market folly

If you missed it last week, CNBC's Becky Quick interviewed Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger about a myriad of topics including Berkshire's succession plan, his feelings on the future of the company, the economy, markets, and more.

On succession at Berkshire, he says that new portfolio managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler show "enormous promise."  They've both been given more capital to allocate and he thinks they fit right in with the culture there.

On gold:  Quick mentioned David Einhorn's comments that in a normal environment, he would be long stocks, short bonds and short gold.  But because he doesn't trust the Fed, he has to be long gold.  Munger disagrees and clearly doesn't like gold.


On investing: "We always said that what we like best was owning a wonderful business outright and second best we liked good ideas in securities.  That has never changed."  Munger loves the portfolio of businesses Berkshire has assembled, but didn't really comment on any opportunities they're seeing now.

On when to buy:  "What we've always tried to do is to be just the opposite - when everybody is totally discouraged and thinks the world is going to hell, that's when we like to be buying." When asked if now is a good time to buy, Munger replied "it doesn't look as much so as it did in the bottom tape." 


Embedded below is the interview with Charlie Munger:



For more on Berkshire Hathaway and its legendary investors, head to notes from Warren Buffett's meeting with MBA students as well as a tour of Buffett's office.