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"Manual of Ideas" is a good read. Here is a highlight (I have not included their subscription content info) of some thoughts Buffett shared on many industries which people have domains (currency & healthcare were of special note to me for investments & domain names):
Buffett on Currencies:
http://manualofideas.com/blog/2010/03/buffett_on_currencies_market_l.html
Watch Buffett on CNBC following the release of his annual letter:
Buffett on the economy, politics: "...trucking is struggling and the railroads. I mean, the railroad carloadings last week or the week before, whenever it was, were down--they were up from last year, but they were down 16 and a fraction percent, as I remember from two years ago. And trucking is having the same experience. There are just less goods moving than there were a few years ago because the economy has slowed down very significantly. Trucking will come back, railroads will come back, but this economy has slowed down a lot from a few years ago."
Buffett on banks, earthquakes: "The banks are in better shape than they were a year or two ago. Although a lot of smaller banks have got troubles. They've got particular troubles in commercial real estate. So the FDIC puts out this list of problem banks and that list, we had 140 banks fail last year, we'll probably have more than that fail this year. To put that in perspective, there are about 7,000 banks, so about 2 percent of the banks failed last year. I think that number will be up some this year. It's mainly concentrated in smaller banks that themselves got very concentrated in bad areas of lending, particularly in commercial real estate."
Buffett on currencies, market lessons: "You know, your portfolio ought to be in businesses you understand, where you understand their future economics. And they may be in emerging countries, they may be in the United States, and you're likely to understand them better in the United States. But the--sticking the name "emerging country" after a stock does not make it better. I mean, you have to know what you're buying, you have to know the business, you have to feel good about the management and you have to feel good about the price you're buying into it. And I would not--I would not--wouldn't make any difference to me if I had zero of my money in emerging markets, I want to have it in things that I understand and I think are attractive and I think are going to earn more money five years from now and 10 years from now than they are now. "
Buffett on succession planning and investing: "My enthusiasm for stocks is in direct proportion to how far they go down. I like it when things I like go down in price. Incidentally, if you own a farm in Nebraska and you've been waiting for your neighbor, you know, something to happen so you can buy the farm next to you, you hope farm prices are down when he decides to move or he dies or whatever it may be. And similarly, we are going to have money to invest forever. Money keeps coming in to Berkshire. Am I better off if I have to pay high prices or low prices?"
Buffett on health care: "...the health situation, what we have now is untenable over time. I mean, it--call what we're doing now plan A, and plan A has taken us from 5 percent of GDP to 17 or close to 17 percent of GDP. And that kind of a cost compared to the rest of the world is really a--it's like a tapeworm eating, you know, at our economic body. Every--everything we produce for export, everything we compete with that comes imported in this country, everything is bearing that cost, and it's a cost that the rest of the world isn't bearing. And the--tops around the world, you find 10 percent of GDP. We have fewer doctors than many--we have two and a half--a little over two and a half doctors per thousand, much of the world has well over three doctors. We have 11 nurses per thousand, much of the world has far more nurses per thousand. We have three beds per thousand, hospital beds per thousand, much of the world has six or seven beds per thousand. We have higher infant mortality than most places, or many places."
Buffett on President Obama: "I think the problems he's run into are, you know, are monumental and particularly in terms of the economy. I mean, you know, we're running huge deficits now that--which we should be running from a Keynesian standpoint to try and get this economy moving, but they have consequences, too. I mean, I do not envy the job of being president, but I give Obama high marks. "
Buffett on deal making, financial regulation: "Charlie [Munger] and I felt that we received as much or a tiny bit more in intrinsic value as we gave up [in the Burlington Northern deal]. But we factored into that some other things I mentioned in the annual report. Namely, that putting $22 billion of cash to work made good sense for us in this business and that the opportunities over the next 40 or 50 years to keep putting more and more cash at reasonable returns in, just like we do in our utility business, also was an attractive opportunity. We're going to generate lots of cash over the years and we don't always have great places to put that. This offers one vehicle where we can put it at decent rates of return. Not great rates of return, but decent rates of return."
Buffett on Coke, Pepsi (feat. Indra Nooyi): "Pepsi--it's a wonderful company. And particularly, I mean, Frito-Lay is a fabulous business. I'd love to own it. I eat Fritos, I eat Cheetos, I eat their potato chips; I even eat Munchos, which are kind of hard to find. But I always drink Coca-Cola with them."
Follow Warren Buffett's buys and sells in Portfolio Manager's Review.
Buffett on Currencies:
http://manualofideas.com/blog/2010/03/buffett_on_currencies_market_l.html
Watch Buffett on CNBC following the release of his annual letter:
Buffett on the economy, politics: "...trucking is struggling and the railroads. I mean, the railroad carloadings last week or the week before, whenever it was, were down--they were up from last year, but they were down 16 and a fraction percent, as I remember from two years ago. And trucking is having the same experience. There are just less goods moving than there were a few years ago because the economy has slowed down very significantly. Trucking will come back, railroads will come back, but this economy has slowed down a lot from a few years ago."
Buffett on banks, earthquakes: "The banks are in better shape than they were a year or two ago. Although a lot of smaller banks have got troubles. They've got particular troubles in commercial real estate. So the FDIC puts out this list of problem banks and that list, we had 140 banks fail last year, we'll probably have more than that fail this year. To put that in perspective, there are about 7,000 banks, so about 2 percent of the banks failed last year. I think that number will be up some this year. It's mainly concentrated in smaller banks that themselves got very concentrated in bad areas of lending, particularly in commercial real estate."
Buffett on currencies, market lessons: "You know, your portfolio ought to be in businesses you understand, where you understand their future economics. And they may be in emerging countries, they may be in the United States, and you're likely to understand them better in the United States. But the--sticking the name "emerging country" after a stock does not make it better. I mean, you have to know what you're buying, you have to know the business, you have to feel good about the management and you have to feel good about the price you're buying into it. And I would not--I would not--wouldn't make any difference to me if I had zero of my money in emerging markets, I want to have it in things that I understand and I think are attractive and I think are going to earn more money five years from now and 10 years from now than they are now. "
Buffett on succession planning and investing: "My enthusiasm for stocks is in direct proportion to how far they go down. I like it when things I like go down in price. Incidentally, if you own a farm in Nebraska and you've been waiting for your neighbor, you know, something to happen so you can buy the farm next to you, you hope farm prices are down when he decides to move or he dies or whatever it may be. And similarly, we are going to have money to invest forever. Money keeps coming in to Berkshire. Am I better off if I have to pay high prices or low prices?"
Buffett on health care: "...the health situation, what we have now is untenable over time. I mean, it--call what we're doing now plan A, and plan A has taken us from 5 percent of GDP to 17 or close to 17 percent of GDP. And that kind of a cost compared to the rest of the world is really a--it's like a tapeworm eating, you know, at our economic body. Every--everything we produce for export, everything we compete with that comes imported in this country, everything is bearing that cost, and it's a cost that the rest of the world isn't bearing. And the--tops around the world, you find 10 percent of GDP. We have fewer doctors than many--we have two and a half--a little over two and a half doctors per thousand, much of the world has well over three doctors. We have 11 nurses per thousand, much of the world has far more nurses per thousand. We have three beds per thousand, hospital beds per thousand, much of the world has six or seven beds per thousand. We have higher infant mortality than most places, or many places."
Buffett on President Obama: "I think the problems he's run into are, you know, are monumental and particularly in terms of the economy. I mean, you know, we're running huge deficits now that--which we should be running from a Keynesian standpoint to try and get this economy moving, but they have consequences, too. I mean, I do not envy the job of being president, but I give Obama high marks. "
Buffett on deal making, financial regulation: "Charlie [Munger] and I felt that we received as much or a tiny bit more in intrinsic value as we gave up [in the Burlington Northern deal]. But we factored into that some other things I mentioned in the annual report. Namely, that putting $22 billion of cash to work made good sense for us in this business and that the opportunities over the next 40 or 50 years to keep putting more and more cash at reasonable returns in, just like we do in our utility business, also was an attractive opportunity. We're going to generate lots of cash over the years and we don't always have great places to put that. This offers one vehicle where we can put it at decent rates of return. Not great rates of return, but decent rates of return."
Buffett on Coke, Pepsi (feat. Indra Nooyi): "Pepsi--it's a wonderful company. And particularly, I mean, Frito-Lay is a fabulous business. I'd love to own it. I eat Fritos, I eat Cheetos, I eat their potato chips; I even eat Munchos, which are kind of hard to find. But I always drink Coca-Cola with them."
Follow Warren Buffett's buys and sells in Portfolio Manager's Review.
