Warren Buffett's Cash Pile at Berkshire Hathaway Just Hit a Record $348 Billion -- and That's Terrible News for Wall Street
The Oracle of Omaha's short-term actions paint a potentially worrisome picture for investors.
Though important data releases aren't hard to come by on Wall Street, there's arguably not an event that captivates the attention of professional and everyday investors quite like Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK.A)(NYSE: BRK.B) annual shareholder meeting.
In the mid-1970s, Berkshire held its annual meeting in the employee cafeteria of one of its subsidiaries (National Indemnity) and typically drew two dozen shareholders. For this years' meeting, around 40,000 people were in the audience.
The reason Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting is viewed as something of a Mecca on Wall Street is because investors get the rare opportunity to pick the brain of one of the stock market's most-successful asset managers, Warren Buffett. Since taking over as CEO six decades ago, the aptly named "Oracle of Omaha" has nearly doubled up the annualized total return, including dividends, of the benchmark S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC).
