Friday, May 1, 2009

A Day In The Life Of Warren Buffett

Many an investor prays for the ability to pick stocks like Warren Buffett, who owns significant stakes in Coke, GEICO, American Express and other outstanding companies. Perhaps by seeing what he does, we can get a clue as to where his genius comes from. On the eve of the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting, we thought we would publish a day in the life of the Oracle of Omaha:

6:00 am - Buffett's $5 alarm clock purchased in 1963 finally gives out, causing him to sleep in.

7:19 am - Maria Bartiromo calls and asks if Warren's got a date yet for that "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation thingamabob coming up in a few weeks". Coincidentally, Maria has just bought a new outfit and is looking for an occasion on which to wear it.

7:46 am - Buffett fields calls from 8 different reporters asking about Buffett's recent purchase of 3 companies. Buffett has never heard of the companies and politely declines comment, slamming the phone down after each call and cursing, "Lou! What the bejesus are you up to now?"

8:23 am - Buffett strides into work in a good mood thanks to the extra sleep and promptly offers his secretary a raise. His secretary hesitates, since she already has a higher salary than he does.

8:35 am - Buffett retrieves his messages and finds 18 messages from President Obama pleading for help with the economy. 

8:36 am - Buffett places a call to GEICO looking for a better insurance rate on the private jet.

10:13 am - Maria Bartiromo calls again "just to say hi and see how things are going".

10:52 am - Buffett starts up his computer for the purpose of loading Yahoo! Bridge

10:57 am - Buffett shuts down his computer in disgust. Another quick loss to user Challengr!

2:15 pm - Buffett strolls over to Nebraska Furniture Mart, and sneaks downstairs to where the beds are for his afternoon nap. Buffett congratulates himself for reducing depreciation charges on his own bed by not sleeping at home.

3:47 pm - On the way back from Nebraska Furniture Mart, the bus Buffett is riding breaks down and he is forced to wait 20 minutes while the operator attempts repairs. 

3:48 pm - While waiting, Buffett pulls out his ValueLine pocketbook and casually leafs through the pages

3:49 pm - Buffett identifies a stock from his ValueLine book that's trading at a discount to intrinsic value. 

3:50 pm - Buffett borrows a cellphone from a fellow passenger and places a call to Charlie to purchase the stock.

4:42 pm - Buffett walks to the corner store for the fifth time today to purchase a Cherry Coke. The man running the store politely offers to deliver a few cases to Berkshire headquarters for a nominal delivery charge, to which Buffett politely declines. Other customers hear Buffett mutter "Ain't no margin of safety in delivery expenses" on his way out.

6:48 pm - Buffett fields a call from the GEICO cavemen asking for new tennis rackets and shoes. Buffett politely explains the rackets are not meant for hunting, to which Caveman #1 replies "Oh, so you're one of them too I see!" before slamming down the phone.

7:14 pm - Buffett notices a tear in his suit and makes a mental note to stop by Walmart tomorrow for a new one. Since this suit only lasted 16 years, 8 months and 23 days, Buffett thinks to himself "They just don't make 'em like they used to."

9:00 pm - Buffett hits the sack, satisfied that today he has made $300 for himself and $30 million for Berkshire Hathaway.

We hope you enjoyed "A Day In The Life Of Warren Buffett". For the real Warren Buffett story, you may want to read the only biography of his that he has endorsed, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is hilarious!

dizzy7 said...

Really enjoyed this. Very funny!

Anonymous said...

Brilliant!

Anonymous said...

Very original!

Unknown said...

I loved it! Very original indeed. I thought it was true at first but found it to be too funny to be real.

Thank you for the laughs.