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Do you arrange for more cash reserves looking forward to a time when you might be able to buy? I think the question is, do we, do we get sort of get into asset allocation by by maintaining given levels of cash depending on some kind of outlook or something of the sort?
We we don't even we don't really think that way at all. We we we if if we have cash, it's because we haven't found anything intelligent to do with it that day, uh, in the way of buying into the kind of businesses we like. And and when we can't find anything for a while, the cash piles up. Uh, but that that's not that's not through choice. That's that's because we're failing at what we essentially are trying to do, which is to find things to buy. And we make no attempt to guess whether cash is going to be worth more three months from now or six months from now or a year from now.
Uh, we don't have any meetings of any kind anyway at Berkshire, but we would never have an asset allocation meeting. We would we would uh we would we would keep looking. I mean, Charlie's looking, I'm looking, some of our managers are looking. We're looking for things to buy that meet our tests. And if we if we showed no cash for short-term securities at year end, we would love it because it would mean that we'd um we'd found ways to employ the money in in in in ways that we like.
I think I would have to admit that if we have a lot of money around, we are a little dumber than usual. And I would say that the best purchases are usually made when you have to sell something to raise the money to get them because it it just raises the the bar a little bit that you jump over in in the mental decisions. But we have, I don't know what we'll show, but um certainly well over a billion dollars of of of cash around. And and that's not through choice. That's that is a uh that you can you can look at that as an index of failure on the part of your management. And and we will be happy when we can buy businesses or small pieces of businesses that that use up that money. We would like to have no cash at all times. But but we if if we have cash around, it's simply because we haven't found anything we like to do. And and uh um we hope always hope to deploy it as soon as possible. We never are thinking about whether the market's going to go down or or something of the sort or whether we might buy something even cheaper. If we like something, we'll buy it. And and uh and uh when you see cash on our balance sheet of any size, that's that's an acknowledgement by Charlie and me that we have uh we have not found anything uh in size anyway attractive at that point. Uh, it's never a policy of ours to hold a lot of cash.
What criteria do you use to sell stock? I kind of understand how you buy it, but I'm not sure how you sell.
Yeah, well, best thing to do is buy a stock that you don't ever want to sell. I mean, that and that's what we're trying to do. Uh, and that's true when we buy an entire business. I mean, we've bought all of Geico, or we bought all of See's Candy, or the Buffalo News. We're not buying those to resell. I mean, what we're trying to do is buy a business that we will be happy with if we own it the rest of our lives. It's the same principle applies to marketable securities. You get extra options with marketable securities. You can you you can add to holdings obviously easier. We can never own more than 100% of a business, but if we own 2% of a business and we like it at a given price, we can add and have four or 5%. So that's that's that's an advantage. Sometimes if we if we need money to move to another sector, like we did last year, we will trim from some holdings, but that doesn't mean we're negative on those businesses at all. I mean, we think they're wonderful businesses, or we wouldn't own them. And we would sell uh a if we needed money for other things. The guy stock that I bought in 1951, I sold uh in 1952. It was and it went on to be worth 100 or more times before the 1976 problems, 100 or more times what I paid. But I didn't have the money to do something else. So you sell if you need money for something else.
Charley, yes, but this the sales that do happen, the ideal way is when you've found something you like immensely better. Isn't that obvious? That's the that's the ideal way to sell. And incidentally, the ideal purchase is to find is is to have something that you already like be selling at a price where you feel like buying more of it. I mean, that uh we probably should have done more of that in the past in in some situation. But that's the beauty of of marketable securities. You really do, if you're in a wonderful business, you do get a chance periodically, maybe to double up in it or something of the sort. Uh, it if if the market if the stock market were to sell a lot cheaper than it is now, we would probably be buy buying more of the businesses uh that we're all we that we already own. They would certainly be the first ones that we would think about. They're they're the businesses we like the best.