Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway and Barron's

I am weary of reading about Warren Buffett in Barron’s. This week the magazine mentioned him twice. A couple of weeks ago, his company Berkshire Hathaway earned four mentions in the same magazine. And last month, Barron’s cover story was “Berkshire Hathaway’s Bright Future.”

That magazine’s writers love to link their stories to his hallowed name at every opportunity. It must be an editorial tactic: mention Buffett, or Berkshire Hathaway, and it casts a warm golden glow over the entire article. Perhaps it’s a way to comfort readers and sell more copies of the magazine, but this has gone too far.

To see for yourself, watch Barron’s weekly index of companies. Count how many times Berkshire Hathaway’s name appears. Read each of those references. Repeat this process for a few weeks, and you’ll probably agree with me: sometimes their reasons for invoking Saint Warren are just too flimsy.

A few examples from this week’s issue: in “Up From the Bottom,” Andrew Bary wants to make the point that IBM’s valuation is among the lowest in the tech sector. But he first tells us that “Warren Buffett doesn’t often make mistakes,” going on to say he bought the stock two years ago at about $160. Today it’s around $148. Is Bary telling us that if Buffett bought IBM at $160 two years ago, and it’s lower now, it must be an even better value today? That’s very questionable reasoning. Many things change in two years. What about IBM’s fundamentals? The fact that Buffett bought IBM stock in 2012 is almost meaningless without an understanding of the company’s performance, markets, strategy and outlook. You’ll find none of that in Bary’s column, but by God, he hitched his story to a star.

Even more irritating is Randall Forsyth in “Up & DownWall Street.” He wants to tell us about the experience of bond fund manager Dan Fuss. But before he does that, he finds it necessary to style Fuss “The Buffett of Bonds, even though he’s a few years younger than the legendary value investor at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway…” Readers get absolutely nothing out of that gratuitous cross-reference. The rest of the paragraph is all about Fuss’ exposure to foreign currency bonds. There’s nothing else about Buffett or Berkshire in the entire column. 

God help anyone using this sort of information to pick investments. They’d be better off with a good low-cost index fund.