Benzinga
9 Takeaways From Berkshire Hathaway’s Annual Shareholder Meeting
Warren Buffett on May 1 addressed Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s (NYSE: BRK-A)(NYSE: BRK-B) shareholders at the annual general meeting, which was held in Los Angeles virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, was joined by his long-time business partner Charlie Munger and Berkshire’s heads of insurance and non-insurance operations, Ajit Jain and Greg Abel. Buffett and his associates spoke about the company’s performance and answered questions from shareholders and others on market speculation, Apple, SPACs, Robinhood, Elon Musk, Bitcoin, the U.S. economy and other subjects. Here are some of the key takeaways from the event. On Robinhood Regarding the explosive popularity of trading apps like Robinhood, Buffett said, “Robinhood has become a very significant part of the casino aspect of the casino group that has joined into the stock market in the last year or year and a half.” “There’s nothing illegal about it. There’s nothing immoral, but I don’t think you’d build a society around people doing it,” Buffett added. “I think the degree to which a very rich society can reward people who know how to take advantage, essentially, of the gambling instincts of the American public, the worldwide public — it’s not the most admirable part of the accomplishment.” Munger said it’s “God-awful that something like that would draw investment from civilized men and decent citizens. It’s deeply wrong. We don’t want to make our money selling things that are bad for people.” Read more: Warren Buffett And Charlie Munger Talk Economy, Markets At Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting 2021 On Big Tech Growth Stocks While talking about tech company stocks and their growth, Munger said, “I personally would not like to see our present giants brought down to some low level by some anti-competitive reasonings. … I think they’re a credit to the Americans, credit to our civilization.” On Chevron and Climate Change When asked about Berkshire’s decision to invest in the oil and gas industry and queried whether we might have “build our own unrealistic consensus on the pace of change” to clean energy solutions, Buffett defended the company’s investment in Chevron and in the industry. “Chevron is not an evil company in the least, and I have no compunction about owning it in the least, about owning Chevron. And if we owned the entire business, I would not feel uncomfortable about being in that business.” Talking about the Berkshire board of directors’ recommendation to vote against reporting climate-related risks, Munger added, “I don’t know we know the answer to all these questions about global warming. The people who ask the questions think they know the answer. We’re just more modest.” On the outlook for fossil fuels, Buffett said, “I would say that people that are on the…