Thursday, June 19, 2014

There Is A Time For All Seasons

My Dear Friends,

We will be taking a hiatus from the Scarlet Kings meetings, which may last from several months to much more possibly.  This is actually something that I have been thinking about for some time now, although I didn't express it except to a few.  And it's not to say that some of our members may not meet still informally, but we will be taking a break from posting the minutes.

As there is a time to get together and accumulate knowledge, there is also a time to reflect upon it, and I believe the time has come to reflect.

Since 2008, we have been getting together and enriching each other's lives in ways that I couldn't possibly imagine at the time the club was created.  It was an informal gathering of a group of people who were inquisitive about life and we resolved to discuss several, several issues as macro as the world, including the global economy and geopolitics, to issues as micro as the philosophical aspects of man and the psyche.  And we have, I believe, learned from our successes and our failures along the way, and we are better human beings because of it.

As we have all this material from the past several years to look over, it is so enjoyable for me to go back and look at what we were discussing and to overlay our discussions with several issues and historical changes that were happening in the world around us.  And, hopefully, when you will go back and reminisce, you will share that joy also.  

I generally did not express my thanks and gratitude on the blog as I always felt it was best expressed in person.

But I would like to take a moment to express my deepest and sincerest heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to all of the attendees who have come to the Scarlet Kings over the years.  Each and every person contributed something special that made the group so wonderful and I, personally, have learned something from each of you and become a better human being because of you.  And I hope also that by setting up this blog, organizing the meetings and posting these meeting minutes, I have made a small contribution to you in return.

There may still be posts or articles about various things as they come up, so please look out for those.  And when it is decided to start up these meetings again, you will be sure to know.

In the meantime, while we are taking a break, I wish you all well and may you all have health, wealth and happiness ahead of you until we may meet again!


- VJ

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Next Meeting of the Scarlet Kings



Greetings to All,

The next meeting of the Scarlet Kings will be held on
Sunday, June 1st, 2014 at 12:30PM.

Location: BJ's Restaurant and Brewery
(4901 Belt Line Road, Dallas, TX 75254)

Please join us for a fruitful and lucrative discussion!

Very Sincerely,

VJ

Monday, May 12, 2014

From Omaha

VJ Arjan, Ry Zamora, and Trey Jackson infront of the CenturyLink stadium in Omaha, NE

To use the phrase "an experience of a lifetime" to describe the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder's meeting would probably not do it justice. 

It was Saturday, May 3rd - the Scarlet Kings meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.  Ry Zamora, Trey Jackson, and VJ Arjan flew to Des Moines, Iowa, and drove through 2-3 hours of farmland to Omaha to attend the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder's meeting.  

We all sat down at the figurative boardroom table across from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and were content on just letting them talk as we listened carefully with both our eyes and ears.

Inside the CenturyLink stadium

What was remarkable was that of the 38,000 people in the stadium, there were many, many more who flew from every corner of the world to gain nuggets of wisdom, not only about investing but about life as well.  There were people who came as far as Italy, Shanghai, Canada, Taiwan - all over the world.

We are not going to go into the details of every question that was asked and Warren and Charlie's responses.  

You can find them here:


But what we will try to do is to put down our experience of what the experience was like and also our perspective of how Buffett operates Berkshire and what we felt were some of the reasons he and Charlie are able to make it work.


First of all, let's talk about the "Buffett Shrines".  Ry had talked in length when he went last year about the booths set up in this massive warehouse under the stadium itself which are like shrines set up for each of one Berkshire's companies.  

Dairy Queen stall
There were so many of these stall set up that we did not have the to really visit all of them.  You name it, they were there:  Dairy Queen, Coke, NetJets, Borsheim's, Heinz, and, of course, Geico, just to name a few.

Here is a video below:



Perhaps learning from his branding experience with Coca-cola, Warren and Charlie have turned the entire shareholder's meeting into a wonderful and completely shameless promotion of their companies.


Coca-cola stall


Ry Zamora in front of the Geico gecko
VJ Arjan with The Acme Brick



When we first entered the massive warehouse that all the Buffett-shrines were kept, out of the corner of our eyes, we saw a huge group of people gathering at the end and we knew that 'The Man' was here.  

So while Ry got something to eat, Trey and VJ went to see what was going on and it was Warren Buffett and Bill Gates participating in a newspaper tossing contest with other shareholders.

Here is the video below:


Afterwards, we went to the stadium and even though we were there 40-45 minutes early, the only seats we could find were all the way at the top of the stadium.  We were able to find much better ones, thanks to Ry's efforts, after the lunch hour, but up till that point we had seats shown in the picture.

Q&A

Warren and Charlie on stage
After the introductions and seemingly endless commercials for several of Berkshire's companies on the jumbotron, it was time to talk for the 7-hour Q&A session.


Bill Gates (in green)
The format was as follows: a question from the media (CNBC, Bloomberg, and Reuters), then a question from an analyst (Moody's, S&P, etc) and then one from the audience.  Here is a sample how the question and answer session went - in this question, Warren talks about the activist approach that 3G has and whether Berkshire can learn to manage their companies with that model.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_G3ob4AabOtU2p2dTJSQ2ctWVk/edit?usp=sharing

A key point that needs to be made.  It is not that we ourselves are "Buffett-worshipers" although we met several at the shareholder's meeting.  There may have been times when Warren went into what can be called "The happy grandfather" mode.  It is the facade that he has perhaps created when we see him on CNBC or Bloomberg.  It happened particularly when he wanted to avoid touching upon a certain question. 

Warren and Charlie are remarkably skilled at keeping control of the flow of the conversation even though they were being grilled with the questions.  For most of their answers, it seemed that Warren and Charlie were very frank with their responses and the "nuggets" of wisdom below are assuming that they were speaking in earnest.  Just a point to keep in mind.

The key nuggets of wisdom, out of several, where these:


An almost obsessive and thorough knowledge and analysis of the numbers

Now it might be normal in Warren and Charlie's circle perhaps, but it was incredible to see Warren, who is 83, and Charlie, who is 90, rattle off numbers from various businesses Berkshire owns like they could do it in their sleep. 

It would not be surprising if Warren and Charlie have a sort of photographic memory because there were instances where not only could they quote the numbers, but they would point out in which paragraph on a certain page of a certain year's annual report the number was mentioned.


Social Intelligence and Birds of a Feather

Warren mentioned this term "social intelligence" several times along with the term "business intelligence".  What was apparent for those who were looking for it was that along with having business IQs that are off the charts, Warren and Charlie are very good at reading people and reading their values as well.  They are very good at making sure that the Berkshire values fit well with those of the managers of the companies they own.

There was one instance in which, Warren talked about Choice RV, which is a company that actually went bankrupt before Berkshire acquired it 10+ years ago.  The owner desired a laissez-faire approach from the private equity financiers, but it turned out that that was not what he got.  The managing directors of this venture from the private equity firm kept meddling into the business affairs of the RV manufacturer and due to a clash of personalities, the company subsequently went bankrupt.

Warren and Charlie took notice of this and saw how their passive investment style would suit what the CEO at Choice RV was looking for.  10+ years later, this company is now doing $4 billion of business and that number is expected to double in the next 3-4 years.

It also seems that Warren and Charlie know the kinds of company they keep.  They seem to know the kinds of people and companies they want to "hang around" with.  Hence the phrase: birds of a feather flock together.

There were several questions about whether or not they should try joint ventures with such-and-such a group, or whether they should try "xyz" sort of financing, and both of them acknowledged that there may be potential for that to occur, but it was very, very low.  

As Charlie put it, "if our performance so far is considered a sort of failure for some in the face of higher returns elsewhere, then we want more of this kind of failure."  Basically, if an approach has worked, and is time tested then it is best to stick to what is working. 


Ignorance-removal

This one was huge because it showed to us that as much as outsiders might think they have come to see the Oracle of Omaha, Warren and Charlie actually come from the fact that they don't know and as Charlie mentioned seek to be very good at "ignorance removal".

Charlie mentioned that he believes that for Berkshire shareholders, what you don't know can hurt you and therefore a great effort goes into this.

One of those epiphany moments for all of us was when Warren was asked about self-driving cars, which are being produced by Google at the moment and there is a trajectory of between 5-10 years before they become mainstream.

Warren discussed that as much of a cash-cow that Geico has been for Berkshire shareholders, he estimates that should self-driving cars become mainstream, it will reduce accidents caused on the road by human error by up to 90%.  He mentioned that with the drastic reduction in accidents, the auto insurance company premiums would collapse and the industry, including Geico, would be devastated.

To see that Warren was not attached to his companies and he truly considered new knowledge coming into about coming trends and such was amazing.  He had "removed the ignorance" about self-driving cars and, therefore, keeps an objectivity towards his investments.

This was just once instance of "ignorance-removal", there were several instances in different industries. 

For example, Charlie had mentioned that when they bought See's Candies they realized the power of branding and had learned about all the aspects of branding and applying it to all the other Berkshire companies.  He said that if we had never been through the "ignorance-removal" process about branding with See's, they would probably never have taken their very-famous stake in Coca-cola.


Buy-and-hold?

Warren had mentioned that their investment approach is very simple and that is that as long as there is a positive return on investment, more dollars are coming in than going out over the long-term, the business is worth owning. 

However, what is interesting is that he never used the term "buy-and-hold", which is often attributed to Buffett's style of investing.  He did mention that he liked to buy companies that showed a competitive advantage over the long-term.  However, when they no longer have that advantage he is content with either lessening his stake or selling it outright as was the case with his stakes in PetroChina and Conoco-Phillips.

On a larger note, this "buy-and-hold" theory of course is flawed, as no company will last forever, no matter how great.  A case in point is if an investor split up his original portfolio in 1896 when the Dow Jones was first created, of the 12 companies that made up the Dow, every one except for General Electric went bankrupt.


Knowing your core competency

There was a question that came up from a tech entrepreneur who said that most entrepreneurs today are focused on the tech field, would Warren or Charlie have decided on another field if they were young in today's time.  Both of the answered that they would do exactly what they are doing right now.

Charlie said something that was very powerful.  He said, oftentimes, for young people today, one of the ways to find your core competency is to find out what you are not.  If you are a writer and you don't know that yet, try taking a physics course and you will eventually run out of things to try which you are not.  

Whatever remains - that is your core competency.  Certainly it is a long-winded approach, but ultimately it is an effective strategy nonetheless.


Partnership

Throughout the entire 7-8 hours that Warren and Charlie were grilled with question after question, it was hard not to notice the incredible level of respect and trust these two men have for each other.

Warren called it "a 60-year old marriage without an argument".  If it is true, what a relationship that must be indeed.  Perhaps "It" is what allowed a business partnership to last longer than most marriages on earth last is an intangible that cannot be quantified by a financial analyst.  Whatever "It" is, it has perhaps been a key to Berkshire's growth and success story.

What is also remarkable is that very few individuals who have worked for Warren and Charlie leave Berkshire.  There are exceptions like David Sokol (Lubrizol incident), but those are clearly the exception.

At the Borsheim's Reception


At the Menlo Cafe in Menlo, IA (population ~300)

A Reflection On The Oracle Of Omaha

Warren Buffett
It's clear that whatever formula Warren and Charlie have used to build Berkshire into the megacap firm it is today, has worked and continues to work time after time for them.  It's also clear that Berkshire Hathaway has done extraordinarily well in all sorts of economic environments and the impression that was left in our minds was that in the future nothing will materially change regarding the company's prospects. 

There were several questions about Warren's successor and he mentioned how the plans are in place should anything happen.  He was, however, quite confident that Berkshire would continue to keep growing for several, several decades after he and Charlie are gone.

To many of us observing Warren and Charlie, perhaps some of the greatest investors of all time, it is like watching a piece of history come alive.  They have created a standard of excellence so wonderful that it lives on in posterity and longevity, it seems, has been embedded into the Berkshire's culture.

As simple as it looks from the surface, Berkshire's model may be very difficult to replicate because the characters of the helmsmen at the top are difficult to replicate. 

Although Warren and Charlie's business intelligence is off the charts, there is the intangible emotional and social intelligence which most pundits cannot quantify, that may indeed be the real secret sauce to their success.  That secret sauce may consist of such elements as "knowing your core competency", participating in "ignorance-removal" exercises, being with "birds of the same feather", and building relationships and partnerships within an organization for life.

It goes without saying that barring some emergency or unforeseen circumstance, going again next year to visit the Oracle of Omaha again is pretty much a foregone conclusion.




The next meeting will be on Sunday, June 1st, 2014. 

For those who have not attended a meeting, but would like to attend, please email your wish to VJ Arjan at scarletkings@gmail.com



Also it seems that there are many domestic and international readers who are following our blog posts not only in the United States but all over the world including Europe, Latin America, and Asia. If you wish to be added to our email list, please email at scarletkings@gmail.com




Sunday, April 13, 2014

Meeting Minutes



We had a wonderful meeting of minds at La Madeleine’s.  We had 4 attendees: (from left Jeff Harrington, VJ Arjan, Tommy Schultz, and Ry Zamora who also joined us later on.


Click picture for larger image

A quick note about the hiatus: For 3 months in a row, Mother Nature decided not to be kind to our Scarlet Kings meetings.  It seemed that every time we had scheduled our meeting there was either ice, or snow, or hail, or all three.  For whatever reason, the Weather Gods had decided to punish us, but thankfully after numerous lucky Rain Dances to appease the Weather Gods, we were able to regain their favor and the weather was back to normal on this past Sunday the 6th.  : )


Oculus Rift and the Next Wave of Virtual Reality


Facebook made headlines recently by buying Oculus Rift for $2 billion.  (It also bought Whats-App for $19 billion, which Jeff mentioned it probably did for its subscriber base as opposed to the actual instant messaging platform.) 

Followers of our blog would know that the Scarlet Kings have been discussing the Oculus Rift for several months now as a potential industry game-changer (no pun intended).  We all discussed how Facebook could potentially utilize Oculus Rift and also the virtual reality wave to come.

For those who have not been adequately introduced to the Oculus Rift, it may be a good idea to see some videos on YouTube.  To call the virtual world, virtual, would actually be a misnomer. The world within the Oculus Rift is so real that those who stay in the virtual world long enough not only grow accustomed to it but also have some trouble distinguishing between that world and the real world.

Although we had some trouble coming up with exactly how Facebook would intend to use this technology, we figured that the worse-case scenario would be that it would lease this technology for royalty income.

Tommy mentioned some of the uses of virtual reality and why it is going to be so huge.  For one, it allows people to experience a setting anonymously.  A particularly specific instance would be, for instance, a college student who is writing a paper on the Middle East and wants to experience virtually a Hajj (holy pilgrimage) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia while not assuming the cost or the safety risks of going to Saudi Arabia itself. 

Jeff mentioned that one of the drawbacks of virtual reality is that it only satisfies one of our senses, sight.  It leaves something from the user to be wanted if it cannot touch or smell. 

However, even this may not be long in coming.  Recently, life scientists at the University of Louisville have been able to help paralyzed patients walk again through spinal shock treatment.  The stimulation from the electric shock allows the person to reconnect nerves that allow for movement.  The question then arises, it is possible to use electric shocks to simulate sensory perceptions as well?  Could an electric shock to a certain part of the brain simulate the sensation of touching or smelling in a virtual world? Well that seems to be the implication these scientists may have come to.  A video is attached below so you can see this miracle for yourself:



Also, with the development of artificial intelligence, it is entirely possible to deal with objects in a virtual reality as if they were humans.  This can be seen today in the use of AI characters in video games.  In these games, the characters are using artificial intelligence software to interact with the gamer.  Tommy mentioned that several of these have passed the Turing test, which is a measure of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent equivalent to that of a human. One such example would be the HK-47 droid in the game Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic (video of the HK-47 droid is attached below). 



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooak56OSUWM

Incredibly, continued Tommy, this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Soon there could be virtual classes on how to shoot a bow and arrow, or virtual classrooms, or even virtual workplaces.  The ramifications and scope that this technology could extend to are almost limitless.  It could very well be reminiscent of the virtual world portrayed in the movie The Matrix.

Tommy went on that over the next few years there would emerge 2 types of people.  One type would buy into this virtual world wholeheartedly and would decide to function in this world and another type that doesn’t and chooses to remain in the real world.

Eventually there could be machines that would be intelligent enough to deal with every single aspect of our lives.  Recently Amazon’s CEO, Jeffrey Bezos, stated in his earnings call last week that Amazon is developing technology for drones that would deliver its packages to its clients in 30 minutes or less.  These drones are in the final stages of testing and should be able to deliver packages very soon (assuming that the legal hurdles have been overcome).

This poses the potential question, years and perhaps decades from now – Do people, therefore, become obsolete?


Russia and the Ukraine


Putin with Ukrainian counterpart Yanukovich

Of course, we had to discuss the topic of what is currently happening in the Baltic region.

In short, here is what is happening: The Russian army is moving into the Crimean part of the Ukraine; the international community has responded by denouncing the Russian government’s actions and also by imparting economic sanctions.



There are a few points that we discussed:

-       80% if the Russian federal budget comes from oil and gas exports to Europe.  A long-term European sanction on Russian oil and gas would cripple the Russian economy.

-       One of the great interests Russia has especially in Crimea is a naval base, Sevastopol, which is protected by a treaty and also happens to be the only Russian navy base that is liquid all year round and doesn’t freeze over.

-       The Crimean region of Ukraine is composed of mostly ethnic Russians, hence the over 90% approval to annex itself to Russia.

-       Russia, which has been anti-NATO for decades, will do anything in its power without inciting too much animosity to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO as it serves as a geopolitical buffer between the NATO-states and Russia.

-       Russia is playing a weak hand.  Due to the incredible inefficiencies that still exist in the Russian economy, the cost of oil production in Russia is around $100 a barrel.  The potential to inject huge financial resources to back their political ambitions are lacking thereof.

Here is what may happen.  Jeff mentioned that the country of Ukraine, outside of Crimea, is hotly divided as well.  The eastern part of Ukraine is pro-Russia and the western part is pro-Europe.  Ukraine may, therefore, be permanently divided.  This would particularly be the case should there be a decision made to join NATO.  Certainly that would antagonize Russia even more and would lead to further military embarkations.


Who is Tony the Tiger looking at?



It is certainly fascinating observing the psychological ploys of marketers.  Jeff mentioned the amazing Cornell study in which researchers found that of the 57 boxes of cereals in the cereal aisles, 51 of them had their cereal mascots looking downward, aimed squarely in the light of sight of children 48” and under.

These researchers found that “trust level goes up about 18% if you make eye contact with anything.  This is even simply a picture on a box, but also increases your likelihood to want to purchase the cereal.”

Here is a link to a video describing this study in more detail:



Mt. Hoax


Click picture for larger image

In February, Mt. Gox, one of the largest exchanges for Bitcoin was shutdown by federal authorities and had to declare bankruptcy.  It is estimated that nearly $500 million worth of bitcoins was wiped out.

Jeff mentioned that although Bitcoin allows its owner to circumvent the banking system and is a way for its owners to remain anonymous, Bitcoin is still a very flawed form of currency.  He mentioned that large drug emporiums and cartels, like the Silk Road marketplace, have used Bitcoins to cover their tracks and conduct business without the oversight of the law.

Mt. Gox was initially founded in Japan as a card trading exchange – “Gox” literally standing for "Magic The Gathering Online Exchange". 

Jeff believes, however, that should financial corporations ever begin to create derivative contracts for Bitcoin, it could become a legitimate currency.  Governments would do everything they can to prevent Bitcoin from succeeding though, as the ability to print money is one of the most profitable things a government can do.


Monkey Economics, Freud and the Animal Subconscious



“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” – Albert Einstein
“We are the middle children of history, with no purpose or place. We have no great war, or great depression.  The great war is a spiritual war.  The great depression is our lives.  We were raised by television to believe that we'd be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars -- but we won't.  And we're learning that fact.  And we're very, very pissed-off.” – Tyler Dearden in Fight Club

We entered into a philosophical discussion regarding essentially why people behave the way they do, particularly why do human beings as intelligent as they are, repeat their mistakes over and over again?

Human stupidity is so fascinating for some that there are even organizations, like the Darwin Awards (www.darwinawards.com), that collect tales of such instances and keep records them on the internet.

Tommy brought up a TED talk on monkey economics.  It is an absolutely fascinating video, and it is reproduced here for your viewing:



The gist of the talk is this.  Researchers at Yale University designed a simple financial market for monkeys to see whether monkeys would behave similarly to humans in certain circumstances.  One of the circumstances tested was the monkey’s behavior involving loss aversion.  For instance, let’s take 2 scenarios:

-       Scenario 1: You have $2000, and have a 50% chance of losing $1000
-       Scenario 2: You have $2000, and have a 100% chance of losing $500

Most people would pick option 1 because even though the probabilities are exactly 50% for each scenario, people would rather risk losing $1000 to have a chance of losing nothing at all.

Long story short, it turns out that monkeys, like humans, also suffered from loss aversion just like humans do.  It may be, therefore, that the reason behind humans repeating financial mistakes over and over again may have something to do with our biology and an ingraining of our predication for having a certain behavioral bias over several, several millennia.

VJ mentioned that Freud was a huge proponent of the subconscious mind and that deep within every “refined” human being is still the potential to behave like a pure animal.  He mentioned that this is especially the case when a person’s survival is at risk – if there is a risk of losing food, shelter, etc., then so-called “intelligent” humans can become instinctively compelled to do very unintelligent things.  It also happens to turn out that when having too much of a survival commodity can end up making us do unintelligent things as well. For instance, when we have too much money, there is an instinctive desire to have more, also known as greed.

Some of the most human irrational behavior can be found in a crowd.  In a crowd or due to social pressures, people can do the most incredible things.  There is a common saying among investors regarding “following the herd” or “following the public”.  It is certainly interesting to note that the public has been usually on the wrong side of the market, time after time throughout history.


Which way from hither Mr. Dow Jones?

“Numbers don’t lie, people lie about numbers.” – Kevin Day

No meeting of the Scarlet Kings would be complete without asking where the market may be headed from here. 

Although some economic reports like producers index and consumer sentiment seem to be improving, the market seems unable to break into new highs – this is especially the case for several large cap staple companies like Apple, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, McDonalds, etc.  Ry mentioned, however, that the economic data is only going to be as good as how truthfully it has been disclosed. 

Going back to the previous topic about “following the herd”, we may even start seeing the beginning of analysts looking at reports with rose-tinted glasses.  Untruths or exaggerations of the truth have the habit or tendency of popping up towards the end of bull markets – so we will have to see whether people will start lying about the numbers or not.



On the heels of the meeting, the latest payroll report was also less than flattering.  It seems that there may be some stalling regarding corporate hiring due to the cost cutting and restructuring measures that several corporations have been engaging in to deliver higher profitability.  Revenues, however, are not growing and are being revised downwards over the next year or so.

The consensus was that even though on the surface the market looks okay today, there are reasons to be concerned and cautious.  The current bull market is the 3rd longest bull market in U.S. history.  

That being said, there are indications that housing could lead to another leg of the continued recovery before this run ends.  Jeff explained his case for a shallow correction in the midst of a rotation out of momentum stocks. He went on that the momentum crowd includes tech, which is a mild bubble across the sector while some if the concentrated momentum stocks are out in fantasy land. Every correction so far has been a launching pass for future runs. His attention has been on the P/E ratios, which indicate the overall market is about fairly priced (not cheap, not overpriced). 

Earnings are important because they make up the 'E' in 'P/E' and the bar for this quarter has been set too low, in his opinion. Many leading economic indicators are also moderate to strong. Also, last month's employment retort saw the economy return to its employment peak set before the crash of approximately 116.3. In other words, we have recovered all of the jobs lost during the recession. He does not see the economy stalling, so any correction, to him, will be shallow.

Still, anything can go wrong.  Oftentimes, it is not just the overvaluation of equities but an external event that can serve as a catalyst or excuse for a selloff in the market.  At the moment, it seems that investors are in the market as there is no other safer place to put their money.

Although we do not know when the correction could take place, we foresee anywhere between on the low-end,10%, to high-end, 40% correction to take place when it comes.  The key for all of us is to avoid the “Deer-in-the-headlights” syndrome and to proactively prepare should that time come, so we can adequately protect our assets.


From Omaha, Nebraska…



“From the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska, USA - Ladies and Gentlemen…..Leeeeeeeeet’s get ready to rumble!!!” – Ring announcer Michael Buffer (if he ever attended a Berkshire Hathaway meeting)

Ry and VJ will be attending the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder’s Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska so, unfortunately, there will be no meeting next month.  On the bright side however, there should be lots of pictures, videos, and notes that will be uploaded for you all so you can experience the “Buffett Shrines” for yourself : ).



The next meeting, therefore, will be on Sunday, June 1st, 2014. 

For those who have not attended a meeting, but would like to attend, please email your wish to VJ Arjan at scarletkings@gmail.com


Also it seems that there are many domestic and international readers who are following our blog posts not only in the United States but all over the world including Europe, Latin America, and Asia. If you wish to be added to our email list, please email at scarletkings@gmail.com