Legendary Buffett was one step ahead, yet again

He remains the Pied Piper of investors – the doyen of doyens when it comes to building wealth. The average American may not know much about underlying securities or split shares, but they sure know of Warren Buffett. His name is shorthand for smart, long-term investing.

If we had a dollar for every time an advisor quoted the Oracle of Omaha, we’d be rich, although not rich enough to buy class A shares of Berkshire Hathaway, which recently reached a record high of $809,350 apiece.

The fact those shares dropped only around 5 percent after his surprise announcement of his plan to retire as CEO at the end of the year is testament to the robust conglomerate he built – and that he’ll remain as chairman as a still-sharp 94-year-old. For such a notoriously unflashy guy, the announcement was the ultimate mic drop, waiting until his final comments at the annual shareholder meeting and without even telling his successor, Greg Abel.

It was a remarkable end to a remarkable six decades, and the numbers are staggering. Berkshire shares have increased 5,502,284 percent from 1965 through 2024, compared to the broad S&P 500, which has risen 39,054 percent during that same period. This year has been yet another example of outperformance versus the S&P, with Berkshire rising nearly 19 percent.

Berkshire is worth almost $1.2 trillion, made up of businesses in insurance, railroad, retail, manufacturing, and energy. Famously, it has large stakes in iconic American brands including McDonald’s, the Coca-Cola Company, and Dairy Queen, three companies that give insight into the man himself and his attitude to money.

According to reports – and there are many out there – he drinks five cans of Coca-Cola a day, loves snacks and ice cream, and is a stranger to the gym. As shown in the HBO documentary Becoming Warren Buffett, he gets a McDonald’s breakfast every day on the way to the office, with the exact change and with his choice of sandwich dependent on the previous day’s market performance. Now worth somewhere north of $160 billion, he still lives in the house he bought in 1958 for $31,500.

Conclusions? He likes consistency over surprises, sticks to what he likes, doesn’t waste a dime, and has a sweet tooth. But rather than sacrificial dedication, there is no hint that this is anything other than who he is – a man with an unusual obsession for reading financial statements, a supernatural memory, and an unparalleled ability to pick good companies.

Over the years, Buffett has also been the source of endless nuggets of wisdom, along with his right-hand man, the late Charlie Munger. To kick off this issue, InvestmentNews salutes the career of one of the best investors there ever was and, perhaps fittingly at this time in history, leaves you with this Buffett quote: “It’s never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but it’s not always a smooth ride.”