Pension fund plans to vote Buffett off Berkshire chairmanship

CalPERS’ plans to remove Warren Buffett as Berkshire Hathaway chairman made the headlines today, along with news about Elon Musk’s plans to buy Twitter. Netflix stocks tumbled after its quarterly earnings miss and ARK Invest slumped 60% from its peak, while Twilio, General Motors and Uber could be dip buying opportunities.

Will Buffett be voted off?

State public fund and Berkshire Hathaway shareholder CalPERS said in a stock exchange filing on Tuesday that it plans on moving other investors to remove investing icon and founder Warren Buffett as chairman, reports Reuters. The fund is gunning for an independent chairman instead. The aim is to segregate the role of chief executive, which Buffett would retain, from that of the chairman, it said in the filing. Buffett has been Berkshire’s CEO since 1965 and chairman since 1970.

Emerging markets may offer high returns.

Geopolitical conflict and rising inflation are weighing heavily on US equities, but emerging markets such as Brazil and Chile have benefitted from sanctions that led to Russia’s exclusion from key indices. Beaten down currencies and rising commodity prices present buying opportunities with returns that could outstrip developed markets.

Twittering about.

Tesla [TSLA] CEO Elon Musk dropped yet another cryptic tweet suggesting a tender offer for Twitter [TWTR] shares. Musk may be willing to fork out between $10–15bn of his own cash, reports MarketWatch. For the rest of the current offer of $43bn the executive is accumulating other investors. Shares of Twitter were down 1.23% 5pm GMT Wednesday.

HSBC bets on the metaverse.

Earlier this month, HSBC announced plans to launch a metaverse fund for its wealthy clients. While the news failed to lift the bank’s share price, other players in the asset management space are also betting on the metaverse as a long-term investment theme, while major consumer brands like McDonald's [MCD] and Starbucks [SBUX] are looking to utilise virtual worlds.

Netflix gets flicked away. 

he content streaming giant Netflix’s [NFLX] shares opened 29% lower Wednesday after the company missed estimates in its quarterly earnings and its customer base shrunk. The company also said it expects the decline to continue next quarter. However, Bloomberg reported that Netflix is considering a low-priced subscription service, which will include advertising to subsidise content costs for viewers. The move could bring subscribers back to the platform. Netflix shares closed Wednesday’s session down 35.12%.

Battered ARK.

The flagship fund of Cathie Wood-led ARK Invest is down 60% since its peak in February 2021 that sprung the contrarian stock picker to fame, reports MarketWatch. ARK Innovation [ARKK] focusses on disruptive tech companies that were in favour during the pandemic but have since given way to value-based stocks. Among its portfolio companies, only one — Signify Health [SGFY] — is in the green since the start of 2022, while the rest have fallen an average of 40.8%.

Dip buying opportunities.

Analysts at MarketWatch benchmarked coverage for 1,000 stocks and found that institutional interest and share price target forecasts present buying opportunities in the top 20, particularly because of the price fall they have seen since the beginning of 2022. The most covered stock among the thousand was Meta Platforms [FB]. The analysis also showed high returns may await Twilio [TWLO], Uber [UBER] and General Motors [GM], among others.

Will Buffett be voted off?

State public fund and Berkshire Hathaway shareholder CalPERS said in a stock exchange filing on Tuesday that it plans on moving other investors to remove investing icon and founder Warren Buffett as chairman, reports Reuters. The fund is gunning for an independent chairman instead. The aim is to segregate the role of chief executive, which Buffett would retain, from that of the chairman, it said in the filing. Buffett has been Berkshire’s CEO since 1965 and chairman since 1970.