What Warren Buffett's long-term record says about climate investing
The Oracle was often late to the game, but nobody was better at energy investing.
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I first interviewed Warren Buffett on the phone during a hostile takeover battle for Boston-based Gillette Co. back in the late 1980s. He was already famous and known as the Oracle of Omaha, even though he was at the time only in his early 50s. But he deigned to talk to a young reporter from the Boston Herald because the local takeover battle was nearing a key proxy vote.
I spoke to him a few years later when he stepped in to save Salomon Brothers from collapse after a Treasury bond trading scandal and also spoke with him about one of his favorite long-term stocks, Coca-Cola KO 0.00%↑. Although I was covering the Massachusetts tech corridor at the time, we never spoke about tech stocks because he said he didn’t understand them and wouldn’t touch them.
That all changed in 2016, about five years after Steve Jobs died and Tim Cook took over Apple AAPL 0.00%↑, igniting one of the world’s greatest stock rallies — up 800% — and making Buffet’s historic performance average for Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) even better. Already up as much as 20% this year, vs down 3% for the S&P 500, if this holds he will finish his 60-year career with a 20% annual return, just about double the historic return for the S&P 500.
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