Our stock picks did well today, notably Walmart up 2.0%, Toll Brothers up 2.0%, Walgreen up 5.3%, Fedex up 2.6%.
After the close of regular trading (but during the period of that oxymoronic activity “after hours” trading) Warren Buffett announced that he has stage 1 prostrate cancer. Apparently not a very big deal at his age. Still, it may be an indicator that he won’t still be running Berkshire into his nineties. All good things come to an end eventually. But Berkshire will go on and continue to grow after Buffett is gone. And Buffett will stay as long as he is able which could be another decade for all we know.
Berkshire is unlikely to be down much tomorrow but if it should fall more than 3% on this news, I will probably grab a bit.
Cheap articles are written that accuse Buffett of not having a successor in the wings. That is simply false. He has said for many years that the Berkshire Board regularly has an heir in mind but it is never announced because it changes over time. The opposite approach is the clever one where Conan O’Brian was announced as Jay Leno’s successor about five years in advance. Remember how that worked out?