The 2021 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders’ meeting will be held on May 1, local time. Affected by the outbreak of Coronavirus, the shareholders’ meeting was held online for two consecutive years. This year, Mr. Buffett will fly to Los Angeles to meet Mr. Munger and co-chair a three-and-a-half-hour shareholder meeting. Last year, Munger was unable to attend because of travel restrictions.
“Nothing is going to stop the U.S. (economic growth) at all. The U.S. has experienced many serious challenges, though most of them are different from the problems it faces right now, Coronavirus outbreak. But the American miracle, the American magic can overcome everything, this time is no exception. “At the 2020 shareholder meeting, when the U.S. economy and stock market were hit hard by Coronavirus, ” Buffett said.
A year later, U.S. stocks, backed by unprecedented fiscal and monetary policies, completed a Jedi counterattack.
On April 29th Berkshire Hathaway’s share price hit an all-time high, rising to $417,905 at one point in Class A. By the end of April, Berkshire Hathaway’s shares had risen 18.6 per cent so far this year, more than 7 percentage points higher than the gains in the S.P. 500 over the same period. Over the past 12 months, the company’s shares have risen 46.8 per cent, compared with 43.6 per cent for the S.P. 500 over the same period.
Buffett’s value investments and long-term holdings have long been sought after by his supporters.
According to statistics, from 1965 to 2020, Berkshire Hathaway shares grew at a CAGR of 20%, far exceeding the 10.2% return (including dividend income) of the S.P. 500 index over the same period.
Over the past three years, however, the company has returned an average of 12 per cent a year, less than the 19 per cent of the S.P. 500 over the same period.
Last year, Mr Buffett revealed all of his aviation holdings, explaining: “The world has changed for the airline industry. Given the longevity of Coronavirus outbreak, I don’t know if Americans have changed or are about to change their travel habits. ”
As of December 2019, Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings include United, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines, with a cumulative market capitalization of $4 billion.
Since then, however, the aviation sector has rebounded strongly on expectations of economic recovery and a stimulus package. Shares of United, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Delta Have risen 83.91 per cent, 80.85 per cent, 100.90 per cent and 81.09 per cent, respectively, over the past 12 months.
By the end of 2020, Berkshire Hathaway had more than $138 billion in cash in hand. Buffett lamented: “I can’t find any attractive big projects.” ”
Some analysts believe that the crazy growth of SPAC, a special purpose acquisition company, has had an impact on the traditional business investment environment.
Refinitiv statistics show that in 2020, at least 356 special purpose acquisition companies successfully listed, raising $793 billion, up more than 460 percent year-on-year, accounting for about half of the U.S. IPO market that year. By mid-March, that number had been broken again, with SPAC raising $93 billion in the first quarter.
Charlie Munger, who attended the event in late February, warned that the phenomenon was a “signal of an irritating bubble” and would end up in a “bad end”.
Since early April, the number of SPAC IPOs and share prices have plummeted as the Securities and Exchange Commission considers tightening oversight of SPAC and how accounting standards apply.
Also consistently bearish are Bitcoin. Buffett has warned more than once that the Bitcoin bubble is about to burst.
In March, Morgan Stanley became the first Wall Street bank to offer Bitcoin fund services to high-net-worth clients. Goldman sachs plans to offer Bitcoin and other digital asset investment vehicles to clients of its private wealth management division starting in the second quarter of this year. Solomon, the bank’s chief executive, predicts major changes in regulation of digital currencies in the coming years.
Bitcoin rose to $58,198 a barrel at 8 a.m. Beijing time on May 1, according to bitstamp exchange data. Over the past year, the cumulative increase has exceeded 570 per cent.
Under the pandemic, many of Wall Street’s traditional ideas seem to have been hit.
Can a large number of young retail investors, represented by Ronbinhood, build up and form a new force in the U.S. stock market through stock-trading software and Reddit social platforms represented by Ronbinhood? Will the aftermath of the Archegos explosion trigger a new round of Wall Street regulatory reform? How far can technology stocks go under the “empowerment” of the pandemic?
At this year’s Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, Mr Buffett and Mr Munger are set to face a number of new problems.
