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Today we are watching…
1. Goldman Sachs (#goldmans)
Warren Buffett is selling like crazy in this coronavirus panic, sticking to his principle that if he doesn’t understand a business he owns, he shouldn’t be in it. It’s uncertainty about how companies will emerge from lockdown that has him worried, and now he’s sold 84% of his Goldman Sachs, a stock bought amid the 2008 panic. He’s said he “doesn’t think banks will be the problem this time around,” though, so do you follow his words or his actions? He’s also cut his entire airline stakes from Berkshire’s portfolio recently, claiming the business has fundamentally changed, and he wants no part of it. Berkshire is taking heavy losses from all this selling!
2. AstraZeneca (#azn)
We won’t be curing coronavirus for some time; world leaders want to test for it. Experts are hoping to contain the outbreak in an unlocked society through mass-testing and strict quarantining of those who test positive, all while searching for a vaccine. In Britain, the University of Oxford is developing that antidote as AstraZeneca secures the rights to distribute it. All countries are working on their own vaccines, and each gets to use its own vaccine first if it’s successful. The UK has experienced the second-deadliest outbreak of coronavirus after the US, so the incentive is strong.Â