The big news on Warren Buffett today was the interview he gave to CNBC on the lousy state of the economy. His statements echo those of the Barron's Roundtable participants a couple of weeks ago, who were downright, well, down on business conditions.
And when the CEO of Verizon appeared on Charlie Rose the other night, they spent most of the time talking about communications. Towards the end Rose asked about the overall state of the economy, and the CEO (name escapes me) seemed to be bending over backwards not to be too negative. Yet maybe that's just what I sensed and reading the transcript would give a different impression.
More interesting is this WSJ.com piece on Warren Buffett's portfolio holdings being cheap.
My take is that it might be better to just buy Berkshire Hathaway. BUT I wouldn't pay any "Buffett premium" -- and may only buy if Berkshire traded at a nice discount to NAV. Perhaps I'm being too greedy in that view. I just like it when I can buy big conglomerates like I bought Cheung Kong Holdings earlier this year -- at a 70% discount to book. I know. I know. Not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison.
Will Berkshire ever trade that cheaply? Doubtful. And I'm not holding my breath.
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