COVID cancels "Woodstock for Capitalists" ... again
| "We do not currently believe it will be safe" Berkshire Hathaway will once again go "virtual" for its 2021 shareholders meeting, set for Saturday, May 1.
In a news release yesterday, the company doesn't explicitly cite the COVID-19 pandemic, but it doesn't have to.
"Unfortunately, we do not currently believe it will be safe at that time to hold a meeting with nearly 40,000 attendees as we last did in 2019."
As a result, Berkshire is planning an event with a format that will be "very similar" to this year's meeting.  Warren Buffett and Greg Abel, Berkshire's vice chairman for non-insurance operations, sat at separate tables, surrounded by thousands of empty seats at Omaha's CHI Health Center arena.
Due to concerns about travel during the outbreak, Charlie Munger remained at his home in California and insurance chief Ajit Jain stayed in New York.
Buffett delivered what he called a "monologue with slides" about how the United States had overcome challenges in the past, and answered submitted questions as relayed to him by CNBC's Becky Quick.
As it was this year, the 2021 meeting will be streamed live by Yahoo Finance.  CNBC.com notes that while COVID-19 vaccines are just now becoming available, it will take months for most people to receive them, and "so Berkshire is not taking any chances."
The absence of tens of thousands of Buffett fans is bad news for Omaha's tourism industry.
But Mayor Jean Stothert is quoted by the Omaha World-Herald as saying the city understands Berkshire's "difficult" decision. "The safety of participants and visitors must be the primary consideration."
And Visit Omaha's Deb Ward told the newspaper, "Obviously, it's certainly disappointing but not entirely surprising, given the spikes in COVID cases and the projections for the upcoming winter months."
BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET Some links may require a subscription
BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
  BERKSHIRE'S TOP STOCK HOLDINGS - December 4, 2020
 Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly-traded U.S. stocks by market value, based on today's closing prices.
Holdings are as of September 30, 2020 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway and New England Asset Management's 13F filings on November 16, 2020.
The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
A CORRECTION AND QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
In last week's newsletter, when comparing the P/E ratios of Tesla and Berkshire Hathaway, I showed one P/E for Berkshire's Class A shares and another for its Class B shares.
As was pointed out to me by several readers, since both classes represent the same underlying ownership, there is only one P/E for the company, and it's just over 15. (That is, of course, still far smaller than Tesla's current P/E of 1187.)
Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)
If you aren't already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.
-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
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