The Rational Walk will not provide direct coverage of the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. However, we have prepared a resource page that will be updated throughout the weekend. The goal is to include links to the best content and coverage ...
Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger rarely gives interviews, and when he does investors are wise to listen carefully. In the following CNBC interview with Becky Quick, Mr. Munger provides his general views regarding investment banking and says that Richard ...
In one of the first of many interviews leading up to the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting tomorrow, Warren Buffett discussed preparations for the meeting, anticipated attendance, and also comments on a big upswing in business at Berkshire subsidiaries starting in ...
The Financial Times published a special report today (also available as a pdf file) that attempts to quantify brand value for the top 100 global brands. The top global brand remains Google followed by IBM, Apple, and Microsoft. Coca Cola, ...
In the CSPAN video shown below, former President Bill Clinton comments on the SEC charges against Goldman Sachs and provides a brief account of his views regarding the problems with the financial system. Mr. Clinton specifically cites John Bogle’s views ...
While Warren Buffett is clearly the genius behind Berkshire Hathaway’s overall success, the company also has an exceptionally deep bench of management talent. Behind The Berkshire Hathaway Curtain is a new book written by Ronald W. Chan which provides an ...
At least for now, most air travel restrictions caused by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano have been lifted throughout Europe. Earlier reports led many observers to believe that significant insurance claims could result from this event. However, yesterday’s report ...
In a warning that was largely ignored at the time but proven correct in subsequent years, Warren Buffett referred to derivatives as "financial weapons of mass destruction" in his 2002 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. Critics of Berkshire's recent involvement ...
Mariusz Skonieczny, President of Classic Value Investors has written a concise primer on financial statements that allows the reader to gain a basic understanding of these key financial reports. The e-book is being offered free of charge to readers who ...
Berkshire Hathaway’s investment in Goldman Sachs at the height of the financial crisis represented a major vote of confidence that enabled Goldman to raise additional equity from investors. The September 2008 deal involved $5 billion in Goldman Sachs perpetual preferred ...
Warren Buffett referred to NetJets as “the major problem for Berkshire” in 2009 when reporting yearly results in his annual letter to shareholders. NetJets posted a $711 million loss in 2009 and posted aggregate pre-tax losses of $157 million during ...
Berkshire Hathaway's purchase of an 80 percent stake in Iscar Metalworking for $4 billion in 2006 represented Warren Buffett's first purchase of a foreign subsidiary. With exposure to the depressed industrial sector of the global economy, Iscar's sales suffered during ...
Fortune Magazine’s Brainstorm Green Conference, which took place last week, was designed to serve as a forum for discussion of a wide variety of environmental topics including the shift to cleaner power generation technologies such as wind and solar. David ...
Warren Buffett started his investment partnership in 1956 with $105,100 of capital made up of his own funds and investments from family and close friends. According to the BLS inflation calculator, initial capital was $840,920 measured in 2010 dollars which ...
Burton Malkiel, professor of economics at Princeton University, is the author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street and is currently preparing the tenth edition of the book. In a recent Financial Times interview, Mr. Malkiel insists that the data ...
In an interview with The Financial Times, Jeremy Grantham discusses a study on various financial bubbles that his firm has recently completed. Mr. Grantham found 34 examples of bubbles that fit his definition as a “forty year event” statistically. Of ...
National Underwriter P&C magazine recently reported that the soft insurance market is showing no signs of reversing as abundant capacity combined with diminished demand combines to keep a downward pressure on rates. This is the seventh consecutive year of soft ...
Goldman Sachs has served as a political piñata for so long that many observers may be tempted into believing that Friday's fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission should be viewed as just another part of the political ...
Joel Greenblatt outlined his “magic formula” for stock market investing in The Little Book That Beats the Market. Mr. Greenblatt’s formula ranks stocks based on two simple and easily calculated figures: earnings yield and return on capital. Rather than merely ...
Shell is in the final stages of completing a $19 billion plant in Qatar designed to convert abundant supplies of natural gas into clean burning diesel along with other fuels and byproducts. The gas-to-liquids (GTL) project is another sign of ...