Author: Bill Smead

[…] “Every time I look around” this financial euphoria episode is “making me crazy,” because of how long it has lasted, how much the math tied to its carnage makes sense and because the anecdotal evidence has been visible for some time. We are channeling our inner Alan Greenspan, who called the tech bubble “Irrational Exuberance” in late 1996, only to look foolish for nearly four more years. As Art Cashin said recently on CNBC, the Y2K technology spending explosion elongated the tech bubble for another two years. Is the COVID-19 pandemic any different in elongating this euphoria episode? […]

We have argued for years that the biggest mistake being made by Berkshire Hathaway was not giving shareholders access to the thoughts and investment discipline of their two talented stock pickers, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs. After all, Buffett calls the shareholders “partners” and has not allowed his partners to understand anything about the strategies and results of upwards of $30 billion of shareholder capital. […]

In the summer of 2020, we didn’t know quite a few things about how Americans would react when they got their social and entertainment choices back. We didn’t have vaccines yet and the media took everyone to the scariest place they could as they framed the future. Why are investors reacting in a similar way to this 2021 spike in positive cases? What opportunities does this create for the long duration common stock investor?

The goal of our work is to avoid getting stuck as fashion disappears. We have no urge for getting beat up by our companies suffering from civil law moving against them. We enjoy using these divine laws to run our portfolios. Thanks to John Locke, we hope to avoid stock market failure.

The goal of our work is to avoid getting stuck as fashion disappears. We have no urge for getting beat up by our companies suffering from civil law moving against them. We enjoy using these divine laws to run our portfolios. Thanks to John Locke, we hope to avoid stock market failure.