Warren Buffett Sees A Lot Of Parallels Between The End Of A Bull Market And The Moment Before He Has An Orgasm
For the uninformed, this is not new:
On stocks being undervalued:“I like an oversexed guy in a whorehouse.”
On the acquisition of Dexter Shoe:"A line from Bobby Bare's country song explains what too often happens with acquisitions: 'I've never gone to bed with an ugly woman, but I've sure woke up with a few.'"
On Bear Stearns:Mr. Buffett received a call at 4:30 p.m. that Saturday from a private investment firm trying to assemble a group to buy the embattled financial giant. "I'm calling about Bear Stearns,'" the private investor began, according to Mr. Buffett. "Should I go on?'" Mr. Buffett recalls thinking: "It's like a woman taking off half her clothes and asking, 'Should I continue?' Even if you're a 90-year-old eunuch, you let 'em finish." Mr. Buffett says he passed on the proposed deal. Bear Stearns was bought by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. the following day.
We're not finished:
On what makes people want to sell their companies to Berkshire:"You can sell it to Berkshire, and we’ll put it in the Metropolitan Museum; it’ll have a wing all by itself; it’ll be there forever. Or you can sell it to some porn shop operator, and he’ll take the painting and he’ll make the boobs a little bigger and he’ll stick it up in the window, and some other guy will come along in a raincoat, and he’ll buy it."
On the stimulus package:“First stimulus package was sort of like taking half a tablet of Viagra and having also a bunch of candy mixed in”
On bridge: Warren Buffett says he's addicted to Bridge. To emphasize just how much, he told CBS News, "You know, if I'm playing bridge and a naked woman walks by, I don't ever see her." While he makes it sounds like this is a commonplace occurence at his local bridge club, he did add with a laugh, "Don't test me on that!"
On having sex with inanimate objects, like gold:"You can fondle the cube, but it will not respond.”
Which brings us to this:
In his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders to be released Saturday, he writes about how nonprofessional investors shouldn't get distracted by constantly changing stock prices and instead buy stocks of companies that will be profitable over the long run. After warning against entering the market "at a time of extreme exuberance and then (becoming) disillusioned when paper losses occur," Buffett quotes the late Wall Street money manager Barton Biggs: "'A bull market is like sex. It feels best just before it ends.'"
Obviously this last one is a quote, and not an original, which can most likely be explained by Buffett suffering from a bit of writer's block when it comes to sex/business metaphors after an incredibly good run, which is completely normal and happens to a lot of guys.
