Thanks @wabuffo. Great tutorial and you are the best!
I think Sheila Bair was talking about possible increase in LT rates. Naturally the treasury determines the composition of the treasury debt issued but can they keep controlling the LT rates with increased deficit spending forever by issuing mostly ST treasury bills? Doesn't the private sector at some point have a say in determining the LT treasury rates?
There was a good interview with Sheila Bair, former chair of FDIC on CNBC today. She also warned about the un-sustainability of growing US debt and its potential impact on the yield of longer dated US treasuries.
Can't imagine this being accurate:
"It appears that Berkshire Hathaway’s liability in the Whittaker Clark situation isn’t capped, which would be unusual for Berkshire Hathaway, which normally seeks to limit its liabilities in these situations."
I am not sure about Apple; Warren said it is likely (not guaranteed) that they would end 2024 with it being the largest stock holding of Berkshire. Naturally he can change his mind especially if Apple valuation keeps going up. I think you are 100% correct about BAC. Warren was very disappointed at how they piled into LT treasuries in 2020-21, reaching for a tiny bit of yield.
The number of Berkshire shares outstanding (A equivalent) have actually gone up by 912 during Q3 to 1,407,608. Appears related to buying back BHE stock held by Scott estate.
FWIW I don't think Warren is building a huge cash pile for an acquisition. I suspect he thinks that the US stock market is greatly overvalued and is trading at high valuation based on possibly cyclically adjusted high earnings w/o factoring into account any of the big risks. And T-bills are paying him a decent inflation adjusted return w/o any risk so T-bills will be the default until he finds something intelligent to do. I like that he stopped buying back Berkshire stock at these prices. Warren may also be "cleaning up the portfolio" to hand-off just permanent holdings to Greg to manage, and the current valuations make that relatively painless.
The main problem with showing returns with dividend reinvestment is that most such calculations don't take into account the tax leakage from dividends. Most people incur taxes in the range of 20%-35% with federal and state taxes in the US. So the after-tax returns tend to be lower.
For this reason, stock buybacks tend to be far superior but a large part of the investor base for tobacco companies want dividends so it shall be primarily dividends with a smaller buyback thrown in.