Warren Buffett Is The Greatest CEO In America

According to Barron’s Warren Buffett is the greatest CEO in America. He is on a list of Top CEOs which total 25 CEOs. (Maybe he is at the top because his last name starts with a “B”.) Still, he is in the No.1 position.

Some others run weak companies. This is the case with John Stankey of AT&T (NYSE: T).

Buffett is almost among the wealthiest people in the world due almost exclusively to his work as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B)  which he has run since 1965. No other CEO that Barron’s favors has been in place nearly as long. Today, Buffett is worth about $150 billion, which makes him among the 10 richest people in the world. What CEO can offer anything close to that, when tenure is added to investor success?

Berkshire Hathaway, and Buffett’s reputation as a CEO are almost exclusively because of his reputation as a stock picker. Because of this, shares of Berkshire are up 19%, while the S&P 500 is off almost 7%. It is the eighth most valuable company in the world, with a market cap of $1.16 trillion.

Recent major market movements have slightly shaken Buffett’s belief in stocks. He is not alone. Worries about a global recession have driven people out of stocks. Some investors have even sold U.S. Treasury bonds, which are supposed to be among the safest investments in the world. The money from these sales has begun to move into cash.

At the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, Buffett said his company had $345 billion of cash on hand. He said recently he was close to a “$10 billion deal.” For reasons he did not give, he dropped the plan. He also said he has been selling stocks. It’s unclear whether this is because he is concerned about the market or if he is waiting for better prices on stocks he already favors.

Buffett has Berkshire holdings in about 30 stocks, some of which he has owned for decades. Among them are stakes in American Express (NYSE: AXP), Chevron (NYSE: CVX), Chubb (NYSE: CB), Coca-Cola (NYSE: K), Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY), Visa (NYSE: V), and other public companies. Berkshire also has substantial investments in private companies, including insurance company giant GEICO and BNSF Railway, the largest freight railroad in the United States.

Buffett also favors insurance companies. He owns Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, National Indemnity, and Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, which focuses on business and commercial insurance. Describing these investments, he said, “It’s so much fun because you get the money at the start, you know, and then find out whether you’ve done something stupid later on.”

No other CEO is in his league.

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