I Got 2 Calls From Warren Buffett. I Have One Big Question About Berkshire Now.
‘Hello, this is Warren.’ Why Buffett’s two calls to the trading floor left me starstruck and how I view Berkshire stock as the Oracle of Omaha steps aside.
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They call him the greatest. Maybe he is. If not, he’s pretty close.
I guess now, I’ll tell the story of the only two brief encounters with Warren Buffett I ever had. I was a young floor trader at the time. The phone in front of me, someone else’s phone, rang. Wasn’t even a phone operated by my company, but I was friendly with the person whose phone it was. He was a far more important floor trader at the time and probably even in stock exchange history than was I.
My friend’s phone rang. Several times. He wasn’t there. The folks around his spot that worked for his firm did not move to answer that phone. Odd. I soon found out why.
I said the name of my friend’s firm as I answered the horn. “Hello, this is Warren, is Henry (fake name) there?” Um, no sir. Can I take a message? “How are you guys holding up down there?” Oh, we’re holding our own. Can I take a message? “Please tell him to call Warren Buffett back when he gets the chance.”
Kind of sounded like him. Maybe this guy wasn’t putting me on. I found my friend. “Your buddy Warren called.” Oh, thank you. Yeah, that’s Warren Buffett. No kidding.
The same thing happened about a week later. I was better prepared for the conversation the second time and believe that I successfully navigated that conversation without making a fool of myself.
I’ll admit. I was a little starstruck. I have had a long career. In the course of my career, I have met several U.S. presidents, vice presidents, legislators, Fed officials, etc. I have met a number of medal of honor recipients, as well as more supposed celebrities and famous athletes than I could possibly remember.
Only the medal of honor winners and Warren Buffett, who I never met, but spoke to on the phone, left me a bit starstruck.
How Come?
Simple. I have been trading my own book since I was 13. My father opened a retail trading account for me at that age and allowed me to be the manager. He showed me the ropes of fundamentals-focused investing. He used to sit me down next to him and we would watch Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser together.
You might think watching that show would be boring for an adolescent kid who loved baseball, but it was not. It was something that this adolescent kid did with his Dad. My Dad taught me at a young age not to let people see me with either the New York Post or New York Daily News under my arm unless I was okay with people thinking I was a moron.
My Dad taught me, in high school, to read the Wall Street Journal on a daily basis and Barron’s every weekend. That’s a habit that gets more than a few strange looks when one is a teenaged infantry Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Oh, and my Dad also taught me to pay attention to Warren Buffett. Dad thought of Buffett as perhaps the greatest fundamentals-based investor of all-time, even before that factoid was widely accepted as a truth on Wall Street.
Friday’s News
This (Friday) morning, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) released a statement. It announced that Warren Buffett had been named Chairman Emeritus, effective immediately. As Chairman Emeritus, Warren Buffett will remain a member of the Board of Directors and will continue to offer his valued judgment and perspective. That Board has elected Howard G. Buffett, the son of Warren Buffett and a Berkshire director since 1993, as Chairman of the Board. This is consistent with what had been the succession plan.
Berkshire Hathaway has undergone a number of significant changes this year. Warren stepped down from his role as CEO as planned on January 1, succeeded by Greg Abel. Buffett had held that post for 60 years. This came after Buffett’s long-time business partner and pal, Charlie Munger, passed away at the age of 99, about a month short of his 100th birthday. Munger had been the Vice Chair of the company since 1978.
Warren Buffett, by the way, is now 96 years old. In my opinion, he has shown no signs of slowing down. Nor did Munger all the way up until his death. Still just my opinion, but those two guys were made of something we’re not likely to see again.
Invest in Berkshire Now?
I haven’t of late. I had been in the “B” stock for years until selling in anticipation of Buffett stepping down from active leadership positions at the firm this year.
Trust Greg Abel? No offense meant, but I was only in the stock because of Buffett and Munger. Without Munger, I was willing to hang around. Without either one of them, I was not.
At first, that attitude made me look like a genius. The stock suffered into the spring and early summer. That said, the shares have rallied nicely late summer into September, in a more volatile than usual sort of way.
Take a look at this:
See where the stock hit resistance in early August? Same spot it hit resistance twice in early 2025. I don’t know who’s selling it there, but I probably don’t want to mess with that guy.
That said, applying a Schiff’s Pitchfork model to the April-into-the-present pricing activity, we see that BRK.B has been riding lower trendline support for about a month. That support is now lined up with the 50-day simple moving average. This will allow for more professional portfolio managers to buy stock at these prices without running into interference from their respective risk managers. What does that mean in plain English? It means that no, I would not invest in BRK.B in the high $530’s into the $540’s.
However, I would be willing to buy the stock for a trade between $505 and $510 with the intention of selling at least half of those shares should BRK.B knock on that door up there for a fourth time. Is a 6% to 7% gain worthy of the risk? If one promises oneself to use the 200-day SMA (currently $492) as a hard panic point.
At the time of publication, Guilfoyle had no positions in any securities mentioned.
