Barstool Sports founder and goofy trader Dave Portnoy was excited last month to call Warren Buffett a “jerk” after the Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B,
The boss downloaded the shares of his airline and missed a big rebound in the hit sector.
According to Shane Parrish of the popular blog Farnam Street, this is all part of the plan:
“
‘You have to be willing to look like an idiot in the short term to get the best long-term results. I would suggest that because the future has become increasingly uncertain, it is preparing for the widest range of possible futures. ”
“
This is how Parrish, hailed as “Wall Street’s biggest influencer,” described Buffett’s current investment strategy in a recent interview with Business Insider. “When you don’t understand with some degree of certainty, you stay out until you do,” Parrish added, addressing criticism that Buffett has raised cash when he should take a more active role in profiting from the chaos.
Parrish, who has hundreds of thousands of Twitter TWTRs,
Followers and has interviewed some of the biggest names on Wall Street, he’s been obsessed with Buffett for years. His blog is named after the Berkshire corporate headquarters address.
“Buffett has taught me to be aware of happiness, to be aware of being optimistic about the future based on the past, and just to have a smile and constantly have fun with life,” Parrish wrote in a post about Buffett’s impact on his life. beyond. just investing “It’s not about being purely rational in every minute of your day and optimizing your time. It’s about living life. ”
And with that, Parrish said he is confident in the direction Berkshire is headed.
“People always seem to want the optimal solution for now and therefore end up looking out of touch at times,” Parrish, assistant to the Berkshire annual meeting, told Business Insider. “But you have to be willing to do something different to get different results.”
Read: To diversify? Almost half of Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio consists of a single share
Buffett, putting some of that $ 137 billion in cash at stake, has been more active lately, with Berkshire having closed a $ 10 billion deal for Dominion Energy’s D,
natural gas assets.
But Parrish said Buffett is still focused on protecting his investors and having plenty of cash on hand to help navigate the ups and downs of this treacherous climate.
“You can’t win if you don’t finish … you can’t increase if you reset to zero,” Parrish said. “In periods of high uncertainty, you want to make sure you have the best possible options.”
Or, as Parrish put it in a tweet last month:
Cash seems like a decent place to head for the new week, with big gains, with the DIA Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
, S&P 500 SPX,
and Nasdaq Composite Composite COMP,
all set for a lower open Monday.
.
