Why Warren Buffett Says Consumer Behavior Is Key to Investing | Berkshire 2024 (MUST WATCH)

Stefan WB: My name is Stefan WB. I am a shareholder from Hur Hur Germany. My question to Warren: your favorite holding period is forever holding American Express or Coca-Cola for decades. Berkshire recently went in and out of Marquel, and you, uh, I believe sold and later bought oxy which I think happens to everyone all the time, um, but can you maybe to us give examples of your thought process when you exit positions? Thank you.

Warren: Well, there various reasons for exiting positions—one is if you need the money, but that doesn't happen very often with us. But it used to happen on every decision I made when I started, when I was 20 years old, which I considered the postr period, although I actually started in 1942 if you just talk about buying stocks. In any case, the decision process is really quite interesting in a certain way because we made decisions—Charlie and I made decisions extremely fast—but in effect, after years of thinking about the parameters that, that, that would enable us to make the quick decision when the, when it presented itself, and, uh, people have speculated on how I've decided to really put a lot of money into apple and for a reason I can't.

One, one, one thing Charlie and I both learned a lot about was consumer behavior. That didn't mean we thought we could run a, a furniture store or anything else, but we, we did learn a lot when we bought a, a Furniture chain in Baltimore and we quickly, re, really realized that it was a mistake. But having made that mistake made us smarter about actually thinking through what the capital allocation process would be and how people were likely to be behave in the future with department stores and all kinds of things that we wouldn't really focused on. So we learned something about consumer behavior from that—we didn't learn how to run at a department store.

Now the next one was seiz candy, and sees candy was also a study of consumer Behavior. We didn't know how to make candy, you know—we didn't, there were all kinds of things we didn't know, uh, but we've learned more about consumer Behavior as we go along, and that sort of background in a very general way led up to the study of consumer behavior in terms of apples products. In that case, while I watched what was happening at the furniture mark in terms of people leaving the store—even though we were selling Apple at Price where we weren't even making any money—but it was just so popular that, uh, if we didn't have it, uh, people left the store and went to Best Buy or someplace, and, and if you, you know, the blumkin they can't stand anybody leaving the store so you, they behave accordingly. But then you learned, you, you that had the interest in the brand and then you had the, a million different inputs, but I think the psychologists call this apperceptive Mass. There is something that comes along that takes a whole bunch of observations that youve made and knowledge you have, and then crystallizes, uh, your thinking into action—big action—in the case of Apple, and there actually is something which, which I don't mean it be mysterious, but I really can't talk about, but it was, it was perfectly legal, I'm sure that, but it, it just happened to be something that entered the picture that, uh, took all the other observations and, I guess my mind reached what they call app perceptive Mass, which I really don't know anything about, but I, but I've, uh, I, I know the phenomenon when I, when I, when I experienc it, and, uh, uh, you know, that is—we saw, we saw something that I felt was, well, enormously underpriced. Maybe I've used this example before, but if you talk to most people—if they have an iPhone and they have a second car (the second car cost them 30 or $335,000) and they were told that they never could have the iPhone again or they could never have the second car again, uh, uh—they would give up the second car—but the second car cost them 20 times the iPhone did. So now people don't think about their purchases that way, but, but, but I think about their behavior, and, uh, so we just decide without knowing—I don't know, have the Ft—there may be some little guy inside the iPhone or something—I have no idea how it works—but I also know what it, me, I know what it means to people and I know how they use it, and I think I know enough about consumer Behavior to know there one of the great products, maybe the greatest product of all time, and the value it offers is incredible. And I think it has in Tim Cook—I think it has somebody that, in, in his own way, is the equivalent of a partner, partner with Steve Jobs that could do one thing extraordinarily well and, and more than one application, but one thing. And, and, and, and Tim was the perfect partner served sequentially with them, so it, it's, uh, you sort of know it when you see it. I, I actually saw it with Geico when I, I went there in 1950—I didn't know exactly what I was seeing—but lmer Davidson on a Saturday in 4 hours taught me enough about what I understood what auto insurance was, and I knew what a car was and I knew what people went through—people's minds, you, I know, I knew they didn't like to buy it, but I knew they couldn't drive without it. So that was pretty interesting, and then, but he filled in all the blanks in my mind as I sat there on that Saturday afternoon, and, you know, every now and then it happens, you know, why do you have this—the person you met, you know, there are all these, all these different potential spouses in the, in the room—and then something happens that you decide that this is the one for you. You know, I think was it Rogers and hemmer that Some Enchanted Evening wrote about that.

Well, our idea of an enchanted evening is to come up with a business—Charlie and me—and, uh, and, uh, there is an aspect of, of, uh, knowing a whole lot and having a whole lot of experiences and then seeing something that turns on the light bulb, and, uh, that will continue to happen and I hope it happens a few times to you, but you can't make it happen tomorrow. But you can prepare yourself for it happening tomorrow and it will happen sometimes. Hey Warren, he, uh, he mentioned oxy—which I think is a great example where you made the original decision basically on a, a weekend with some thought—but as the more you learned about oxy and the, the, the asset position they had, their, their ability to operate in a, in a, in an exceptional Manner and then a, a strong CEO around Capital allocation, I think your confidence in—which was reflected in continuing, uh, to acquire more shares—is sort of that type of process where, yeah, it, it, it's, it's exactly to the point. I mean, I just learned more as I went along. I learned enough, you know, I'd never, uh, I'd heard of ocidental petroleum; ocidental petroleum to been a descendant—something not a descendant but, but a continuation of City service—which was the first stock I bought, and of course I, I, I knew a lot about going on a gas business, but, but I didn't know anything about geology, and, uh, uh, so I, I knew the economics of it. I, I had a lot of various things stored in my mind about the business but I never, I never heard of Vicki until I guess it was a Friday or Saturday and we met on Sunday morning and we made a deal, but that was one sort of deal.

And then I, as time passed, all the kinds of different events happened and, you know, icon came in. I mean, there [were] million things you couldn't predict at the start and, and I formed certain opinions as I went along, but then I learned more as I went along and then at a point when I, I heard an investor call that bigy was on it, it, it put things together for me in a way; it didn't mean I knew I had a sure thing or anything like that. I don't know what the price of oil was going to be next year, but I knew that it was something to act on so we did, and, uh, we're very happy we did. And we still don't know what the price of oil is going to be next year and what he does, but, but I think it—the odds are very good that it was and, but not aen that it was a good decision, and, uh, you know we've got options to buy more stock and, and you know when we get through with it it could be a worthwhile investment for, for Berkshire and, and we're in it and we're in it for Keeps.

And, uh, there are other things that we own that we aren't in for Keeps, but, uh, oh incidentally I, I should just throw this out since there's been speculation on—we've sold a, I was 100% responsible for the paramont decision. I read speculation that that one of either Ted or Todd had some involvement in that. No, it was 100% my decision, and, uh, we sold it all and we lost quite a bit of money, and, and, uh, and that happens in this business too, but, uh, actually owning Paramount made me think even further. I like to think deeper, but I certainly, uh, thought harder even about, about the whole question of what people do with their Leisure Time and, and, uh, you know what the governing principles are of running an entertainment business of any sort—whether it's sports or movies or whatever it might be. And, uh, I think I'm smarter now than I was year or two—a couple years ago—but I also think I'm poor because I acquired the knowledge in the manner I did, but, uh, uh, if, if I just want to be very clear that that—a—we lost money on Perma and B and know I did it all by myself, folks.