Dear Investment U,
Although it was a very difficult decision to make, I am leaving Investment U to take over for Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway. Thank you for everything.
Sincerely,
Marc Lichtenfeld
P.S. Can you keep my Investment U Plus user id and password active? I'm really going to need some great investing ideas…
There. The resignation letter is ready to go. Now, all I need is the call from Warren's people and it's a done deal. I'm expecting the call any day now.
As you may have heard, in Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) most recent annual letter to shareholders, the Oracle of Omaha said that he has a successor picked out.
Interesting that he picked me without having ever actually spoken to me. But I guess he's read how I've been pounding the table on dividend-paying stocks. You see, Warren loves dividends and as he has said in the past, his preferred holding period is "forever."
That makes two of us.
According to Forbes, out of 33 publicly held stocks in Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio, 27 of them pay dividends. Berkshire will collect well over $100 million in dividends each from American Express (NYSE: AXP), Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), IBM (NYSE: IBM), Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC). In Coca-Cola's case, it will be well over $300 million.
Like Warren Buffett, I also like stocks that pay robust dividends and prefer to hold on to them forever.
You see, one of the sure ways to increase your wealth and stay ahead of inflation is to buy stocks that grow their dividend at a healthy clip every year.