Warren Buffett

Famed Investor's Move Is Seen as a Vote of Confidence in Crisis-Stricken Banking System; Old Ties to Firm Paved Way for Deal. Berkshire also will get warrants granting it the right to buy $5 billion of Goldman common stock at $115 a share, which is 8% below the 4 p.m. closing share price Tuesday of $125.05. At Goldman's roughly $50 billion market value, based on that closing price, exercising those warrants would give Berkshire about a 10% stake in Goldman.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, calling the market turmoil ``an economic Pearl Harbor,'' said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion proposal to prop up the U.S. financial system is ``absolutely necessary.''

``The market could not have taken another week'' like last week, Buffett told CNBC, a day after saying his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will buy a $5 billion stake in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ``I think it was the last thing Hank Paulson wanted to do, but there's no Plan B for this.''

Warren Buffett studied stock market analysis at Columbia University, in New York, under the wing of Benjamin Graham who was, until the arrival of Buffett, perhaps the greatest thinker on portfolio investment. Graham was a classic value investor. In other words he was looking to buy companies whose net asset value per share was greater than the share price.

Times Money offers an insight into the thinking of the Sage of Omaha.

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Last Friday, Warren Buffett was on CNBC for several hours in the morning answering questions on all sorts of topics with his usual reserved wisdom. One of the big revelations was that Buffett has been adding to either Wells Fargo (WFC) or American Express (AXP) – both extremely large positions in the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) portfolio. Earlier in the program, Buffett noted the macro slowdown had spread across demographics to impact even high-end consumers, as evidenced by the things American Express has been saying.

A $650,100 lunch with Warren Buffett included a blessing for a businessman from India. In the Indian magazine Business Today, Mohnish Pabrai recounted the event that he and a friend, money manager Guy Spier, won in an online auction to benefit the Glide Foundation of San Francisco.

The three-hour lunch was in June at Smith & Wollensky, a New York steakhouse, with the two men's families. Spier manages Aquamarine Capital Management LLC Investors. Pabrai sold his computer consulting company in 2000 for $20 million and now manages investments.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett told 'Squawk Box' he has no bets against the dollar, and stocks are more attractive now than a year ago. Buffett repeats his view about economy that the negative ripples will continue to spread for awhile.  He sees no "early end" to the problems although they will end eventually.

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Warren Buffett said the U.S. economy is unlikely to improve before 2009, and that he expects the government to take action to support troubled mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"What we're seeing in business, in our retail businesses, or anything having to do with housing, is even a further slowing down in June and July, both in terms of credit experience where people first got in trouble with house payments, and now credit card payments," he said.

A couple of months ago, Warren Buffett was kind enough to invite a group of us to Omaha to meet with him at Berkshire headquarters and subsequently dine at one of his favourite restaurants, Piccolo Pete's.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. announced changes in its investments in US stocks, which totaled $57.88 billion at the end of the second quarter, lower than $66.46 billion of investments as of March 31. In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Berkshire announced new holdings in NRG Energy Inc. while the company reduced its Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. (BUD:  News,   Chart,  Quote ) stock sharply and eliminated Trane Inc. holdings.

Devotees of Warren Buffett's investing strategy may need to look no farther for a bargain than the battered stock of the billionaire's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

``Regardless of what's happening to earnings, the cash is still rolling in and asset prices are down,'' which will help Berkshire add holdings, said Frank Betz, a partner at Warren, New Jersey-based Carret Zane Capital Management, which oversees $800 million, including Berkshire shares. ``It's Buffett time.''