Buffett's big Berkshire buyback doesn't sound imminent

One sentence in the Financial Times' write-up (subscription required) of its three-hour interview with Warren Buffett sparked a lot of headlines like this one by Reuters: "Warren Buffett says Berkshire could buy back $100 billion stock: FT"

That would be a huge increase from the $1.3 billion of buybacks last year, after Buffett loosened his self-imposed buyback criterion. 

Berkshire has the money (roughly $112 billion in cash) and Buffett has been lamenting the scarcity of any reasonably-priced "elephants" (big companies) to buy in their entirety, so an enormous buyback makes sense.

But the actual sentence, which paraphrases Buffett, doesn't make it sound like anything will necessarily happen in the short term.

"(Buffett) says the time may come when the company buys back as much as $100bn of its shares." (Emphasis added.)

While Buffett doesn't appear to be hinting a blockbuster buyback is imminent, he may be, as Bloomberg notes, preparing Berkshire investors for more repurchases in the indeterminate future. 

"That's 100% not true and I would know if it were true"

Warren Buffett told CNBC's Becky Quick on Wednesday that Berkshire Hathaway isn't in talks to buy PG&E, the California utility facing enormous wildfire liabilities.

Quick called Buffett on the phone to ask about a Bloomberg report that SparkSpread, a subscription-only website offering what it calls "real time energy financing and trading news," had said Berkshire was in talks to acquire PG&E.

The utility's stock had briefly spiked to a gain of over 30% in pre-market trading. It had already lost a portion of the gain when Becky went on the air with Buffett's quote, which pushed it down even further. 

Countdown to Omaha

Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting is just over a week away. Tens of thousands will come to Omaha to see Buffett and Charlie Munger answer a wide variety of questions for roughly five hours on Saturday, March 4, starting around 10:15 am ET.

The event will be live streamed by Yahoo Finance. Video and a transcript will be available at CNBC's Buffett Archive by Monday morning. (The archive is home to annual meeting videos and transcripts going back to 1994.)

I'm also planning a special edition of this newsletter late Saturday afternoon.

Berkshire will be releasing its first quarter financial results at 8am ET the morning of the meeting,

All those shareholders will have ample opportunities to buy candies from See's, couches from Nebraska Furniture Mart, and diamonds from Borsheims. 

An estimated three-thousand runners will be covering 3.1 miles on the street of Omaha Sunday morning in The Invest in Yourself 5K, sponsored by Brooks Running Company, Berkshire's athletic shoe maker.

BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET

• The FT's Buffett interview also generated coverage besides the buyback news. CNBC wrote about Buffett saying "investors would be served just as well buying an S&P fund as his own company's stock." Entrepreneur was struck by Buffett eating at McDonald's three times a week and drinking five cans of Coke products a day, but still not be bothered "by the thought of my death." And Inc. saw a "Brilliant Lesson For Every Leader" in Buffett's identification of the "1 Thing That Would Ruin His Life."
  
  
• Yahoo Finance continued to roll out clips from its interview with Buffett. It wrote about Buffett's "'best way' to address income inequality," why his "'true definition of success' has nothing to do with money," and his expectation that most newspapers will be "toast."  He also explains why he never wanted to go to college.

• The Street asked "What Is Berkshire Hathaway and What Does It Do in 2019?"
  

BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH

Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares closed at $321,000 Friday, up 6.8% over the previous four weeks, and up 8.5% from one year ago.

Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares closed at $213.04 in extended hours trading, up 6.0% over the previous four weeks, and up 8.1% from one year ago.

The benchmark S&P 500 index closed at 2939.88, up 3.7% over the previous four weeks, and up 10.2% from one year ago.

BERKSHIRE'S TOP STOCK HOLDINGS 

Berkshire's top stock holdings by market value, based on today's closing prices. The number of shares held is as of December 31, 2018, as disclosed in the company's February 14 13-F SEC filing.

The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

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