Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK.A) recent high-profile investments in places like Europe and Israel have led many Oracle of Omaha-watchers to speculate that Warren Buffett is bearish on America.
Not so, says Mr. Buffett. Speaking at a business school in Switzerland, he told members of the media that "We buy ... when other people have a reason to sell. We love buying companies in the U.S."
The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that Buffett also said he would consider future investments in Eastern Europe, but that it is difficult to find acquisition targets that are large enough to be meaningful for Berkshire. He also doesn't feel that the weakened U.S. dollar would make investing in Europe difficult.
There's nothing too surprising here. Buffett has generally pursued a bottoms-up investment philosophy throughout his career (with some style-drift in recent years as Berkshire's cash pile has grown). He looks for strong companies with good management and predictable future cash flow, and I don't think he would write off any region where he can find that because of supposed macroeconomic concerns.
Warren Buffett still bullish on the United States
Posted May 22nd 2008 11:02AM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-22-2008 @ 12:05PM
Michael Schneider said...
International investments have been new to Warren Buffett- in recent years he bought in Korea, in PetroChina, the Brazilian currency and an Israeli metals company but recently he has bought in the health area with Sanofi and Glaxo Smith Kline. He has been careful and, except for the recent buys which are too early to judge, his international investments have done very very well.
A new synopsis item on dissecting Warren Buffett's stock portfolio is available free right now with many other Warren Buffett items in the Billionaire Watch section (yellow label top) at http://www.Barrelomoney.com.
5-22-2008 @ 12:34PM
speculator said...
Warren is right 10 years out. But now were going into a bear market.
www.theinvestingspeculator.com
5-22-2008 @ 6:44PM
Warren said...
Is this all anyone does anymore on this site? Plug their own site?