Brian Gongol
Warren Buffett speaks with CNBC
The guy gives away loads of valuable knowledge, and yet it's painful to read transcripts of interviews -- the reporters just simply don't get what he's saying. In part 5 of the transcript, for instance, one of the reporters goes off on a tangent about what he thinks about measures like earnings per share (EPS) and earnings expectations, suggesting that IBM's buybacks of stocks are some kind of accounting sleight of hand. Buffett responds: "Joe, there's nothing wrong with fewer shares outstanding...If they get it down to where there's 64 million shares outstanding, I'll be very happy." (64 million shares being the amount Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, has acquired.) Buffett's looking at the fundamentals -- a strong company that repurchases its stock when it's underpriced simply concentrates the ownership of existing shareholders. That's why Buffett elsewhere in the transcript says he'd like to see the stock price decline -- if he owns 5% of the company already, and the company then uses low prices to buy back, say, half of the shares, then Berkshire Hathaway would have obtained 10% control of the company, tax-free, without spending a penny. But in the frantic world of trading (as opposed to long-term investing), a declining price is cause for panic and the long term barely measures beyond the next commercial break. What Buffett does differently from so many people isn't really about being smarter than everyone else -- it's a matter of having a different temperament.
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