No. of Recommendations: 10
“Buffett missed several opportunities to deploy capital because of caution, excess caution in retrospect.”
Excess caution - on balance this is probably true. Obviously Buffett’s greatness only becomes clear when the world turns really negative and it’s hard to criticise him but some of the mistakes of omission were surprising.
Not buying large stakes in Visa and Mastercard when they went public after the GFC, given the deep knowledge of Amex, is incredibly surprising in hindsight. Missing Alphabet when it was 14 times earnings years ago and collecting from GEICO was more understandable.
Still, he didn’t do too bad and helped a lot of shareholders sleep well during 2020, 2007, 2000 and 1974.
