🔝 Berkshire Hathaway. Grandpa Warren Breaks The TopLegendary investor Warren Buffett was on a trip to Tokyo, the capital of Japan, ten months earlier in mid-April 2023, and the titans of the country's giant energy and commodity conglomerates were there to make their presentations.
As usual, over glasses of Coca-Cola NYSE:KO - one of Buffett's most famous investments, they walked into Warren Buffett's suite at the luxury Four Seasons hotel and individually told the 92-year-old American investor the same thing: Japanese trading houses are cheap and should accelerate their move beyond commodities.
The support of the Oracle of Omaha is an important vote of confidence in the big five Japanese trading houses - Mitsubishi Corporations TSE:8058 , Mitsui TSE:8031 , Sumitomo TSE:8053 , Itochu TSE:8001 and Marubeni TSE:8002 .
It's also a broad endorsement of Japan, that is considered to have outlived its heyday 30-35 years ago, as well as considered less relevant than Asian counterparts such as China and India.
But there's one big question: Is Buffett betting on phasing out fossil fuels, the trading house products themselves, or a combination of the two? Or something else, like impact of the weak yen!?
Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway NYSE:BRK.B reported in August 2020 that it had acquired about 5% of the shares of five trading houses, that sent their stocks up and raised their total investment value above $6 billion. When the Covid-19 pandemic dampened demand for goods, it pushed down the value of company stocks, four of which traded below book value.
“They were selling, I thought, at a ridiculous price,” - 3 years later Buffett said to CNBC, in March 2023.
Three years after the Covid-19 pandemic (that is now hardly remembered) Warren Buffett's bets on Japan have nearly tripled to over $17 billion.
But even this Growth does not stop Buffett. Staying in Tokyo last spring, Buffett confirmed intentions to buy more shares, and participate in more big deals.
In addition, Berkshire recently unveiled plans to issue its own yen-denominated bonds, which can help hedge against the depreciation of the yen against the US dollar as well as depreciation of Japanese stocks in dollar terms.
In nowadays Japan Stock Index TSE:TOPIX ended 2023 on a positive note, adding more than 25 percent at the end of the year, that is, the maximum growth over the last 10 calendar years.
Early in 2024 TSE:TOPIX continues its growth path, as technology companies stocks are rallying.
In 2024 TSE:TOPIX hit the 2,500 yen mark - point that not been seen for more than 30 years - since the first half of 1990, while another one Japan stock index Nikkei225 INDEX:NKY hit its 36'000 Milestone - the level that was not seen also since early 1990s.
The main technical graph says Berkshire Hathaway Class B NYSE:BRK.B stocks are on the runway to break its key resistance - 6-month and all time highs, to further upside price action delver.
