Dr Strange -- And I'm Not Referring To Dr Fauci -- November 28, 2020

I watched Dr Strange with our oldest granddaughter last night -- I don't remember the network.

But I digress.

Arianna brought me up to speed on the MCU and the DCU. Maybe more on this later.

One can start here but I need to move on.

I apologize for not writing anything about the Bakken (yet, today) but Saturday is my day off. In addition, my editor and spell checker is also off for the day. So, I take advantage of that and write about other things I enjoy. 

The Center Square: I'm adding this "news site" to the sidebar at the right. I had not seen it before. I know nothing about it, but it appears to be right up my alley as they say. If you go to the link, make sure you have the banner as wide as possible on your desktop so you see the pages across the top: About / States / National / Opinion / Donate. The site does not cover all states (North Dakota and South Dakota are notably absent). 

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Warren Buffett

How Warren Buffett made history in 3Q20. The tag lines:

• two ways Warren Buffet made history in 3Q20; and,
• even for longtime Buffett followers, this was a surprise.

This is a long article, and it certainly seemed there were more than just two ways Buffett made history. This is well worth a read if you are an investor, and/or if you enjoy reading about Buffett (again). Just think, within my lifetime I will see the passing of Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Rush Limbaugh. Sad.

From the linked article, some data points:

• over the past 55 years, Berkshire's stock has delivered a compound annual gain of 20.3%;
• this more than doubles the S&P 500
• overall, this works out to a gain of 2.7 million percent -- yes, no typo: a gain of 2.7 million percent since the beginning of 1965
• he's not all that big on diversification: in Buffett's view, if you know what  your are doing, there's no need to diversify
• nearly 90% of Berkshire Hathaway's invested capital is tied up in only three sectors: technology (surprising); financials (not surprising) and consumer staples (somewhat surprising);
• the first "record":
• 3Q20, stands out: a concentration in information technology
• almost 50% of BRK's invested assets is in tech stocks
• investments in tech stocks slightly surpasses that of financials in 4Q2005;
• at no point in at least the last 20 years has a Warren Buffett portfolio been more concentrated in a single sector
• but look at this: the concentration in the tech sector is limited to two stocks: AAPL and SNOW
• SNOW (a very small piece of his entire portfolio) is valued at $1.5 billion in the BRK portfolio
• the second "record":
• the largest quarterly share buyback in history
• between 2013 and 2018, the old policy didn't allow for any repurchasing activity because Berkshire's stock as never below 120% of its book value;
• the new policy has two key rules and allows for more liberal use of the company's capital:
• the company must have at least $20 billion in cash on hand before repurchases of common stock allowed; and,
• both Buffett and Charlie Munger must agree that Berkshire's stock is trading at a discount to its intrinsic value (wow, one could drive a truck filled with Buffett's cash through that door)
• 2Q20: an all-time records  of $5.1 billion re-purchase
• 3Q20: $9 billion re-purchase
• through nine months of 2020, the company repurchased almost $16 billion of its own stock;
• Buffett has spent more money on repurchasing his own shares than buying any other stock since 2016 aside from Apple;