I taped and watched the whole 3 hours. I agree with much of the criticism of CNBC, but honestly if you want to really understand how company operates there in depth interviews (in this case QA from the audience) are hard to beat.
He remains bearish and nervous about bonds especially long term government one. In particular, he said that a lot of smart money manager are waiting for the first hint that fed is going to change course and stop buying treasury. The clear implication is that when that happens there will be a lot of fast selling of bonds, and it won't be good for stocks either.
He also reiterated something he discussed in his annual letter. How times are going to be really rough for insurance companies. Most insurance companies (except for Berkshire) lose money on writing insurance. Example it may cost them $102 in claims for each $100 they collect in life insurance policies. In the past they made money by investing the float (e.g. the collected $4/year for 25 year before paying out the $102). However, as interest rates have plummeted the new bonds they are purchasing are making them far less money. This doesn't bode well for insurance companies. Buffett thinks smart money managers have figured this out, but he is sure that this is true for everybody else.
I point I have been making about relying on exclusively on insurance companies to fund your retirement. In order to fund your annuity insurance companies have to make money, and they face the same investment environment the rest of us do.
Berkshire business are seeing a steady, albeit weak recovery. In everything from, carpet and brick sales, to the realty business. He still thinks that if you are going to stay put for 5 years, one of the best investments you can make is to buy your own home and take out a 30 year mortgage.
I never cease to be amazed at the quantity of economic that he remembers and can recall instantly. e.g. government spending as percentage of GDP, ditto deficit, healthcare. Then use the data to make his point e.g. he pointed out that 30? years ago the US and bunch of developed countries all spent about 5-6% healthcare and now we are at 17% of GDP the nearest country is 11%. That 6% addition is a real drag our our economy worse than our high corporate taxes which only represent 1.25% of GDP.
Also next time you hear a CEO testify that he didn't about XYZ that went on in his company. I'll think of Buffett rattling of the number of trainloads of coal and oil that BNSF shipped, what percentage of total shipping (20% down from 25%) each commodity represents and how much of the total oil US production is shipped by BNSF (10%). He can also tell you the conversion rate of sales calls into customers at GEICO. The details of Berkshire's portfolio, and practically anything else about the business.
In the days before Google largely leveled the playing field on knowledge, what an amazing competitive advantage Warren must have over regular investors when he is evaluating the fair price of a company or stock.
