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Warren Buffett

About Warren Buffett

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Who is Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is a businessman, philanthropist and one of the most successful and widely respected investors globally. His net worth was estimated at $71.8 billion as of July 2020. Buffet's investment philosophy is widely followed around the globe.
 
 
 
Early years and education
 
Born in Omaha, US, in 1930, Buffet developed an interest in the business world and started investing at an early age, including in the stock market. His father, Howard, was a stockbroker with his own brokerage firm, and his mother Leila was a housewife. Buffett had two sisters, one older than him and one younger. At eleven years old, he purchased three shares of Cities Service Preferred at $38 per share for both himself and his older sister. But, the stock fell to just over $27 a share. A resilient Warren held his shares until they rebounded to $40.
 
Buffet started his education at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania before moving back to go to the University of Nebraska, where he received an undergraduate degree in business administration. After graduation, Buffett wanted to go to Harvard Business School, but got rejected for being "too young". Instead, he went to the Columbia Business School, where he earned his graduation in economics.
 
Ben Graham, an investor who was teaching at Columbia had a great influence on Buffett. Buffett learnt about the fundamentals of investing in Graham’s classes. Through his simple yet profound investment principles, Graham became an idyllic figure to the twenty-one-year-old Warren Buffett.
 
Buffet's investments
 
In the initial days of his career, Buffet worked at his father's brokerage firm. His career as an investment salesperson in the early 1950s was not successful. In 1956, he formed the Buffet Partnership. Seven family members and friends invested $105,000 in total, with Buffett investing only $100 himself. By the end of the year, he was managing around $300,000.
 
Warren Buffett started buying stocks in Berkshire Hathaway in 1962, when it was mainly run as a textiles company. He realised there was not so much profit in it and started to phase it out. He started investing in insurance companies instead. Less than 10 years later, in 1965, he was in control of Berkshire Hathaway. In 1970, Buffett named himself as the company’s chairman and wrote his first letter to the shareholders. These letters from Buffett would later become very famous and a subject of study for many investors around the world. Berkshire later acquired several companies, including See’s Candy and GEICO. Berkshire managed to own a 7 per cent share in Coca-Cola, which was worth over $1 billion. Buffett became a billionaire in 1990. In the early to late 2000s, Buffet invested heavily in big banks.
 
Philanthropic work
 
Since the year 2000, Buffett has donated more than $46 billion, becoming the most charitable billionaire. In June 2006, Buffett announced his plans to donate his entire fortune to charity. Then, in 2010, Buffett and Bill Gates launched ‘The Giving Pledge campaign’ to encourage other wealthy individuals to pursue philanthropy.
 
Investment philosophy
 
Buffet's investment philosophy revolves around how a company works. He looks for securities whose prices are unjustifiably low based on their intrinsic worth. Rather than focus supply and demand intricacies of the stock market, Buffett is known to look at companies as a whole. Some of the factors Buffett is believed to consider are company performance, company debt, and profit margins. Other considerations for value investors like Buffett include whether companies are public, how reliant they are on commodities, and how cheap they are. Buffet's vision to avoid the hype, and stick around companies with his long-term approach gives him his edge.
 

Latest Updates on Warren Buffett

Traders are growing wary about BYD's prospects after the electric vehicle maker's dealers slashed prices of some models to boost sales

Updated On: 06 Mar 2023 | 12:27 PM IST

TSMC's other foreign investors include U.S. asset managers BlackRock Inc and Vanguard Group Inc, and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC

Updated On: 15 Nov 2022 | 5:16 PM IST

While high-profile tech IPOs have met with strong demand from the growing herd of retail investors, market pros have been more neutral on the stocks

Updated On: 07 Nov 2022 | 10:38 PM IST

Lock-ups end in November for four consumer-focused tech stocks, which have all slumped in the past month

Updated On: 07 Nov 2022 | 2:58 PM IST

The auction of a high-tech portrait of Warren Buffett didn't come close to matching the $19 million someone paid earlier this year for a private lunch with the billionaire, but it still raised $75,100

Updated On: 31 Aug 2022 | 9:27 AM IST

Buffett's company had acquired 225 million BYD shares in 2008, giving it a 7.73% stake, equal to the 20.49% stake in H shares, according to BYD's annual report

Updated On: 30 Aug 2022 | 8:15 PM IST

Warren Buffett's company received clearance to boost its 20% stake in Occidental Petroleum to as much as 50%, but it's not immediately clear how many more shares Berkshire Hathaway plans to buy

Updated On: 23 Aug 2022 | 7:29 AM IST

Occidental's stock jumped nearly 5% Tuesday to trade for USD 62.89 after Buffett revealed his latest purchases of nearly 6.7 million Occidental shares worth more than USD 400 million.

Updated On: 09 Aug 2022 | 10:45 PM IST

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway now owns nearly $11 billion worth of Occidental Petroleum stock after buying another 1.9 million shares in the past week

Updated On: 20 Jul 2022 | 9:00 AM IST

After years of sitting on an over 20 per cent stake in China's BYD Co, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway may be mulling an exit

Updated On: 18 Jul 2022 | 11:15 AM IST

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway now controls nearly 20% of Occidental Petroleum's stock after picking up another $250 million worth of shares of the oil producer this week

Updated On: 15 Jul 2022 | 6:59 AM IST

Buffett, Berkshire's chief executive officer and chairman, his investing deputies have been on one of Berkshire's biggest buying sprees, with about $41 billion of net purchases during first quarter

Updated On: 17 May 2022 | 6:34 PM IST

The Indian seniors did an incredible job given that two of the three partnerships were ad hoc

Updated On: 05 May 2022 | 6:04 AM IST

Bloomberg reported that the purchase provided a boost to its Chevron Corp stake that vaulted the investment into Berkshire's top four common stock holdings

Updated On: 01 May 2022 | 4:30 PM IST

Buffett, 91, who is Berkshire's chairman and chief executive, and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, 98, fielded questions in a downtown arena in Omaha, Nebraska

Updated On: 30 Apr 2022 | 10:21 PM IST

Most attending the company's first in-person meeting since the pandemic want to be there just for the chance to hear from the 91-year-old Buffett and his 98-year-old investing partner, Charlie Munger

Updated On: 30 Apr 2022 | 11:36 AM IST

Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway's CEO, held the lunch auction once a year for 20 years before the pandemic began to raise money for the Glide Foundation, which helps the homeless in San Francisco

Updated On: 25 Apr 2022 | 8:54 PM IST

Adani's estimated $123.7-billion net worth makes him the richest person in India

Updated On: 25 Apr 2022 | 6:16 PM IST

Shares of HP closed up $5.15, or 14.8%, at $40.06, after earlier rising to $41.46.

Updated On: 08 Apr 2022 | 6:59 AM IST

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway struck an agreement to buy insurance company Alleghany Corp for $11.6 bn, weeks after the 91-year-old billionaire bemoaned a lack of good investment opportunities

Updated On: 22 Mar 2022 | 7:47 AM IST