current RSI reading of the S&P/TSX Composite Index is 64.6. A bullish investor could look at CSS’s 28.2 RSI reading today as a sign that the recent heavy selling is in the process of exhausting itself, and begin to look for entry point opportunities on the buy side.
Does Business Short-Termism Require A Long-Term Stock Exchange? (Forbes)
Short-termism is rampant in the business world. Even CEOs decry it. In 2009, the Aspen Institute convened a group of twenty-eight leaders from business, government and academia, and labor (including Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM and Jim Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank). They issued a call to end the focus on value-destroying short-term-ism in our financial markets, with recommendations including market incentives encourage more patient capital through tax policy, better alignment of the interests of financial intermediaries and their ultimate investors; and greater transparency to strengthen investor disclosures. The recommendations went unheeded and the problem of short-termism remains.
S&P Capital IQ Fund Research hikes Pareto Aksje fund grade (InvestmentEurope)
Norway domiciled Pareto Aksje Global fund has been awarded Gold status by S&P Capital IQ Fund Research. The global equities product is managed in Oslo by Andreas Sørbye and Ole Nilsen, who use a value-driven philosophy similar to that of Graham & Dodd and Warren Buffett, S&P Capital IQ said. The fund invests only in perceived high-quality companies, which the managers believe can generate sustainable above-average return on equity.
Former Bankruptcy Judge Named Examiner in ResCap Case (FoxBusiness)
Former bankruptcy judge Arthur J. Gonzalez will investigate dealings between mortgage lender Residential Capital LLC and its government-owned parent, Ally Financial Inc., as the independent examiner in ResCap’s bankruptcy. Judge Gonzalez was named the examiner by U.S. Trustee Tracy Hope Davis, according to court documents filed Tuesday. The appointment came after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKA, BRKB), a ResCap bondholder, pushed to have an examiner assigned to the case to look into past and current transactions between ResCap and Ally. Ally isn’t part of the bankruptcy.
Obama’s Awkward Dance on Campaign Fundraising (TheAtlantic)
Democrats have always had to go to rich people for money, but this year, it’s been a little more awkward. Some wealthy donors have been turned off by President Obama’s anti-Wall Street rhetoric. He’s no longer so exciting. And some wealthy progressives — such as billionaire Warren Buffett — have vowed not to contribute to the super PACs spawned by the Citizens United ruling. Between Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s multimillion-dollar fundraising binge since the Supreme Court’s health care ruling, and right-wing outside groups planning to spend millions attacking the president this cycle, Obama’s fundraising has taken on a new urgency. Last Friday, the president called some of his wealthiest 2008 donors and begged them to open their wallets.
