Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett on Saturday put fresh money behind Activision and Chevron and doled out sharp criticism against speculation in the market.
Speaking at Berkshire Hathaway’s first in-person annual meeting since 2019, Buffett went so far as to say the market’s turned into a “gambling parlor.”
The Oracle of Omaha also commented on inflation, building on prior remarks he has made. Buffett had previously said that inflation “swindles” equity investors, but noted Saturday that it “swindles the bond investor, too. It swindles the person who keeps their cash under their mattress. It swindles almost everybody.”
Buffett and his longtime partner, Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, fielded shareholder questions on a broad range of issues for hours.
Buffett also said that Berkshire had been increasing its stake in Activision Blizzard as part of a merger arbitrage bet that Microsoft’s proposed deal to buy the video game company will close. Additionally, Berkshire revealed it had ramped up its stock bets by more than $51 billion during the first quarter amid the broader market’s downturn.
Munger, meanwhile, blasted stock trading app Robinhood.
“It’s so easy to overdo a good idea. … Look what happened to Robinhood from its peak to its trough. Wasn’t that pretty obvious that something like that was going to happen?” Munger said.
Buffett also stressed the importance of cash as “new forms of money” like bitcoin pop up.
“The United States government affects that this became exchangeable for lawful money in the United States,” Buffett said, displaying an image of an old $20 bill. “That’s what money is.”
Check out CNBC’s full recap below for more from the two investing legends.
Berkshire’s business meeting concludes with shareholder votes
Berkshire’s formal business meeting followed nearly five hours of Q&A with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. Shareholders voted on a number of proposals at the meeting.
The proposal that garnered most attention was from the non-profit National Legal and Policy Center. It calls for the company to strip Buffett of his chairman role. Shareholders voted down the proposal backed by CALPERS, the largest U.S. public pension fund.
Brunel Pension requested the board of Berkshire to publish an annual assessment addressing how the company manages physical and transitional climate-related risks. The number of votes against the motion outnumbered the ones for it.
One shareholder also took issue with Berkshire’s climate change initiative. The proposal called for Berkshire to issue a report addressing if and how it intends to measure, disclose, and reduce the GHG emissions associated in alignment with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal, requiring net zero emissions. Shareholders voted it down.
The last proposal asked Berkshire to report to shareholders on the outcomes of their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by publishing quantitative data on workforce composition and recruitment, retention, and promotion rates of employees by gender, race, and ethnicity. The motion also failed.
— Yun Li
