Warren Buffet resigned from Berkshire Hathaway 60 years later. Also, you may have missed 4 other takeaways.
Berkshire Hathaway The bombshell ended with CEO Warren Buffett’s speech at the end of the year was his plan to serve as vice chairman Greg Abel as CEO at the end of the year. Buffett's announcement not only brought thousands of investors to attend, but also a surprise to most of the company's board and Yaba himself.
“He will be the CEO,” Buffett said, saying he does not intend to sell a “single share” of Berkshire shares.
Buffett's announcement came at the end of nearly five hours of questions to him, Abel and Vice Chairman Ajit Jain at the Chi Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska, which has 40,000 people. The topics they cover From what Buffett plans to do with a large cash pile for the company to what will change when the company's leadership changes.
Berkshire's Class A shares grew about 19% this year, while 3.3% of stocks fell 3.3% S&P 500.
Here are the other four gains from the conference.
Questions about Abel's investment philosophy proved to be prescient
Buffett announced his plan to back off a few hours ago, an investor asked Abel how his investment philosophy and how Buffett’s investment philosophy and how Berkshire might change when he was at the helm.
Abel said his first priority was to maintain Berkshire's reputation and “a fortress on the balance sheet”, which not only allowed Berkshire to provide a large number of acquisitions for dry fans, but also protected the massive acquisitions during a downturn. He also said he will continue to let Berkshire owned companies run independently.
“It's really an investment philosophy, and how Warren and the team have allocated capital over the past 60 years, will not change,” Abel said.
Later, when another shareholder asked Abel how different his management style was, Buffett jumped around with his own ridicule: “Better.”
Buffett says deals should not be “used as weapons”
Becky Quick, who interviewed Buffett on stage, said she received tariff issues from shareholders, not anything else, and Buffett made it clear that he didn't like the direction the U.S. was trading.
“There is no doubt that trade could be a war, and I think that leads to bad things, just attitudes brought in the United States,” Buffett said. “We should seek to trade with the rest of the world, we should do what we do best, they should do what they do best.”
The tariffs directly affect most companies that Berkshire owns in one way or another. Berkshire Hathaway Automobile CEO Jeff Rachor said earlier this year saw Customers buying cars surge to lead President Donald Trump's tariffs, a trend he hopes to balance later this year.
April volatility is not a buying opportunity
For stocks, April is a historically volatile month, with the S&P 500 losing more than 12% at the beginning of the month, and then recovering almost all of its losses.
But despite the decline – Buffett downplays the huge cash pile Berkshire’s huge cash pile, Buffett downplays the idea that volatility represents a unique opportunity.
“It's not a dramatic bear market or anything,” he said. Buffett and Abel admitted that the company considered a $10 billion investment from a company that Buffett refused to be named, but Buffett ultimately decided not to pull the trigger.
Buffett remains high on the U.S., but remains vigilant about debt
Buffett took the opportunity to measure the U.S. fiscal situation several times during the Q&A period, noting that in other countries, out-of-control debt often leads to currency depreciation.
“We are doing something unsustainable,” Buffett answered a question about his view on Tesla CEO Elon Musk's “Government Efficiency Department.”
Although Buffett did not comment directly on Doge, he said he was not envious of the work that tried to reduce the U.S. government fiscal deficit and said Congress has not had to work hard to balance income and expenditure.
“In the United States, we still have a lot of inflation, but it never got out of control,” Buffett said.
Despite fiscal issues, Buffett overturned the idea of ​​”American exceptionalism” death in a different issue, noting that the United States has successfully encountered a more substantial crisis in its history. If he was born today, Buffett said he said he “just continues negotiating in the womb” until he can secure the United States as his birthplace.
