Saturday, November 17, 2007

Warren Buffett warns investors that the Chinese stock market is ‘too hot’ (BRK.A)

This will be our last Warren Buffett post for a while, or until he says something that cracks us up.
Here are a few of his quotes (BrainyQuote is a good source for lesser-known stuff):

If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.

Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.

Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.

We believe that according the name 'investors' to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a 'romantic.'

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful".

On that note, we thank you for stopping by.
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Here's the story from the Times of London:

Warren Buffett, the billionaire American investor, said yesterday that he doubted that it was possible to find a good buy among Chinese shares because the market was “too hot” and was worthy of caution.

Last week, Mr Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold its entire stake in PetroChina, which has risen 76 per cent this year to become the world’s second-biggest company by market value, netting a huge profit for the insurance and investment company.

Mr Buffett said: “It was a very easy decision to buy PetroChina. It was one third of what it was worth, maybe a quarter. I doubt in the present market I would find something like that. The market has been too hot. I will keep looking.”

At one point Berkshire had a stake of 11 per cent in PetroChina. The shares were worth $3.31 billion at the end of 2006, well above the $488 million that Berkshire had paid for them, according to Berkshire’s most recent annual report.

Mr Buffett said that he had written to Jiang Jiemin, PetroChina’s chairman, thanking him for the “terrific” job that he and his managers had done for shareholders....MORE