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Tag: Warren Buffett

  • Warren Buffett names his favorite stock, comments on other Berkshire Hathaway holdings at annual meeting

    Warren Buffett names his favorite stock, comments on other Berkshire Hathaway holdings at annual meeting

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  • Warren Buffett says American banks could face more turbulence ahead, but deposits are safe

    Warren Buffett says American banks could face more turbulence ahead, but deposits are safe

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    Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett on Saturday assailed regulators, politicians and the media for confusing the public about the safety of U.S. banks and said that conditions could worsen from here.

    Buffett, when asked about the recent tumult that led to the collapse of three mid-sized institutions since March, launched into a lengthy diatribe about the matter.

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    “The situation in banking is very similar to what it’s always been in banking, which is that fear is contagious,” Buffett said. “Historically, sometimes the fear was justified, sometimes it wasn’t.”

    Berkshire Hathaway has owned banks from early on in Buffett’s nearly six-decade history at the company, and he’s stepped up to inject confidence and capital into the industry on several occasions. In the early 1990s, Buffett served as CEO of Salomon Brothers, helping rehabilitate the Wall Street firm’s tattered reputation. More recently, he injected $5 billion into Goldman Sachs in 2008 and another $5 billion in Bank of America in 2011, helping stabilize both of those firms.

    Ready to act

    He remains ready, with his company’s formidable cash pile, to act again if the situation calls for it, Buffett said during his annual shareholders’ meeting.

    “We want to be there if the banking system temporarily gets stalled in some way,” he said. “It shouldn’t, I don’t think it will, but it could.”

    The core problem, as Buffett sees it, is that the public doesn’t understand that their bank deposits are safe, even those that are uninsured. The Berkshire CEO has said regulators and Congress would never allow depositors to lose a single dollar in a U.S. bank, even if they haven’t made that guarantee explicit.

    The fear of regular Americans that they could lose their savings, combined with the ease of mobile banking, could lead to more bank runs. Meanwhile, Buffett said that he keeps his personal funds at a local institution, and isn’t worried despite exceeding the threshold for FDIC coverage.

    “The messaging has been very poor, it’s been poor by the politicians who sometimes have an interest in having it poor,” he said. “It’s been poor by the agencies, and it’s been poor by the press.”

    First Republic

    Buffett also turned his ire on bank executives who took undue risks, saying that there should be “punishment” for bad behavior. Some bank executives may have sold company stock because they knew trouble was brewing, he added.

    For example, First Republic, which was seized and sold to JPMorgan Chase after a deposit run, sold its customers jumbo mortgages at low rates, which was a “crazy proposition,” he said.

    “If you run a bank and screw it up, and you’re still a rich guy… and the world goes on, that’s not a good lesson to teach people,” he said.

    Berkshire has been unloading bank shares, including that of JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, since around the start of the 2020 pandemic.

    Recent events have only “reconfirmed my belief that the American public doesn’t understand their banking system,” Buffett said.

    He reiterated several times that he had no idea how the current situation will unfold.

    “That’s the world we live in,” Buffett said. “It means that a lighted match can turn into a conflagration, or be blown out.”

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  • Warren Buffett says letting Silicon Valley Bank customers go under would’ve been ‘catastrophic’

    Warren Buffett says letting Silicon Valley Bank customers go under would’ve been ‘catastrophic’

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    Shareholders watch Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger from the overflow room during the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting on Saturday, May 6, 2023, in Omaha, Neb.

    Rebecca H. Gratz | AP

    Follow our live coverage of Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway meeting.

    Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett said Saturday that regulators avoided a financial disaster by making sure that Silicon Valley Bank customers didn’t lose money in the firm’s collapse.

    The sudden downfall of SVB in March forced the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to seize the bank, selling some of its assets to First Citizens weeks later.

    The FDIC protected SVB customers in the process by invoking the systemic risk exception during the March tumult, allowing the regulator to make all depositors whole, even if their accounts exceeded the $250,000 coverage threshold.

    “It would’ve been catastrophic” if regulators hadn’t done that, Buffet said during his annual shareholder meeting.

    Allowing uninsured depositors to lose money would’ve “started a run on every bank in the country,” he said.

    So the move, which brought criticism because it protected venture capital investors, startups and other sophisticated players, was “inevitable” in Buffett’s view.

    Protecting uninsured depositors contributed to the estimated $20 billion hit that the FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund took in the SVB receivership. The biggest U.S. banks are expected to cover the economic cost of that through special fees.

    This story is developing. Please check back for updates.

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  • Berkshire Hathaway’s operating earnings increase 12% in the first quarter, cash hoard tops $130 billion

    Berkshire Hathaway’s operating earnings increase 12% in the first quarter, cash hoard tops $130 billion

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    Earnings for Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway jumped in the first quarter, thanks in part to a rebound in the conglomerate’s insurance business.

    Operating earnings, which encompass profits from the conglomerate’s fully-owned businesses, totaled $8.065 billion in the first quarter. That’s up 12.6% from $7.16 billion a year prior.

    Profit from insurance underwriting came in at $911 million, up sharply from $167 million a year prior. Insurance investment income also jumped 68% to $1.969 billion from $1.170 billion.

    Geico saw a big turnaround in the quarter, returning to a big underwriting profit of $703 million. The auto insurer suffered a $1.9 billion pretax underwriting loss last year as it lost market share to competitor Progressive. Ajit Jain, Berkshire’s vice chairman of insurance operations, previously said the biggest culprit for Geico’s underperformance was telematics.

    The company’s railroad business, BNSF, along with its energy company saw year-over-year earnings declines. Operations classified under “other controlled businesses” and “non-controlled businesses” had slight increases from the year-earlier period.

    Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Los Angeles, California. May 1, 2021.

    Gerard Miller | CNBC

    Berkshire’s cash hoard swelled to $130.616 billion from $128 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022. Berkshire also repurchased $4.4 billion worth of stock — the most since the first quarter of 2021 — up from $2.8 billion at the end of last year.

    Berkshire’s net earnings, which includes short-term investment gains, increased to $35.5 billion in the quarter from $5.6 billion in the same period a year ago, reflecting a first quarter comeback in Warren Buffett’s equity investments, such as Apple. Though Buffett cautions investors to not pay attention to quarterly fluctuations in unrealized gains on investments.

    The company’s latest quarterly results come ahead of the conglomerate’s annual shareholders meeting, an event known as “Woodstock for Capitalists.”

    Berkshire Class A shares are up 4.9% this year through Friday’s close, lagging the S&P 500’s 7.7% advance. However, the stock is less than 3% below an all-time high.

    — CNBC’s Yun Li contributed reporting.

    Follow CNBC’s livestream of Berkshire Hathaway’s 2023 annual meeting starting live at 9:45 a.m. ET Saturday here.

    Follow live highlights and updates of the meeting here.

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  • Just 5 stocks make up the lion’s share of Warren Buffett’s equity portfolio. Here’s what they are

    Just 5 stocks make up the lion’s share of Warren Buffett’s equity portfolio. Here’s what they are

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  • Charlie Munger reportedly warns of trouble for the U.S. commercial property market

    Charlie Munger reportedly warns of trouble for the U.S. commercial property market

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    Charles Munger at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, April 29, 2022.

    David A. Grogan | CNBC

    Charlie Munger believes there is trouble ahead for the U.S. commercial property market.

    The 99-year-old investor told the Financial Times that U.S. banks are packed with “bad loans” that will be vulnerable as “bad times come” and property prices fall.

    “It’s not nearly as bad as it was in 2008,” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “But trouble happens to banking just like trouble happens everywhere else.” 

    Munger’s warning comes as U.S. regulators have asked banks for their best and final takeover offers for First Republic by Sunday afternoon, the latest in what has been a tumultuous period for midsized U.S. banks.

    Since the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in March, attention has turned to First Republic as the weakest link in the American banking system. Shares of the bank sank 90% last month and then collapsed further this week after First Republic disclosed how dire its situation is.

    Berkshire Hathaway, where Munger serves as vice chairman, has largely stayed on the fringe of the crisis despite its history of supporting American banks through times of turmoil. Munger, who is also Warren Buffett’s longtime investment partner, suggested that Berkshire’s restraint is partially due to risks that could emerge from banks’ numerous commercial property loans.

    “A lot of real estate isn’t so good anymore,” Munger said. “We have a lot of troubled office buildings, a lot of troubled shopping centers, a lot of troubled other properties. There’s a lot of agony out there.”

    Read the complete Financial Times interview here.

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  • CNBC Daily Open: Fed minutes reignite recession fears

    CNBC Daily Open: Fed minutes reignite recession fears

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    A person walks in Hell’s Kitchen amid the coronavirus pandemic on March 20, 2021 in New York City.

    Noam Galai | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

    This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

    Fears of imminent recession dampened CPI cheer.

    What you need to know today

    • A recession is likely for the U.S. economy later this year in the wake of the banking crisis, according to minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee’s March meeting. Fed officials expect banks to reduce lending, which would slow the economy.
    • Warren Buffett thinks more banks might fail in the same way SVB did — because they made the wrong bet on asset prices. But depositors, he told CNBC, shouldn’t worry because “nobody is going to lose money on a deposit in a U.S. bank.”
    • U.S. stocks fell Wednesday on those fears, after rallying earlier in the day on signs inflation is cooling. Asia-Pacific markets followed and were mostly lower Thursday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 0.49%, weighed down by a 2.39% fall in Hong Kong-listed Alibaba shares.
    • Investors fled Alibaba after SoftBank reportedly sold around $7.2 billion worth of shares in the Chinese tech giant, leaving it with a 3.8% stake. That’s a steep drop from three years ago, when SoftBank held an approximately 25% stake in Alibaba.

    The bottom line

    The Fed didn’t give investors much time to celebrate March’s lower-than-expected inflation reading.

    The CPI should have been the news of the day. It said all the right things. The annual increase in headline inflation was the lowest since June 2021. Food prices dropped 0.3%, the first time they fell since September 2020. Housing costs rose, but at the slowest pace since November last year.

    Markets rose after the CPI was released — why wouldn’t they?

    Then minutes from the FOMC’s meeting came out and changed investors’ day. Fear of recession replaced optimism around inflation. By the end of the trading session, all indexes registered losses. The S&P 500 fell 0.41%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average snapped its four-day winning streak to lose 0.11%, and the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.85%.

    Perhaps investors were too optimistic in the first place. Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said we’ve moved past the eye-watering inflation of last June, but he told CNBC that “we still have a ways to go.” That would suggest inflation — and interest rate hikes — aren’t done yet.

    Echoing Barkin, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said he doesn’t believe we can “get below 4% inflation any time soon, which in my mind will probably lead to more tightening by the Federal Reserve.”

    Investors will keep their eyes on the producer price index coming out today, and earnings reports from big U.S. banks Friday, to gauge whether the economy is truly in such dire straits.

    Subscribe here to get this report sent directly to your inbox each morning before markets open.

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  • Warren Buffett-backed BYD announces new shock absorption tech for premium EVs

    Warren Buffett-backed BYD announces new shock absorption tech for premium EVs

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    BYD’s Han electric car, pictured here at the 2021 Shanghai auto show, is one of the most popular new energy vehicles in China.

    Evelyn Cheng | CNBC

    SHENZHEN, China — Electric vehicle giant BYD is banking on new driver-assist technology to smooth out car rides.

    BYD, backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, announced Monday a new technological system for stabilizing car rides through rugged terrain, sharp turns and even shallow water. The shock absorption tech is set to be a feature of the company’s recently launched premium brand Yangwang.

    “Traditionally, luxury cars were determined by brand and history. For luxury new energy vehicles, it’s a matter of what tech and products,” BYD founder Wang Chuanfu said in Mandarin at a launch event Monday, according to a CNBC translation.

    He claimed the tech represented a “breakthrough” that “leads and surpasses foreign technological level.”

    The update comes ahead of the Shanghai Auto Show, set to kick off next week, where many Chinese car companies are set to make product and model announcements.

    Part of the tech system uses the same “lidar” sensors used in assisted driving, according to BYD. Lidar, short for “light detection and ranging,” uses lasers to create detailed maps of the surrounding area.

    The automaker said in a release its new “DiSus” system “provides a foundation for the future development of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).”

    The company has taken a relatively cautious approach to self-driving tech.

    When asked about “smart driving” during a call with investors in late March, BYD management said autonomous driving still faces the challenge of determining liability in the event of an accident. Still, management said, advanced assisted driving tech has the potential to improve overall safety. That’s according to a filing of last month’s call accessed through the Wind Information database.

    The industry as a whole has been working to balance ambitious driver-assist options with measured safety protocols. EV leader Tesla in February recalled more than 360,000 cars over assisted-driving software for city streets that it said may cause crashes.

    That urban assisted driving software is not available for Tesla drivers in China.

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    BYD

    It was not immediately clear how Tesla’s shock absorption capabilities compared with BYD’s, but other car companies in China are looking into similar technology.

    In September, Nio’s investment fund Nio Capital led a $39 million financing round into Boston-based ClearMotion, which develops software for active suspension.

    Many details still unknown

    BYD’s Wang didn’t address what the company’s new DiSus system would cost to use, or when it would become widely available.

    Two of the compatible car models — Yangwang’s forthcoming U8 SUV and the Denza N7 SUV — are not yet available for deliveries. Auto giant Daimler has a small stake in BYD’s Denza brand.

    BYD said some of its existing Han, Tang and Denza models are set to receive the new tech through an over-the-air upgrade.

    The new system comes in three versions — “damping,” “air,” and “hydraulic” — which are set for individual integration with certain BYD models.

    Read more about electric vehicles from CNBC Pro

    In the first quarter, BYD said it sold 264,647 all-electric passenger cars, up more than 80% from a year ago. Hybrid passenger vehicle sales doubled from a year ago to 283,270 in the first quarter.

    Tesla, for its part, said it delivered more than 422,000 cars worldwide in the first quarter, without sharing a regional breakdown. China typically accounts for well over 20% of Tesla’s revenue.

    Why this company is called China's Tesla

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  • CNBC Daily Open: Bitcoin breaches $30,000 as the economy slows

    CNBC Daily Open: Bitcoin breaches $30,000 as the economy slows

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    A sign for a Bitcoin automated teller machine (ATM) at a gas station in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023.

    Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

    Markets were mostly unchanged Monday, though bitcoin breached $30,000. Investors are waiting for bank earnings and price reports.

    What you need to know today

    • U.S. stocks were unchanged Monday after the long weekend, indicating investors were still weighing — and waiting for — economic data. Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose Tuesday. South Korea’s Kospi climbed 1.4% as the country’s central bank left interest rates unchanged at 3.5%. On the other hand, China’s Shanghai Composite slid 0.4% as prices in the country rose 0.7% year on year for March, which was lower than expected.
    • Bitcoin broke the $30,000 barrier for the first time since June last year. The biggest cryptocurrency by market cap is up 86% year to date as investors flocked to it amid the banking turmoil.
    • Warren Buffet said in an interview with Nikkei he was thinking about investing more in five Japanese trading houses, which are conglomerates that import various products into Japan. Shares of those Japanese trading house rose by at least 2%.                                              
    • Alibaba revealed Tuesday morning an artificial intelligence chatbot named Tongyi Qianwen that will eventually be integrated with all its products. The news didn’t have that much of a lasting impact on the company’s Hong Kong-listed shares, which were last up 0.77% — but rival Baidu sank 6.79%.
    • PRO Samsung might see a 96% plummet in quarterly profit, and it plans to cut memory chip production. So why did Wall Street react positively to the news?

    The bottom line

    Markets in the U.S. reopened Monday but seemed to retain a post-holiday sluggishness as investors digested multiple signs of a slowing — but still strong — economy.

    First, even though consumers felt credit was harder to come by in March, the banking turmoil is subsiding. Charles Schwab said average daily outflows were down from February, and the bank had added $53 billion of core net new client assets in March. That trend is consistent with the broader banking industry, according to Federal Reserve data. For the period ending March 29, deposits increased by $42.3 billion on a non-seasonally adjusted basis.

    Likewise, although the tech sector was hit by bad news, the storm clouds had a silver lining. Computer shipments for the first quarter plummeted — but IDC thinks cratering demand lets companies finish “rejigging their plans” and improve their supply chains. Indeed, Dell popped 2.98% and HP rose 1.54% on the news — though Apple fell 1.6%, probably because it saw the steepest fall in shipments.

    The same dynamic of “bad news is good news” played out in the memory chip sector. Samsung’s plan to cut chip production helped push rivals Micron Technology and Western Digital higher by 8.04% and 8.22%, respectively. There were too many chips flooding the market, analysts believe, and tighter supply is a good thing.

    Outside those industries, however, the major stock indexes were mostly unchanged. The S&P 500 ticked up 0.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3% and the Nasdaq Composite declined by 0.03%.

    Investors await a slew of economic indicators this week. On the earnings front, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup report quarterly results. Traders will certainly pore through those reports, but they’ll also want to see what the U.S. consumer price index and producer price index say about the economy. If they reinforce last week’s jobs report and indicate that the economy isn’t overheating, the Federal Reserve may actually manage to steer markets to a fabled “soft landing.” Investors are keeping their fingers crossed.

    Subscribe here to get this report sent directly to your inbox each morning before markets open.

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  • Japanese trading houses rise as Warren Buffett says he plans on buying more

    Japanese trading houses rise as Warren Buffett says he plans on buying more

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    Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan in 2011.

    Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Shares of Japanese trading houses rose in Tuesday afternoon trade after Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said he plans to increase his holdings.

    In an interview with Nikkei, Buffett said he is considering additional investment in five major Japanese trading houses, adding that he was “very proud” of his existing investments in them.

    Shares of Mitsubishi Corp. rose 2.7% in Japan’s afternoon trade, Mitsui & Co. gained 2.6%, Itochu Corp climbed 2.5% and Marubeni Corp. advanced 3.7%. Sumitomo Corp. also rose 2.7%.

    Buffett told Nikkei that he is planning to meet with the companies later in the week “to really just have a discussion around their businesses and emphasize our support,” according to the report.

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    Japan’s five largest trading companies — known as sogo shosha — are conglomerates that import everything from energy and metals to food and textiles into resource-scarce Japan. They also provide services to manufacturers. The trading houses have helped grow the Japanese economy and contributed to the globalization of its business.

    Buffett told Nikkei that he currently holds a 7.4% stake in Itochu — roughly a 0.6 percentage point increase from the 6.8% holding disclosed in November regulatory filings.

    Late last year, Berkshire Hathaway increased its positions in the five leading trading houses in Japan by at least 1 percentage point to more than 6% each — after its initial purchase in August, when Buffett acquired stakes worth more than $6 billion in total on his 90th birthday.

    November filings showed Berkshire Hathaway’s positions stood at 6.6% in Mitsubishi Corp., 6.6% in Mitsui & Co., 6.2% in Itochu Corp., 6.8%  Marubeni Corp. and 6.6% in Sumitomo Corp.

    Nikkei separately reported that Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is preparing another issuance of yen-denominated bonds, which was seen as a signal the conglomerate would increase its investments in Japan.

    — CNBC’s Becky Quick contributed to this report

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  • Quit Your Bucket List

    Quit Your Bucket List

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    Years ago, just after I finished my psychiatry residency, a beloved supervisor called to say she had some bad news. At a routine checkup, she had glanced at her chest X-ray up on the viewing box while waiting for her doctor to come into the room. She was a trauma surgeon before becoming a psychiatrist and had spent years reading chest X-rays, so she knew that the coin-size lesion she saw in her lung was almost certainly cancer, given her long history of smoking.

    We had dinner soon after. She was still more than two years away from the end of her life and felt physically fine—vital, even. That’s why I was so surprised when she said she had no desire to spend whatever time she had left on exotic travel or other new adventures. She wanted her husband, her friends, her family, dinner parties, and the great outdoors. “Just more Long Island sunsets. I don’t need Bali,” she told me.

    At the end of life, you might expect people to feel regret for all the things they wanted to do and never made time for. But I have yet to know a patient or friend who, facing the blunt fact of their own mortality, had anything close to a bucket list. This squares with some recent research that shows that people tend to prefer familiar experiences more when they are reminded that their days are limited. The people I know even regretted the novelty they’d chased along the way, whether it was recreational-drug use or dating exciting people who they knew weren’t relationship material.

    Deathbed pronouncements can have limited applications for the rest of life, but this pattern suggests that novelty is perhaps overrated. Chasing the high of new sensations simply isn’t appealing for many people, and can sometimes even be bad for our health. I suspect that’s because, too often, the pursuit of novelty requires sacrificing the things we already know we love.

    It’s a common misconception that people who don’t have a taste for the newest, sexiest experience are dull, incurious, and unimaginative. A 2002 study found that people will switch away from their favorite, habitual choices when they know others are watching in order to avoid being judged as narrow-minded. And yet, Warren Buffett notoriously eats breakfast at the same fast-food restaurant every day and sticks to a strict work schedule. Taylor Swift’s music can be redundant and predictable. Barack Obama is famous for his strict morning exercise regime and daily reading time.

    Even when they’re not facing death, many people just don’t seem to like novelty that much. In 2017, a poll by a British soup company found that 77 percent of U.K. workers had consumed the exact same lunch every day for nine months and that one in six people had done so for at least two years. You might think it’s just a matter of convenience or economic exigency (the study didn’t say), but I’m not so sure; wealthy people I know partake in similar behavior, even if they do it at a fancy restaurant. Consider, too, that when people lose a pet, many run out and get a replacement of the same breed with a similar temperament. They repeatedly date people with the same quirks and problems. They return to a favorite vacation spot. They listen to the same musical artists and styles time and again.

    Read: The people who eat the same meal every day

    Research shows that humans have an intrinsic preference for things and people they are familiar with, something called the mere exposure effect. Several studies have shown that people who listen to unfamiliar songs repeatedly grow fonder of the songs they hear most  by the end of the experiment, even if they did not initially like them very much. You don’t even have to be aware that you’re growing used to something for the effect to work.

    This tendency toward repetition may seem natural, even lazy, but it runs counter to much of our history. We, along with other animals, evolved to be exquisitely sensitive to novel experiences. Way back in the Paleolithic era, there was a clear survival advantage to being attuned to new situations, which could lead someone to a potential mate or a piece of mastodon, or reveal a deadly threat. Nowadays, though, with every conceivable reward—food, sex, drugs, emotional validation, you name it—either a click, tap, or ChatGPT query away, conventional novelty-seeking has lost much of its adaptive advantage.

    As Arthur Brooks has written in The Atlantic, novelty can be fun and exciting. New and unexpected experiences activate the brain’s reward pathway more powerfully than familiar ones, leading to greater dopamine release and a more intense sense of pleasure. But on its own, excitement won’t bring about enduring happiness. Human beings habituate rapidly to what is new. To achieve a lifetime of stimulation, you would have to embark on an endless search for the unfamiliar, which would inevitably lead to disappointment. Worse, the unfettered pursuit of novelty can lead to harm through excessive thrill-seeking—including antisocial behavior such as reckless driving—particularly when the novelty seeker has poor impulse control and a disregard for others.

    Read: Don’t approach life like a picky eater

    There’s a better way. Research shows that when novelty-seeking is paired with persistence, people are far more likely to be happy, probably because they are able to achieve something meaningful. You might, for example, take a variety of courses in college or try different summer internships if you’re not yet sure what interests you. When one really clicks, you should explore it in depth; it might even become a lifelong passion. This principle relates to less consequential pleasures, too: If you’re checking out a new neighborhood joint, consider ordering different things during your first few visits, then picking your favorite and sticking with it.

    Novelty-seeking is most valuable when you use it as a tool to discover the things and people you love—and once you find them, go deep and long with those experiences and relationships. The siren call that tells you there might be a new and better version of what you already have is likely an illusion, driven by your brain’s relentless reward pathway. When in doubt, pick a beloved activity over an unfamiliar one.

    This golden rule of novelty may help explain why some people at the end of their life regret having spent so much time exploring new things, even if they once brought fleeting pleasure. Age, too, might partly explain this feeling, because older people tend to be less open to new experiences. But that’s probably not the whole story. My colleagues who treat children and adolescents have mentioned that, in the face of life-threatening diagnoses, even young people prefer the familiar. They do so not only because the familiar is known and safe, but because it is more meaningful to them. After all, things become familiar to us because we choose them repeatedly—and we do that because they are deeply rewarding.

    Read: Make a to-don’t list

    Imagine, just for a moment, that your death is near. What might you miss out on if you put your bucket list on hold? Sure, you won’t make it to Bali or Antarctica. But maybe instead you could fit in one last baseball game with your kids, one last swim in the ocean, one last movie with your beloved, one last Long Island sunset. If you prioritize the activities and people you already love, you won’t reach the end of your life wishing you’d made more time for them.

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    Richard A. Friedman

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  • Alibaba shares soar 15% in Hong Kong on news of major overhaul

    Alibaba shares soar 15% in Hong Kong on news of major overhaul

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    Signage at the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. offices in Beijing, China, on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023.

    Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba surged 15% at the open on Wednesday after the company announced a significant overhaul to split the tech giant into six business groups.

    On Wall Street overnight, Alibaba stocks soared to close 14.26% higher. They were 0.71% higher in after-hours trading.

    The decision to split into different units means each will be managed by its own leadership and executive board, and can pursue independent fundraising and IPOs when they’re ready.

    The company said the move aims to “unlock shareholder value.”

    The six business groups are:

    • Cloud Intelligence Group: includes company’s cloud and artificial intelligence activities;
    • Taobao Tmall Commerce Group: online shopping platforms including Taobao and Tmall;
    • Local Services Group: covers Alibaba’s food delivery service Ele.me as well as its mapping;
    • Cainiao Smart Logistics: houses Alibaba’s logistics service;
    • Global Digital Commerce Group: includes Alibaba’s international e-commerce businesses including AliExpress and Lazada;
    • Digital Media and Entertainment Group: includes Alibaba’s streaming and movie business.

    The overhaul of the Chinese technology giant comes at the back of the company facing continued struggles with growth over the past few quarters – the company erased roughly $600 billion from its peak seen in October 2020 as it continued to grapple with the Chinese government’s crackdown on technology companies.

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    The stock moves are more reflective of a sense of relief, rather than investors’ hopes in the business, value investor and Warren Buffett disciple Guy Spier told CNBC’s Tanvir Gill.

    “The rally in the shares is not so much because the market expects greater profitability, rather than relief that tensions with the regulator seem to have been resolved,” Spier said, adding that the company will face less pressure going forward.

    He added that Chinese consumers – not investors – would be the beneficiary of Alibaba’s overhaul.

    “This sets the stage for a more innovative Chinese tech sector and far more competition – so very good for Chinese consumers,” he said, adding that it “reduces concentration and the power of one business within China – which was making Chinese regulators uncomfortable.”

    ‘Utilized by others’

    Tech stocks in Hong Kong climbed in morning trade: Shares of Tencent rose 3%, JD.com gained nearly 5%, and Baidu rose more than 3%. The Hang Seng Tech index soared 3.3% in its first hour of trade, leading gains in the Asia-Pacific region.

    The moves seen in the stock prices of Alibaba’s peers on Wall Street indicated that other Chinese technology companies could turn to similar measures for their business.

    “I think investors are saying what we saw in Alibaba, really the leader in China tech, that their plans might be utilized by others,” said Brendan Ahern, CIO of KraneShares, pointing to the ADR moves seen in Tencent, JD.com, and Baidu.

    He noted the company’s announcement showed that Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who was recently spotted in China after spending months abroad, was involved in the process.

    “It’s very clear he played a role in this new structure that is really around what the company said in the press release, it’s about unleashing the shareholder value,” said Ahern.

    – CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.

    Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Alibaba shares in Hong Kong surged on Wednesday.

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  • Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Micron, Paramount, McCormick and more

    Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Micron, Paramount, McCormick and more

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    Micron Technology headquarters in Boise, Idaho, March 28, 2021.

    Jeremy Erickson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading Tuesday.

    PagSeguro — Shares popped 5.3% after Citi upgraded the Brazilian payment stock to buy from neutral. The firm called the company’s fourth-quarter earnings unsurprising and said it is still in rough waters, but shares were more attractive following recent underperformance. Stone, which was also upgraded by Citi to buy from neutral, edged higher as well on Tuesday.

    Affirm — The pay-later service dropped 6.9% after Apple announced a competing service. Apple shares were down about 0.9%.

    Occidental Petroleum — The energy stock jumped nearly 4% after a regulatory filing showed Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway purchased an additional 3.7 million shares for $216 million on Monday and last Thursday. TD Cowen upgraded Occidental to outperform from market perform following the news.

    Micron Technology — The semiconductor stock was down 2.8% ahead of its scheduled second-quarter earnings report after the bell on Tuesday. Analysts expect revenue of $3.71 billion and a loss per share of 67 cents, according to FactSet. Micron’s shares have gained more than 14% in the last six months. 

    PVH — Shares soared 18.9% after the apparel company’s fourth-quarter adjusted earnings per share came in at $2.38, beating estimates of $1.67, per Refinitiv. Its revenue of $2.49 billion beat expectations of $2.37 billion. PVH’s guidance for the first quarter and full year also surpassed estimates.

    Paramount — Shares of the media giant gained 3.6% during midday trading on a rating upgrade from Bank of America from neutral to buy. The bank highlighted Paramount’s strong lineup of assets that could help the business in the event it puts itself up for sale.

    McCormick & Company — The spice maker’s stock price jumped about 10% during midday trading after reporting better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter. McCormick reported quarterly earnings of 59 cents per share, while analysts surveyed by FactSet expected 50 cents per share. 

    Alibaba — Shares soared by 12% after the e-commerce giant said it would split its company into six separate business groups, with each group having the potential to raise outside funding and go public.

    Ciena — The technology company advanced 4.9% after Raymond James upgraded the stock to strong buy from outperform.

    Walgreens Boots Alliance – Shares of the pharmacy giant rose more than 3% midday after the company reported an increase in its quarterly revenue despite seeing a sharp decline in demand for Covid tests and vaccines. Walgreens posted revenue of $34.86 billion for the most recent quarter, compared to analysts’ estimates of $33.53 billion, according to Refinitiv.

    Carnival Corp — The cruise operator’s stock price rose 5.9% on Tuesday after Wells Fargo upgraded Carnival to equal weight from underweight. The firm said it sees a more balanced risk/reward for the company

    — CNBC’s Alex Harring, Yun Li, Jesse Pound and Michelle Fox Theobald contributed reporting.

    Correction: According to FactSet, Micron is expected to post a loss of 67 cents per share. A previous version misstated the estimate.

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  • Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger Share Biz Advice For 2023 | Entrepreneur

    Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger Share Biz Advice For 2023 | Entrepreneur

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    Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha” and chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, is known for sharing advice and philosophies — and he continued that tradition in his 2022 annual shareholder letter, which was published on Saturday.

    “Capitalism has two sides: The system creates an ever-growing pile of losers while concurrently delivering a gusher of improved goods and services,” he wrote in this year’s letter, for example.

    Related: Warren Buffett Defends Stock Buybacks In Annual Shareholder Letter

    Berkshire is an investment firm with a market cap of over $600 billion, and the letter is addressed to its shareholders. In it, he also shared his feelings on stock buybacks — and outlined his favorite pieces of advice from his partner in crime at Berkshire, vice chairman Charlie Munger.

    In this year’s letter, he called Munger a “great partner.” The two reportedly met at a dinner in 1959 and have been business partners and friends since. Buffett even told CNBC that, after he met Munger, “I knew that this guy [was] going to be in my life forever.”

    “Charlie and I think pretty much alike. But what it takes me a page to explain, he sums up in a sentence,” Buffett wrote in the recent letter, saying that many of the following life and business takes were taken from a “recent podcast.”

    On business

    Munger had several choice pieces of advice about business and investing. Here are a few:

    “The world is full of foolish gamblers, and they will not do as well as the patient investor,” he wrote. Hathaway has owned portions of some companies for a long time, such as American Express, a portion costing $1.3 billion it purchased in 1995, which is still paying out dividends, per the letter.

    Related: Warren Buffett Makes More Than $120 Billion on Apple’s $3 Trillion Milestone: ‘It’s Probably the Best Business I Know in the World’

    In a similar vein, the letter said that the Munger and Buffett don’t keep their minds on the “froth of the market” and instead sit on “good long-term investments.” The market was not kind to Berkshire this year, with its major fluctuations helping to contribute to some $22.8 billion, in losses, at least on paper, per the New York Times.

    The pair also gave some advice about adapting to change:

    “You have to keep learning if you want to become a great investor. When the world changes, you must change.

    Warren and I hated railroad stocks for decades, but the world changed and finally the country had four huge railroads of vital importance to the American economy. We were slow to recognize the change, but better late than never.”

    On life

    Some of the advice on life in the letter related to how a person thinks about their death. “Early on, write your desired obituary – and then behave accordingly,” the letter advised.

    Buffett’s letter also urged people to be readers, particularly “the deceased you admire and detest.” In a somewhat related note, if you’re concerned about having the mental space to read the classics, “having a long attention span and the ability to concentrate on one thing for a long time is a huge advantage,” the letter advised.

    Boat metaphors were also used:

    “Don’t bail away in a sinking boat if you can swim to one that is seaworthy.”

    While most of the advice came from Munger, Buffett ended the letter with thoughts of his own. “Find a very smart high-grade partner – preferably slightly older than you – and then listen very carefully to what he says.”

    Buffett is 92, and Munger is 99.

    For the full letter, click here.

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  • Warren Buffett Defends Stock Buybacks in Annual Letter | Entrepreneur

    Warren Buffett Defends Stock Buybacks in Annual Letter | Entrepreneur

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    In Warren Buffett’s yearly letter to shareholders, he argued for the positive nature of stock buybacks — at least when purchased at reasonable prices.

    “When you are told that all repurchases are harmful to shareholders or to the country, or particularly beneficial to CEOs, you are listening to either an economic illiterate or a silver-tongued demagogue (characters that are not mutually exclusive),” Buffett wrote in the letter.

    Related: Warren Buffett Makes More Than $120 Billion on Apple’s $3 Trillion Milestone: ‘It’s Probably the Best Business I Know in the World’

    As the New York Times‘ Dealbook noted, this was one of Buffett’s shortest letters in decades and comes amid what looks like, on paper, billions of losses for his investment firm Berkshire Hathaway amid a zig-zaggy stock market. (In the letter, Buffet says the business fundamentals are still good, and he also said the loss number is “misleading.”)

    Buffett is the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, a massive investment firm that, as he outlines in the letter, has massive stakes in the likes of Apple, American Express, and Coca-Cola. In the letter, he also included a couple of sentences about a tool often used by large companies on the public market: stock buybacks.

    This comes after President Biden said in the annual State of the Union address in January that Congress should quadruple the 1% tax on buybacks installed by the Inflation Reduction Act. In particular, he attacked energy companies for the buybacks and “rewarding their CEOs and shareholders,” he said.

    Exxon, for example, announced record profit in 2022 and upped a plan from $30 billion to $50 billion in stock buybacks over the next two years. Chevron announced a $75 billion stock buyback program in January.

    Related: Buffett’s Next Bet Is One Of His Biggest Ever

    A stock buyback is when a company uses excess cash to repurchase shares of itself, often referred to as “reinvesting” in the business. It also reduces the number of outstanding shares, and that leads to benefits for those who already own pieces of the company. However, it also means the company is not more tangibly investing in itself, such as by hiring more people or acquiring other businesses, besides boosting its financials.

    The Wall Street Journal pointed out that this action is often taken by very large companies because their businesses have reached a point where they have more spare cash available than means and opportunity to put money into new things.

    Stock buybacks are not limited to energy companies.

    Apple is a longtime practitioner of buybacks. In November, Bloomberg reported that Apple has spent over $550 billion purchasing its own shares since 2013, beating out any other U.S. company.

    Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) have proposed higher taxes on buybacks and have called for the Commerce Department to ensure funds from the semidocutor incentive CHIPS Act were not used for buybacks. But, as many have noted, a 1% tax is not enough to sway companies to stop buybacks.

    In Buffett’s letter, he said that as long as the shares weren’t being bought at inflated prices, they were basically neutral. He gave the example of an automotive dealership where there are three owners. One with a passive stake sells his portion to the others at “a price attractive to the two continuing shareholders.”

    “When completed, has this transaction harmed anyone? Is the manager somehow favored over the continuing passive owners? Has the public been hurt?” he wrote in the letter.

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  • Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Posts Big 2022 Loss in Rocky Market

    Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Posts Big 2022 Loss in Rocky Market

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    Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Posts Big 2022 Loss in Rocky Market

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  • Warren Buffett is missing out on this year’s market comeback | CNN Business

    Warren Buffett is missing out on this year’s market comeback | CNN Business

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    A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here.


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Warren Buffett is arguably the most legendary investor of all time. But the Oracle of Omaha has missed out on this year’s stock market rally. So far, at least.

    Shares of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway

    (BRKB)     conglomerate, a company that owns businesses ranging from Geico and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad to consumer brands like Dairy Queen, Duracell and Fruit of the Loom, are down slightly this year — lagging the market, as the S&P 500 is up 6%. (The Nasdaq has done even better, surging 12%.)

    Berkshire Hathaway also has a giant stock portfolio that Buffett helps run. Apple

    (AAPL)     is now by far the top holding for Berkshire, which also has big stakes in Bank of America

    (BAC)    , Chevron

    (CVX)    , American Express

    (AXP)     and Coca-Cola

    (KO)    .

    So is Berkshire’s portfolio, dare we say it, a little too boring? After all, if you want exposure to the big blue chips he owns, you could just buy an S&P 500 index fund.

    Buffett, in fact, has promoted that idea to investors many times, arguing that most individual stock pickers will not be able to beat the market. The 92-year-old Buffett, who has a net worth of more than $100 billion according to Forbes, even said that he wants the trustee in charge of his will to put 90% of his wife’s inheritance in index funds.

    Still, investors pay extremely close attention to Buffett every time he speaks. So traders will be poring over every word in his annual shareholder letter, which will be released the morning of Saturday, February 25, along with Berkshire’s latest earnings report.

    Don’t expect any major surprises. Buffett will probably continue to extol the virtues of a long-term, patient approach to investing and give a bullish outlook for the US economy. And to his credit, that usually pays dividends: Berkshire stock was up 3% last year in a down market.

    But market watchers are looking to see what Buffett says about the current inflationary scourge that has had a big impact on consumers and investors. He has lived through a couple of bouts of high inflation, after all.

    “I would like to hear Buffett address what’s going on with interest rates and inflation up as much they are,” said Steve Check, president of Check Capital Management, an investment firm that owns Berkshire shares. “He talked a lot about how concerned he was in the 1970s and 1980s.”

    Buffett has made numerous comments about inflation over the past few decades. And he was particularly nervous during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when soaring oil prices created an inflationary shock that severely hurt the economy.

    “High rates of inflation create a tax on capital that makes much corporate investment unwise,” Buffett said in his 1980 shareholder letter to Berkshire investors. Buffett also described inflation as a gigantic parasitic “tapeworm” for businesses in 1981.

    Buffett may also need to address how top-heavy and concentrated his portfolio has become. Berkshire’s five largest holdings make up about 75% of the company’s stock investments.

    “The portfolio is significantly overweight [in] technology, energy, consumer staples, and financials relative to the S&P 500,” said Bill Stone, chief investment officer with The Glenview Trust Company, another Berkshire shareholder, in a report. Stone noted that Berkshire also has big stakes in Kraft Heinz

    (KHC)     and oil company Occidental Petroleum

    (OXY)    .

    Investors also want to hear more about what Buffett plans to do with Berkshire’s massive pile of cash. The company has more than $100 billion on its balance sheet. Are more acquisitions coming?

    Buffett has talked for the past few years about how he’s longing to do an “elephant-sized” deal with Berkshire’s cash. Its most recent big deal was last year’s purchase of insurer Alleghany for $11.6 billion.

    Still, the recent sluggish performance of Berkshire’s stock is unlikely to deter the faithful Buffett fans, many of whom are expected to make the annual pilgrimage to Omaha on May 6 for the company’s shareholder meeting.

    Berkshire vice chairman Charlie Munger will likely be on stage with Buffett. So will Greg Abel, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy who Buffett has handpicked to eventually succeed him as Berkshire Hathaway CEO.

    Buffett’s faith in the US economy is well founded. American consumers have proven to be remarkably resilient despite rampant inflation. The surprisingly strong retail sales gains for January is further proof of that.

    Investors will get several more clues about consumer spending this week when several top retailers report earnings.

    Dow components Walmart

    (WMT)     and Home Depot

    (HD)     are the highlights. Walmart

    (WMT)    , which has a massive grocery business, should shed some light on how shoppers are coping with surging grocery prices.

    Walmart could still benefit from its reputation as a place for bargains, though. That could even attract more affluent shoppers looking to save a buck.

    “With inflation remaining elevated in the U.S., we expect Walmart to see continued trade-down benefits…particularly from higher-income customers,” said Arun Sundaram, an analyst at CFRA Research, in a report.

    And investors will be looking for clues about the health of the housing market when Home Depot reports. Placer.ai, a research firm that measures foot traffic at top retailers, said in a recent report that consumers are returning to Home Depot and rival Lowe’s at almost pre-pandemic levels — even despite the housing slowdown.

    One reason? Current homeowners may decide to spend more on renovations if they now plan to stick in their current house longer instead of looking to sell.

    “Although the hot home-buying market is cooling off…foot traffic remains close to pre-pandemic levels due to a shift towards projects aimed at sprucing up a current living space,” said Placer.ai’s Ezra Carmel in a report. “It appears that projects that enhance the prospect of staying in place also have the ability to drive visits.”

    Investors will be keeping close tabs on several other retailers set to report earnings this week, including TJX

    (TJX)     — the owner of TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods — as well as online retailers eBay

    (EBAY)    , Etsy

    (ETSY)    , Overstock

    (OSTK)    , Wayfair

    (W)     and China’s Alibaba

    (BABA)    .

    The US government is also set to release personal spending figures for January on Friday, another data point that will give a glimpse of consumers’ financial health.

    Monday: US stock and bond markets closed for Presidents’ Day

    Tuesday: US existing home sales; Eurozone and UK PMI; earnings from Walmart, Home Depot, Medtronic

    (MDT)    , Fluor

    (FLR)    , Molson Coors

    (TAP)    , Caesars Entertainment

    (CZR)    , Diamondback Energy

    (FANG)    , Chesapeake Energy

    (CHK)    , Palo Alto Networks

    (PANW)    , Coinbase, La-Z-Boy

    (LZB)     and Hostess Brands

    (TWNK)

    Wednesday: Weekly crude oil inventories; earnings from Stellantis, Baidu

    (BIDU)    , TJX, Garmin

    (GRMN)    , Overstock, Wingstop

    (WING)    , Nvidia

    (NVDA)    , eBay, Etsy and Bumble

    Thursday: US weekly jobless claims; US Q4 GDP (second estimate); Eurozone inflation; Turkey interest rate decision; earnings from Alibaba, Netease

    (NTES)    , Keurig Dr Pepper

    (KDP)    , Wayfair, Newmont, Domino’s

    (DPZ)    , Papa John’s

    (PZZA)    , Yeti

    (YETI)    , Nikola, CNN owner Warner Bros. Discovery, Block

    (SQ)    , Booking Holdings

    (BKNG)    , Live Nation

    (LYV)    , Carvana

    (CVNA)    , Intuit

    (INTU)     and Beyond Meat

    (BYND)

    Friday: US personal income and spending; US PCE inflation figures; US new home sales; Japan inflation; Germany Q4 GDP; earnings from CIBC

    (CM)    , Scripps

    (SSP)     and Cinemark

    (CNK)

    Saturday: Berkshire Hathaway earnings and Warren Buffett annual shareholder letter

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  • Warren Buffett’s company sells major stake in Taiwanese chip giant TSMC | CNN Business

    Warren Buffett’s company sells major stake in Taiwanese chip giant TSMC | CNN Business

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    Taipei/Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Shares in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company fell as much as 4% on Wednesday, after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that it had sold most of its holdings in the chip giant.

    In a Tuesday filing with the United States’ Securities and Exchange Commission, Berkshire Hathaway

    (BRKA)     said it had about 8.3 million American depository shares of TSMC worth $618 million, having sold 86% of its shares. Just months before, in November, the company held about 60 million American depository shares of TSMC worth $4.1 billion, according to an SEC filing.

    Berkshire Hathaway did not provide a reason for the sale and did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment. TSMC had no comment on the share sale.

    Shares in TSMC, which accounts for an estimated 90% of the world’s super-advanced computer chips, ended Wednesday more than 3% lower.

    Last month, the chipmaker posted strong quarterly and annual earnings, but gave a muted forecast on prospects for 2023 given the global slump in electronics demand because of rising inflation.

    Due to TSMC’s record earnings in 2022, its board approved on Tuesday the distribution of $121 billion New Taiwan Dollars ($4 billion) in performance-related bonuses and profit sharing to employees based in Taiwan.

    With nearly 65,000 employees on the island as of the end of last year, that would work out as an average of $62,000 per employee – if distributed equally.

    The board also approved a plan to inject up to $3.5 billion into the company’s subsidiary in Arizona, which will be part of a previously announced investment of $40 billion in the United States. TSMC announced last year that it’s building a second semiconductor factory in Phoenix and increasing its investment there.

    The world’s most important chipmaker, highly sought after by governments globally, is considering opening its first plant in Europe and a second one in Japan. TSMC’s global expansion comes as political tension has heightened between Washington and Beijing.

    Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a planned trip to China in response to the flying of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the United States.

    In October, President Joe Biden’s administration imposed sweeping new curbs designed to curtail China’s access to technology critical to its growing military power.

    Last month, a Dutch maker of semiconductor equipment, ASML, told CNN that “rules are being finalized” on export controls to China, amid reports that the Netherlands and Japan have joined the United States in restricting sales of some computer chip machinery to the country.

    A few days later, multiple media outlets reported that Washington was moving to further restrict sales of American technology to Chinese tech giant Huawei.

    – CNN’s Chris Isidore and Michelle Toh contributed to this report

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  • Berkshire Hathaway’s Buy in Truck-Stop Group Pays Off

    Berkshire Hathaway’s Buy in Truck-Stop Group Pays Off

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    Berkshire Hathaway


    investors may soon get a read on one of the company’s better deals in the past decade—a 2017 purchase for nearly $3 billion of a 38.6% interest in Pilot Flying J, the country’s leading operator of truck stops.

    The Berkshire Hathaway (ticker: BRK/A, BRK/B) stake in the company will rise to 80% in the current quarter under the terms of the original agreement reached by CEO Warren Buffett with the founding Haslam family, which will retain the remaining 20% stake.

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  • The Top Luxury Home Builder Is a Buy for 2023

    The Top Luxury Home Builder Is a Buy for 2023

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    This article is an excerpt from “Here Are Barron’s 10 Top Stocks for the New Year,” published on Dec. 16, 2022. To see the full list, click here. 

    With home builder


    Toll Brothers


    ‘ stock down 30% this year, it might look like the roof is caving in. But that’s probably not the case. Yes, mortgage rates have doubled, but Toll (ticker: TOL), the top luxury home builder, is more insulated than its peers, due to the affluent buyers of its homes, which sell for an average of about $1 million. About 20% of Toll buyers pay cash, and many are selling homes for a lot more than they paid for them.

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