Berkshire Annual Meeting 2022: Takeaways on market timing, inflation, bitcoins and more

moneycontrol.com:

At the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting 2022, chairman and CEO Warren Buffett and vice-chairman Charlie Munger were back at their game. They elaborated on their investment decisions, spoke about market trends and follies, and ribbed each other. 

We pick some of the highlights from the event.

“Stock markets have become a gamblers parlour”

Buffett and Munger stressed on the erratic behaviour of the market off-late. “The market has been extraordinary,” Buffett said, adding, “Sometimes it is quite investment-oriented, and other times it is almost totally a casino, a gambling parlour, and that existed to an extraordinary degree in the last couple of years, encouraged by Wall Street.”

Also read: Buffett is back with one of his buying sprees in years

Sneering at investment bankers and brokerages, he said, “Wall Street makes money, one way or another, catching the crumbs that fall off the table of capitalism. They don’t make money unless people do things, and they get a piece of them. And they make a lot more money when people are gambling,” he said.

Munger too said that there was nearly a “mania of speculation” in the market, with algorithms trading against other algorithms and inexperienced investors being advised by inept brokers. “It is despicable,” said Munger. Into this crazy mix, long-term investments get added in. 

The point on the heightened speculation came up while Buffett was tossed a question on why Berkshire had made such huge purchases (nearly $40 billion) less than a month after writing to the shareholders that there weren’t any exciting opportunities. 

In the February 26 letter to the shareholders, Buffett had written that he was finding it hard to spot any good opportunity at good prices. But, as a shareholder