Thursday, September 22, 2011

Buffett Hurting!

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. fell below $100,000 in New York trading for the first time in 20 months as the economic slowdown pressures the firm’s industrial units and stock declines hurt Chairman Warren Buffett’s equity bets, those good folks at Bloomberg tell us.
Berkshire Class A shares slipped $2,050, or 2 percent, to $99,200 at 10:48 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading and are down about 18 percent this year. Berkshire traded as low as $97,580 on Jan. 19, 2010.

Buffett’s $35 billion portfolio of equity-index derivatives may lose value amid the five-month decline in stock markets in New York and London. The economic slowdown in the U.S. may crimp business at Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire subsidiaries spanning railroads, luxury travel, manufacturing and retail.

“The bad economic numbers are definitely flowing,” said Paul Howard, director of research at Solstice Investment Research in Glastonbury, Connecticut. “The world thinks that in aggregate all those different businesses are going to suffer.”
Berkshire Class B shares slipped 2.3 percent to $65.68. The shares were added to the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index last year. The S&P 500 slumped 2.3 percent to 1,140.41 and is down about 9.3 percent since Dec. 31.

Find out more at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-22/berkshire-hathaway-falls-below-100-000.html

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