Lessons from Berkshire's AGM

Simon Brown highlights some of the key takeaways from Berkshire Hathaway’s annual general meeting that he reckons are most suitable for investors at the moment.

- Simon Brown

On the first Saturday of May each year Berkshire Hathaway hosts its annual general meeting (AGM). This is no ordinary AGM as over 40 000 shareholders make the trek to Omaha, Nebraska where Berkshire has its head office and Warren Buffett his home.

In past years, the AGM was a festive event with Berkshire companies selling their products followed by over eight hours of questions from the media and shareholders. But lockdown changed everything as the event became virtual and Charlie Munger was unable to travel, so it was just Warren Buffett and Greg Abel fielding questions. Abel is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy and vice chairman of non-insurance operations of Berkshire Hathaway. He is also the possible successor to Buffett at Berkshire.

A video of the AGM is available online on Yahoo! Finance, but here are my highlights of the event.

To begin with, Buffett sold all his airline stocks and that left me with two thoughts.