Berkshire Annual Meeting 2020
— May 3, 2020On May 2nd 2020 Berkshire Hathaway Annual meeting was conducted virtually, many of us had plans to visit this year but due to COVID19 we all had to adapt to the new reality. The mood was sanguine, Buffett did his best to maintain normalcy in these difficult times. I watched the meeting on my laptop and the format was shorter than usual but the question and answer section of the meeting was 4.5 hours. I am impressed by Buffett’s stamina at 89 to answer questions without any breaks for such a length of time, for most of us it was hard to keep up and concentrate throughout the length of the session. His mind is sharp as ever and his wisdom is more relevant than every during these difficult times. I have shared my highlights and lessons from this year’s Berkshire Hathaway Annual meeting. Hope you find it useful and look forward to your comments and thoughts.
Highlights of the Berkshire Annual Meeting 2020 :

6. Berkshire’s priority is resilience not efficiency i.e. safety of capital and survival.
Lessons from Berkshire Annual Meeting 2020
1. Never Bet Against America. Buffett encouraged investors who have a 20+ years view and are emotionally stable to buy across section of America through buying index funds. US wealth in 1789 is $1 billion.Today it is $100 trillion. Every $1 returned $100,000. It happened in spite of Gettysburg,the Great Depression, two world wars, Cuban missile crisis, financial crisis, and many other crises.
2. When there is a market crash think rationally and probabilistically.. buying blindly since prices have come down drastically is same as selling in panic. Investing is the process to accessing intrinsic value and during a crisis you should buy or sell stocks of companies when you are confident about your ability access intrinsic value. Case in point Buffett selling Airlines after he evaluated the prospects and hence intrinsic value in the near term and long term future.
3. Don’t be afraid to change your mind when facts change even if it is inconsistent with what you have committed publicly earlier . e.g. Buffett selling Airlines after his public endorsement of Airlines in an interview few months before the annual meeting
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