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FRI, MAR 28, 2025
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Berkshire has biggest lead over S&P so far this year |
After three more record closing highs this week for Berkshire Hathaway's B shares, their year-to-date lead over the S&P 500 index has hit a new high for 2025.
The B shares were caught in today's market downdraft, ending down 1.5% at 526.31, but they are still up 16.1% this year.
The S&P's percentage drop today was even bigger, however. as it finished down 2.0% at 5580.94.
That puts its YTD drop at 5.1%, which means BRKB is outperforming the benchmark by 21.2 percentage points. |
Before today's pullback, the B shares closed at three consecutive record highs on Tuesday through Thursday, when it ended at $534.52. |
The A shares also scored three straight all-time high closes, ending Thursday at $801,950. That is its first finish above the $800,000 milestone, although it went as high as $806,024 in Wednesday's trading.
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Buffett's NCAA bracket contest finally has a million-dollar winner |
Warren Buffett said last week he wanted someone to win the $1 million Berkshire Hathaway NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament "Bracket Challenge" while "I'm still around as chairman," pointing out to the Wall Street Journal, "I'm getting older."
After relaxing the rules a few times and "making it easier this year than ever," he has a winner.
In a news release on Monday, Berkshire said it was "pleased" to announce a FlightSafety International employee correctly picked the winners of 31 out of the 32 first-round games played last Thursday and Friday.
After predicting the victors of the first 29 games, the winner missed on game 30 in which Illinois (6) defeated Xavier (11), 86-73. |
Illinois forward Ben Humrichous (3) shoots a layup past Xavier Musketeers guard Dailyn Swain (3) during a Men's NCAA Tournament game on March 21. Photo: Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images via Reuters |
Last year, participants in the contest, which is only open to employees of Berkshire companies, had to have a perfect first-round bracket to win, although games involving the top two seeded teams in the four regions were excluded. This year, no free passes, but the minimum to be eligible to win was 30 out of 32.
Eleven other participants also got 31 right and just one wrong, but their misses came before game 30. Under the contest's tiebreaker rule, they will each get $100,000 each.
Earlier this week, Buffett told the Journal he is happy with the outcome.
"I feel good that we sort of hit the sweet spot on this one." |
BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET Some links may require a subscription |
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ARCHIVE |
A terrific castle with a wide moat and honest lord (1995) |
AUDIENCE MEMBER: What are the fundamental rules of economics you use to make money for Berkshire?
WARREN BUFFETT: The most important thing you can — you know, what we're trying to do is we're trying to find a business with a wide and long-lasting moat around it, surround — protecting a terrific economic castle with an honest lord in charge of the castle.
And in essence, that's what business is all about. I mean, you may want to be the lord of the castle, yourself, in which case, you don't worry about that last factor.
But what you're trying to — what we're trying to find is a business that, for one reason or another — it can be because it's the low-cost producer in some area, it can be because it has a natural franchise because of service capabilities, it could be because of its position in the consumers' mind, it can be because of a technological advantage, or any kind of reason at all, that it has this moat around it.
And then our — then what we have to decide is — all moats are subject to attack in a capitalistic system, so everybody is going to try and — if you've got a big castle in there, people are going to be trying to figure out how to get to it.
And what we have to decide — and most moats aren't worth a damn in, you know, in capitalism. I mean, that's the nature of it. And it's a constructive thing that that's the case.
But we are trying to figure out what is keeping — why is that castle still standing? And what's going to keep it standing or cause it not to be standing five, 10, 20 years from now. What are the key factors? And how permanent are they? How much do they depend on the genius of the lord in the castle?
And then if we feel good about the moat, then we try to figure out whether, you know, the lord is going to try to take it all for himself, whether he's likely to do something stupid with the proceeds, et cetera. But that's the way we look at businesses. |
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BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - Mar. 28, 2025 |
Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S., Japan, and Hong Kong, by market value, based on today's closing prices.
Holdings are as of December 31, 2024 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on February 14, 2025, except for:
The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker. |
Next week's Warren Buffett Watch will be published on Thursday instead of Friday. We'll be back to normal the following week.
Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.) If you aren't already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here. Also, Buffett's annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire's website.
-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch |
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