I bought one BRK.b share 4 months ago, for the sole purpose attending its annual meeting of May 3. Here is what I shared with my kids after meeting:
Last Saturday, May 3, 2025, I attended Warren Buffett’s annual meeting at CHI Health Center, an arena and convention centre, in Omaha. This was the first time I had ever attended Warren Buffett’s meeting. It was a new experience. So I enjoyed it greatly.
Warren Buffett is possibly the best and most famous investor all the time in human history. I began to know him through media almost 25 years ago and read lots of his writing. I like his wisdom greatly and follow his long term investment philosophy.
Omaha is about 1200 km away from my home. It is a long distance to drive. But at the end of last year, I bought Tesla Model Y. It has FSD, the supervised full self driving, which makes long distance driving far easier and enjoyable. In order to attend the meeting, I bought one share of Berkshire Hathaway stock last February.
I arrived at 6:00am. Thousands of people had already lined up at the door. When I waited in line, I noticed too young boys. I spoke with them and their daddy. Younger boy was 8 year old and another 11 year. The daddy brought them here so that they could learn stock investment from Warren Buffett directly.
The door opened at 7 o’clock as scheduled. When I walked into the meeting hall, over 10 thousands attendants had already occupied all front seats. I was able to find a seat at the middle side. Not far away from, I saw two little girls, possibly at age 7 and 9, seating with their parents.
The meeting started on time at 8 o’clock. After brief introduction, ask and answer questions session started. Here was some I learned during this meeting from Warren Buffett:
1. Trade balance is important for a country. Import more than export, and spend more than revenue income, lead to trade deficit and high debt. If trade deficit and country debt are too high, the country may be bankrupt.
2. Trade means we do what we good at and buy what others are good at. Trade makes the society richer and more prosperous.
3. In order to reduce current trade deficit and high debt of USA, Warren Buffet proposed import certificates, where as Donald Trump is using tariff, the high tax paid on the imported products.
4. No one can predict what direction stock price will go tomorrow, next month and next year, but stock market will go up in long term such as next 10-50 years. Short term stock market prediction has no value.
5. Investors need to be patient. Holding big chunk of cash works well lots of times, as market falls down significantly sometimes and great investment opportunities do occur.
6. Focusing on a few great companies may be better than investing in too many companies without sufficient familiarity and conviction.
7. Investing in real estate involves lots of negotiation and high cost, compared to stock investing. Good investment opportunities in real estate sometimes occur, but great investment opportunity in stock market occur much more.
8. AI may be useful and sometimes game changer, but it can not replace the wisdom and real business value.
9. America always finds things which desires to change and hundreds of things to criticize in the past 250 years, but we should feel very lucky to be borne in United States.
10. Sometimes we have to act fast to take advantage of great investment opportunities. Acting fast does not contradict with being patient.
11. Do what you enjoy.
12. When check a company, Warren Buffett spend more time on balance sheet than income statement, whereas Wall Street focus more on income statement. Income statement is more easy to manipulate than balance sheet.
13. Everything, every achievement, starts from good work attitude. In order to get share of prosperity, you have to work hard.
14. The body needs to be cherished, but longevity does not necessarily require running and going to the gym every day.
15. The nearly five-hour question and answer session ended quickly. I'm glad to participate in this meeting, and I will come again next year.
AI
