Brace For A Monday Massacre: Buffett Liquidates All Airline Holdings As Berkshire Sees Another Leg Lower
Tyler Durdan
Well, it's official: there won't be any "Buy American" op-eds by the Oracle of Omaha this time around. In fact, if anything, they will be titled simply "Sell."
Warren Buffett, who turns 90 in 4 months, had an unpleasant surprise for the permabullish Berkshire faithful during their annual pilgrimage to Omaha live-stream of Berkshire's annual meeting: one month after Berkshire surprised investors by selling parts of its Delta and Southwest Airlines stakes - both of which had previously been above a 10% ownership level and speculation was rife that Berkshire could purchase an airline outright in the near future - the Oracle of Omaha said that, 4 years after Berkshire took major stakes in the four largest US airlines, he had liquidated the sold the entirety of its equity position in the U.S. airline industry which included $6.5 billion worth of stock in United, American, Southwest and Delta Airlines.
Assuring that Monday will be a bloodbath for Trannies (that would be the transportation stocks you perverts), Buffett justified his decision as follows: "The world has changed for the airlines. And I don’t know how it’s changed and I hope it corrects itself in a reasonably prompt way,” he said. “I don’t know if Americans have now changed their habits or will change their habits because of the extended period."
But "I think there are certain industries, and unfortunately, I think that the airline industry, among others, that are really hurt by a forced shutdown by events that are far beyond our control."
"When we bought [airlines], we were getting an attractive amount for our money when investing across the airlines,” he said. “It turned out I was wrong about that business because of something that was not in any way the fault of four excellent CEOs. Believe me. No joy of being a CEO of an airline."
"“I don’t know that 3-4 years from now people will fly as many passenger miles as they did last year .... you’ve got too many planes."
Realizing that he won't be alive by the time a turnaround eventually happens, he clarified that he made the decision and that he lost money on his investments. “That was my mistake.”
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