Warren Buffett on the U.S., China, Korea from CNBC
moneyrelations :: Nov.05.2007
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I can’t help it. Here’s another post on Warren Buffett. For a 77-year-old guy, the dude gets around. He recently concluded a trip to South Korea and China where he visited plants of a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary. There are some fascinating clips and articles of Mr. Buffett from CNBC where Squawk Box’ co-anchor Becky Quick got to tag along for the ride.
Buffett shared his insight on the U.S., China, and Korea and I have compiled a list of excerpts and quotes that I found interesting.
Warren Buffett’s views on Korea
In an email interview, Buffettt tells Korea’s Maeil Business Newspaper:
“The Korean stock market a few years ago was by far the most undervalued market in the world. Since then, there has been a huge advance in the Korean market and the won has appreciated against the dollar. Nevertheless, many Korean stocks still sell at more attractive prices than stocks in other major countries.”
The newspaper notes that while the Benchmark KOPSI stock index has surpassed 2,000 (it was under 1500 at the beginning of the year), the Korean stock market’s overall price-to-earnings ratio is just 12.3. That’s less than the emerging market average PE of 15.0 and 14.7 for the advanced markets average PE.
Warren Buffett’s thoughts on China
I think that China is going to be a greater and greater force in the world’s economy in every way.
Does Buffett think the Chinese stock market is in a bubble?
I don’t know if it’s a bubble, but it’s gone up an awful lot and I’m suspicious. I would be very skeptical that you could find lot of bargains in a market that’s moved as much as the Chinese market, but I really haven’t looked at the individual stocks at all. There’s no question that this economy is booming like we haven’t seen in the United States for a very,very long time, if ever.
Warren Buffett on the U.S. the dollar
Buffettt also repeated his pessimism on the U.S. dollar: “We still are negative on the dollar relative to most major currencies.”
Warren Buffett on the importance of the U.S. in the world
But, we are still very important in the U.S., and we are still very linked in many ways. But we aren’t as important as we used to be relative to the rest of the world.
Warren Buffett on Google
It’s not hard to see that Google is a phenomenal company, but Google is valued at about $200 billion in the market now, so to make 14 percent a year, Google has to be valued at $400 billion in five years. It may very well be. It may be valued at 5 or 600 billion, but I am not smart enough to figure that out.
There are other nuggets of “Buffettisms” in Becky Quick’s series about the “best investor in the world” so go check it out if you’re a disciple of his. You might be able to glean where he’s heading with his investments.
And it sure beats stalking the man.
In the news, Warren Buffett ::
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OK, If I had say $50,000 spare change to invest, can you give me some good advice?
You misspelled Warren Buffett’s name in every instance in your post.
Well, I wouldn’t say every instance, not for what I cut and pasted
But thanks for that. Double “t”s 
Paul, did you read my disclaimer at the bottom
Wear sunscreen.
Thanks, but it’s coming into winter in Japan so I wont need Sunscreen.
Regarding decoupling from USA. I actually fear that the last sentence of the article is somewhat correct. I wonder how much of the emerging market boom is due to Pollyannish cycle of “we build, so we need commodities/materials, so our commodities/materials economy goes up, so we build more, so we need more commodities/materials…” If this cycle breaks at some point, we may get a severe worldwide recession. And the cycle breaker may not be USA anymore. It may be one or more of BRIC countries
Hi gerry,
Whenever everyone piles on, it starts to get bubbly and the value in regards to the risks/rewards get skewed. Interesting viewpoint that it might be the BRIC countries that might be the cycle breaker.
The world economy is so interlinked now. Do you think with the emergence with the BRIC countries, there will be more fires to put out or collectively, the other countries can shoulder the fall?
Credit Nation On The Brink?
Blowing credit bubbles in Russia’s financial sector By Yasha Levine
http://exile.ru/print.php?ARTICLE_ID=8510&IBLOCK_ID=35
Brian,
Thanks so much for opening my eyes to the consumer credit risks in Russia!
The emergence with the BRIC countries, there will be more fires to put out or collectively, the other countries can shoulder the fall?
Very good question. My insight is that the boom is being fueled by the cycle I described. What would happen if one or more BRIC countries faltered? Tough to say really. China’s recession or market crash would have the largest negative effect on the rest of the world. Probably would need more than 1 country crashing to have a big worldwide effect.