Buffett's Enduring Influence

It's never a bad idea to occasionally review the influence that Warren Buffett has had on investors, and that's exactly what advisor Tom Russo did this week on the WealthTrack program recounting how he started his firm Gardner, Russo and Quinn in 1983 after hearing Buffett address his class at Stanford Business School.  Hope everyone had a good weekend.  Fall has officially arrived with sudden and lasting chilly temps.  

Buffett's Enduring Influence

September 22, 2022

Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber,

We have been witness to a market of some pretty far-out extremes. The most obvious is Bitcoin which experienced its worst quarter in a decade in the second quarter of this year. The dominant digital currency plummeted more than 56% in the three months ended in June. That’s worse than its previous record loss for the decade of over 40% in the first quarter of 2021. Bitcoin fans say this volatility is par for the course for an emerging technology and market. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum is good old cash. According to BofA Global Research: “Cash Rules.” Since the consumer price index bottomed in May of 2020 it has outperformed gold, bonds, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, known as TIPS, and swamped the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond.   

Then there’s a long-term stock performance extreme in the form of Berkshire Hathaway. According to Barron’s between 1965 when Warren Buffett purchased the former textile company, and the end of 2021, the conglomerate’s stock has delivered a compound annual return of 20.1% versus 10.5% for the S&P 500. As Barron’s points out, most of that outperformance versus the index came in the early years when Buffett racked up huge gains in the stock market. 

This week’s guest is a longtime holder of Berkshire stock and has been an avid student of Buffett’s style of value investing since meeting the legendary investor at Stanford Business School in the early 1980s. He is Tom Russo, managing member of the investment advisory firm, Gardner Russo & Quinn where he oversees the Semper Vic Partners Funds which he launched in 1983 after hearing Buffett address his class at Stanford.  

The global value manager focuses on owning a small group of exceptionally well-managed, well-known brand name firms, many family-owned, with dominant, almost unassailable positions in their mostly consumer-oriented businesses and then holding them pretty much forever. Berkshire Hathaway has consistently been one of his largest positions. In this weekend’s interview, we will learn how Buffett’s talk in graduate school made such a huge impression on him. 

We also have an exclusive EXTRA feature with Russo who will discuss his personal commitment and involvement in the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States. 

If you miss the show on public television, you can watch it on our website over the weekend, along with all of our past programs and our guests’ One Investment recommendations.  You can also find the WEALTHTRACK podcast on Stitcher and SoundCloud as well as iTunes and Spotify.

Have a super weekend and make the week ahead a healthy, profitable and productive one!

Best regards,

Consuelo