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过去一周巴老相关动态： 《滚雪球》作者谈及出书后与巴老的紧张关系； 巴郡借贷所付利息居然高过几近破产的花旗、房利美、房地美和美国银行等，劣企驱逐良企？ 盖兹基金赞助美剧《ER》传播公益信息； 比亚迪计划在5月2日的巴郡年会上展示其F3DM或E6车型，另南华早报称巴郡对比亚迪10%的投资可能需要得到中国政府批准，双方因此计划把协议期限延长到9月26日； TheStreet.com传出谣言，指巴郡可能联合广深铁路收购BNSF； 商业周刊的Ben Steverman撰文质疑巴老等价值投资风格不再如过往那样适用当前萧条股市。
Published Sunday April 5, 2009
Warren Watch: 'Snowball' author strained close friendship over book
BY STEVE JORDON
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Biographer Alice Schroeder, saying her book's accounts of Warren Buffett's relationships are "juicy, juicy, juicy," told the Tribune-Herald of Waco, Texas, that Buffett "eased me out of a bad marriage that needed to be done, and I was in denial about it." "He helped me understand how you should be treated, and he has a way of treating people that is very respectful and of conveying how people should behave toward each other and that criticism is very harmful. "I have since remarried, by the way, and I insisted that he have approval rights over my new husband," Schroeder said. After spending hundreds of hours with Buffett researching "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life," Schroeder said, she concluded that nobody can duplicate his investment success. "He's not only brilliant, but he works like a demon from morning until night, and he's been doing that for 70 years. So when you see him and you're around him, you realize the futility of trying to replicate his achievement. It can't be done." Schroeder said that Buffett is sensitive to criticism and that she knew her relationship with him might be strained by the contents of the book, but "my responsibility was to write for the readers of the book, not to write a book that would please him." "I knew that there was a good chance that he might never speak to me again," said Schroeder, who has said the two have exchanged e-mails but haven't spoken since the book's release in September. "Warren's a wonderful person. I see his flaws. I see his greatness. Of course I would enjoy having a relationship with him again, but I made the choice that I made for a reason and that was what was important to me." Paying more Highly rated Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is paying more to borrow money than bailed-out Citigroup, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Bank of America. Bloomberg News said the Omaha investment firm headed by Buffett recently sold bonds paying 4 percent while the troubled companies pay 2.375 percent or less because their bonds are backed by the U.S. government. Buffett, Berkshire's chairman, pointed out the disparity in his annual letter to shareholders. "At the moment, it is much better to be a financial cripple with a government guarantee than a Gibraltar without one." He has supported efforts to resolve the financial crisis, however. Berkshire sold three-year notes on March 26, with the proceeds to make loans to people who buy pre-fabricated houses from Berkshire's Clayton Homes Inc. division. 'Message placement' New York Times writers Tim Arango and Brian Stelter reported that money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation helped develop a script for a recent episode of the TV series "ER" that featured George Clooney. It was part of an effort by the foundation, to which Buffett is donating the bulk of his wealth, to become "a behind-the-scenes influencer of public attitudes toward these issues by helping to shape story lines and insert messages into popular entertainment." Those issues include HIV prevention, surgical safety and the spread of infectious diseases. The "message placement" effort includes a deal with Viacom, the parent company of MTV and sister networks VH1, Nickelodeon and BET, the story said. Philippe P. Dauman, CEO of Viacom, said the company supports education-theme story lines in programs and donating air time for public service announcements under a consulting partnership with the Gates Foundation called Get Schooled. The Times said the Kaiser Family Foundation has been working health-related themes into programs on CBS and other networks for a dozen years, but the Gates Foundation's direct spending is new. Electric vehicles BYD Co., the Chinese company that attracted Buffett's attention, plans to exhibit its F3DM or its E6 electric vehicles at Berkshire's annual shareholders meeting in Omaha May 2, according to AutoblogGreen. BYD (which stands for Build Your Dreams) has been selling the F3DM in China since December and displayed cars at the Detroit Auto Show in January. The Wall Street Journal reported that BYD might supply its battery technology to U.S. and European car companies. Chairman Wang Chuanfu said BYD's advantage is producing iron-phosphate-based lithium-ion batteries at a low cost. The South China Morning Post reported that a planned 10 percent investment in the company by Berkshire will be delayed, waiting for approvals from Chinese government regulatory bodies. Berkshire's MidAmerican Energy Holdings division and BYD agreed to extend the investment deadline to Sept. 26. Railroad purchase? TheStreet.com reported rumors that Berkshire may join with Guangshen Railway of China to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, of which Berkshire already owns 22 percent. But Berkshire rarely makes partnership-type purchases, preferring to be the sole owner. Most of Berkshire's recent purchases have been privately owned companies, not publicly traded companies like BNSF. Question of style Business Week's Ben Steverman wrote that the value investing style of Buffett and others isn't working as it has during past depressed stock markets. "The past year has sometimes looked like a practical joke that the stock market is playing on value investors," Steverman wrote. Value investors buy good companies at reasonable prices with long-term growth in mind, avoiding fast-growing, expensive stocks and not worrying about day-to-day gyrations of the stock market. "But amid a severe recession and financial crisis, true value has proven to be a slippery concept," Steverman wrote. "It's only a value if you can accurately assess today what the future profits will be," said Richard Sparks of Schaeffer's Investment Research. The current situation makes that assessment particularly difficult. Value investors did well when the dot-com market bubble burst because they had avoided high-tech companies, but in late 2007 and 2008 many of them viewed financial stocks as good investments. U.S. Bancorp, Wells Fargo and American Express, all with substantial Berkshire ownership, have dropped sharply. Some value investors waited to buy such shares when they appeared to be cheap, only to see them fall even more. "The value traps out there were really big," said Russell Croft, portfolio manager of the Croft Value Fund. But doing poorly for a year or two doesn't mean value investing is dead, said Lawrence Creatura of Federated Clover Investment Advisors. "The selling at times has been so incredibly irrational that there is a high probability that some stocks are mispriced. The value investor's job (is) to identify those mispricings." | 
楼主
发表于 2009-3-18 00:37:23
