Warren Buffett Q&A With University Students!

[Parsad]

Students from KU Finance, Creighton, Emory, University of South Dakota, Penn State and the University of Texas had a Q&A session with Warren Buffett.  If you have access to the MF BRK Board, Mhirschey has put his post there.  Due to copyright laws, I don't want to put the whole thing here, but here are a couple of quotes:

 

Buffett sees things in the financial markets that he’s never seen before, nor did he ever expect to see them. For example, Berkshire recently bought a three-month T-bill that involved a small amount of negative interest. Buffett joked that the mattresses sold by Nebraska Furniture Mart were a better place to put your money. Presently there is a bubble in U.S. Treasury securities. Credit spreads have gone from far too narrow a couple of years ago to far too wide today. Money can be made shorting Treasuries and going long corporate bonds, provided you can play out your hand.

 

“If you were just coming out of school today, would you look for stock-market bargains in the financial sector?” “You don’t get rich by making sector bets,” Buffett replied, “but there are lots of bargains in the financial sector right now. Not just stocks, but bonds and some other financial securities are also cheap. Who would have predicted that Bank of America (BAC) would fall from the 50s to less than 4?” All young people should be cautious about the dangers of debt. He also admonished the students to develop the right kinds of habits, “The chains of habit are too lightly felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” In a joking reference to being hard of hearing, Buffett said he recently told Charlie Munger: “Charlie, we should buy GE at 11.” No response. Moving closer, Buffett said once again, “Charlie, we should buy GE at 11.” Again, no response. Finally, Buffett moved up close and shouted in Charlie’s ear. “Charlie, we should buy GE at 11!” Charlie turned to him and said, “For the third time, Warren, YES.” (Note: Berkshire has disclosed big positions in U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo, and small positions in GE and BAC).

 

Cheers!

 

[oldye]

http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=27421675

 

Thanks!

[kiwing100]

http://undergroundvalue.blogspot.hk/2009/03/

 

 

[scorpioncapital]

"I decided early on that I never wanted to owe more than 25% of my net worth, and I haven’t… exept for in the very beginning."

 

Found this interesting. Was he using margin loans of 1.3 to 1.5 at the start ?

[Mungerish]

I have some outstanding notes from some of these meetings in years past. He tends to be much more candid with these groups in my experience. ( I once read notes where instead of using the typical Mr Market metaphor, he talked about nameless, faceless fools playing the market and because of that it followed there was no moral dilemma in taking advantage of them. ..'And then when that guy goes out of line, I whack him')

 

Lately, all seems to have gone quiet in terms of students posting notes from the meetings.

On the other hand, the youtube recordings of younger groups questioning Charlie after the Daily Journal meetings are also outstanding.

Just wondering if anyone has any recent notes of Warrens meeting with student groups. (?)