BRK: Idle Rambling -- August 16, 2020

I was surprised how little attention was paid to the 2Q20 Warren Buffett / Berkshire Hathaway quarterly report. Maybe there was a lot of coverage and the fact that I "was on the road" -- maybe it was me, not the business writers. 

I touched on Berkshire Hathaway yesterday. When you look at that short note, what jumps out at you?  I'll give you a minute to think about it. 

Has it been a minute. 

Look at the short clip again: dumped all his holdings in Goldman Sachs, dumped all his holdings in OXY. Dumped the rest of his airlines (four of them: AA, DAL, UAL, and LUV); dumped the majority of his holdings in Wells Fargo. That's a lot of cash.

What did he buy. About a half-billion dollars of a gold miner.

Obviously there was more, but if it ha been "materially" more, it would have been reported. 

So, I woke up with a start this morning (as they say), wondering just how much cash Berkshire Hathaway has on hand.

As an aside, I believe BRK is #3 globally in revenue; only Saudi Aramco and one other company have greater revenue than BRK. Which, of course, is more cash.

Before looking at BRK's cash position, let's be ready to put it into perspective. What other company is known for holding cash hoards? Apple, Inc.

• Apple, Inc, link here:
• cash hoard decreased compared to the previous quarter
• previous quarter: $207 billion
• most recent quarter: $193 billion
• Now, with that as a marker, let's look at Berkshire Hathaway. First, all the links:
• can BRK join the $1 trillion club? -- Motley Fool (which, by the way, leads to another question, but we will get to that later)
• two companies backed by Warren Buffett strike deals worth a combined $9 billion -- Markets Insider;
• Liberty Global will buy Swiss telecoms rival Sunrise Communications for $7.5 billion in cash;
• Brazilian payment group StoneCo will acquire Linx for $1.1 billion in cash and stock
• they are worth a combined $1.3 billion
• the deals come after Berkshire reached a $10 billion agreement to buy most of Dominion Energy's natural gas assets in early July
• eight jaw-dropping figures in BRK's 2Q20 report -- Motley Fool
• profits rebound at Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway -- The NY Times; paywall? then try next one;
• Berkshire Hathaway's profit jumps as market rebound boosts results -- The Wall Street Journal;
• Berkshire Hathaway's earnings jumped 87% -- CNN Business;
• Warren Buffett's cash cow keeps on churning -- SeekingAlpha;
• Warren Buffett sours on banks and likes (gulp!) gold -- Bloomberg;
• four things BKR's earnings told us about Covid-19 -- Motley Fool:

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Market caps of the current trillion-dollar companies:

• AAPL: $1.965 trillion
• MSFT: $1.581 trillion
• GOOG: $1.025 trillion
• AMZN: $1.577 trillioin
• Saudi Aramco:

Which companies are next (same link)?

• FB: $745 billion
• BRK-A: $503 billion
• V: $432 billion

At an annual return of 11% for BRK:

2021	503	1.11	558
2022	558	1.11	620
2023	620	1.11	688
2024	688	1.11	764
2025	764	1.11	848
2026	848	1.11	941
2027	941	1.11	1044