Stock price when the opinion was issued
Likes it. Smartest people in the room, as they were raising cash before the markets went down earlier this year. Buffett's leaving, but has built a pretty deep bench. If it never did another deal, its many legacy brands are really great producers. Doesn't pay a distribution, but owns a bunch of really-high-cashflowing businesses.
Investment portfolio consisting of public stocks and private companies. His firm really likes private equity. Stock dipped when handover to new CEO was announced, but nothing else has changed. That's why he likes the stock now. Greg Abel's been there since 2011 under Buffett's tutelage, so it should be smooth sailing. He sees a parallel with AAPL, when Tim Cook took over from Steve Jobs.
Doesn't pay a dividend, but will generate a quarter billion dollars in dividends alone this year, which get reinvested back into the business. That's pretty decent growth right there.
Doesn't know why people are buying and selling daily. Gives you exposure to broad, global markets with significant overweight to the US. You're trusting them to invest your $$ better than you can. Over long periods of time, proven to be no different than buying a large-scale, low-cost index fund.
20, 30, 40 years ago, they were much smaller and made a difference. So big now that they can't make enough of a difference in buying good companies and have them be accretive. Well run, and the pedigree's there. Great holding if you're looking for something with a value tilt. No dividend.
Going back to 2008, chart shows a beautiful long-term channel, trading between book value and 1.5-1.6x book. Today it's at 1.6x book, so it's very expensive.
Be aware that the market's are also very expensive, and this one goes up and down with the market. What stands out is that about 1/3 of Buffett's portfolio is in cash. If an investor were buying cash, he'd want to buy it at book, not 1.6x book. So, discounting the cash, you find that the stock is 18% overvalued.
The 1/3 cash position gives investors a hint as to what they should be doing with their own portfolios. Cash is a call on cheap stocks in the future. Wait for an opportunity.