May 2009

My 3pmET show "Countdown to the Closing Bell" launched one year ago last week. We put together a little retrospective of some of our highlights and I have to tell you, I was so proud of all we've accomplished in one short year.  This show was originally the creation of Kevin Magee, FBN's head honcho, and Andy Hoffman, FBN's Executive Producer of Market Hours.  They decided that the final hour ... read more

Hi gang, You all probably have lives and if that's the case and you're out all weekend, you probably also have TiVo or a DVR. Set it for tonight (Saturday May 9th) at 9pmET or Sunday, May 10th at 10pm ET to Fox Business. My special on Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Buffett's longtime business partner Charlie Munger was completed late last night by our wonderful producers and will air at these ... read more

Question: Are you still buying? How would you rank the recent market downturn in terms of opportunities in stocks? Buffett: Not as dramatic as the 1974 period was .  I'm gonna be buying investments the rest of my life. I would much rather pay half of x than x. On a personal basis - I like lower prices. I realize that's not the way all of you feel. It just makes sense that when things are on ... read more

Question: When you acquire companies they come equipped with managers- Berkshire has done a great job putting the right leaders in the right roles. Occassionally you have to hire someone - what do you look for? How do you evaluate a person's potential to be a great manager? Buffett: We usually hire people who already are great managers.  The real question we have to ask is will they be with us ... read more

Buffett: In terms of Berkshire earnings - we will just keep doing things that make sense. We own a lot of Coca-Cola, P&G... we have a lot of indirect sources of earnings outside the U.S. and a lot of direct. We want all of our subsidiaries to be looking all over the place. There are a lot of countries we feel comfortable with. We would be happy to put more money in those countries - but we don't ... read more

Question: What's the worst-case scenario you could imagine with respect to your insurance business? Munger: Very worst is losing several billions of dollars pre-tax. I think we have a marvelous insurance sytem. Warren? Buffett: It is a fabulous business. If we had a $100B catastrophe - we would probably pay 3-4% of that. I think the worst situation that could occur is that we ran into so ... read more

Question: If a board of directors makes a mistake with compensation - then the board issues incentive bias toward earnings manipulation. Bearing in mind rule number 1 - don't lose money and if it's okay to have losses in short-term if loss is widens. How do you develop a fair compensation for a subsidiary that requires a lot of capital? Buffett: We've thought a lot about this. In a capital ... read more

Question: Are there underlying issues you see in the world economy? Like going off the gold standard? If the Berkshire business is great but underlying economy is the problem - where do we go from there? Buffett: There's always a lot of things wrong with the world. Unfortunately it's the only world we've got. This system works very well. I know that over time people will live better and better ... read more

Question on Goldman Sachs and General Electric investments Buffett:  I felt good about those companies in terms of quality of businesses and management. It was the terms that caused us to make those deals. They were made when markets were in chaos and you should have got favorable terms for committing money and not many people were able to commit money on short-notice. It was a really ... read more

Question: Could you comment on the student loan business? Buffett: I don't know that much about it. Charlie? Munger: I don't know that much either. Buffett: It's been a long time since Charlie and I thought about getting a student loan. We were actually approached about a Sallie Mae deal - but it fell through ... read more