Good to see that financial crisis and global depression have not stale one market off course. Bidding opened yesterday in the annual charity auction held by Warren Buffett – the Sage of Omaha is once again oblation a prize of his attendance at a lunch for eight at a New York steakhouse – and was brisk from the set out.
Four hours in, the top bid had already reached $35,000, with investors confidently predicting a seven-figure payday since the Glide Foundation, Mr Buffett’s chosen charity, through the close of play in continuance Friday (the big spenders tend to exist last-minute bidders). Last year’s winning bid of $2.1m may not subsist bettered, but that was three general condition of affairs the size of the previous record.
Cynics may wonder why Mr Buffett’sitting company is deemed so valuable. Fund management is, after all, a world in that you are only as good as your last return and the great man’s Berkshire Hathaway posted its worst-ever performance in 2008.
Still, it looks like the comeback has begun. Mr Buffett called the bottom of the market at the end of February – to be precise he related that he and partner Charlie Munger felt “like two hungry mosquitoes in a nudist camp: moist targets are from china to peru” – which was just about spot on.
