‘Quite an experiment’
Warren Buffett says coronavirus cannot stop America
Warren Buffett on Saturday gave an upbeat assessment of the United States’ ability to withstand crises, even as he acknowledged that the coronavirus pandemic could have a wide range of impacts on the economy and his investments.
Buffett opened the annual meeting of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc in Omaha, Nebraska with 1-3/4 hour of remarks in which he tried to soothe shareholders as the pandemic batters the global economy and hurts even his own conglomerate.
Illustrating his remarks with dozens of plain blackand-white slides, the 89-yearold billionaire called dealing with the pandemic “quite an experiment” that had an “extraordinarily wide” range of possible economic outcomes.
But he said Americans have persevered and prospered through such crises as the Civil War in the 1860s, the influenza pandemic a century ago and the Great Depression, and the “American tailwind” would help them do it again.
“Nothing can stop America when you get right down to it,” Buffett said. “I will bet on America the rest of my life.”
The meeting was held virtually for the first time without shareholders because of the pandemic and streamed by Yahoo Finance.
It began several hours after Berkshire reported a record $49.75 billion first-quarter net loss, reflecting huge unrealized losses on common stock holdings such as Bank of America Corp and Apple Inc during the market meltdown.
While quarterly operating profit rose six per cent, several larger businesses including the BNSF railroad posted declines, and Berkshire said some of its more than 90 businesses are facing “severe” negative effects from COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
Buffett said operating earnings will, through at least this year, be “considerably less” than they would have been had the pandemic not occurred.
Berkshire’s cash stake ended the quarter at $137.3 billion, reflecting difficulty in finding good places to invest.
He also said he decided that he “made a mistake” investing in U.S. airlines, and that this accounted for some of the net $6.1 billion of stocks that Berkshire sold in April.