Word: stocke
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...week in the silver market, where prices spiked to a nine-year high after Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, disclosed that he had taken a major shine to the metal and bought up 129.7 million oz. of the stuff. That amounts to 37% of the world's aboveground stock of raw silver, according to the CPM group, a commodities and precious-metals consulting firm...
More than most tycoons, Buffett is forthcoming, and there is no reason to doubt his word. But there's also a bigger picture that's worth a look. At Berkshire's annual meeting last year, Buffett warned that the stock market was presenting few bargains and that investors should expect dramatically lower returns. Just last fall he bought $2 billion of--gasp!--long-term Treasury bonds, an investment that betrays some concern about stocks. Now he turns around and buys enough silver to make the Hunts jealous. Could it be that Buffett has soured on the stock market...
...chance, says Robert Hagstrom, author of The Warren Buffett Way and manager of the Focus Trust, a stock fund that tries to mimic Buffett's style. "You shouldn't take this as a cue to be seduced into commodities, and don't misunderstand this as a big move out of stocks," Hagstrom says. Indeed, the silver and T-bonds, even after recent run-ups in price, account for less than 10% of Berkshire's $34 billion portfolio...
...another Buffett watcher, Stephen Leeb, editor of the newsletter Personal Finance, notes that Buffett may feel vulnerable. The stock market has roared ahead in the past three years on the power of a "perfect-world" economy, one where inflation was low but earnings were robust. Buffett's stocks, more than most, have been big winners. Coca-Cola, his largest holding, has shown an average annual gain of 36.2% since the end of 1994, vs. 30.6% for the Standard & Poor's 500. Coke now trades at about $67 a share, more than 40 times last year's earnings and close...
...other high-profile investors, including Loews Corp. chairman Lawrence Tisch and international investor George Soros, have big stakes in metals-mining operations. And Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has been talking about either inflation or deflation at various times in the past few months. Either one could knock the stock market for a loop, and Buffett's highfliers probably would be among the hardest...