February 28, 2008
Buffett Peaks
Periodically…I mean on a regular basis, some young journo punk writes a piece about how Warren Buffett has gone over the hill and no longer has what it takes to be a good investor. I recall there was one of those little pieces in Barron's in early 2007 about Warren hadn't beaten the S&P for the past 6 weeks or something. And Barron's, which really ought to know better, printed the damn thing.
Let us review one bit of Buffettology here. When Warren and Charlie bought Gen Re back in about 2001, the big reinsurer came with about 22,000 pieces of doggerel known as "derivatives," such things as Collateralized Debt Obligations, Credit Deferred Swaps, and even alleged "permanent insurance" products which were used to plump up earnings for a few unsavory corporate types. Warren and company spent the next four years getting rid of the derivitive sewage. He lost about $250 million bucks selling financial products, all of which were listed as profitable on the books when he got them.
Gee, how would Wall Street banks and brokers feel about only losing $250 million on their toxic garbage they can't sell at any price these days? I believe Da Boys have poured over $125 Billion down the write-off drain.
As a new rule, we should take the periodic piece knocking Buffett as an intermim peak indicator in the market, soon to be followed by much silent crow eating on the part of journo jerk writers, and hopefully the publication that printed it.
Filed under Gold and Monetary Metals by Financial Foghorn
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