BWIB Finance Newsletter

3 min readMar 5, 2021

Wednesday, Feb 24 to Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Berkshire Hathaway financial statements and Warren Buffett’s annual letter

Berkshire bought back a record $24.7B of its stock, which signals to investors that the firm believes its stock is undervalued.
Warren Buffett says bonds are not the best investments at this time since bond yield fell to less than 1% at the end of 2020.
Buffett also said he paid too much for Precision Castparts Corp, an aircraft and industrial parts manufacturer, that Berkshire purchased in 2016 for $32.1B.

Source: CNBC

COVAX is a program co-led by the WHO, the Global Vaccine Alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and is funded by donations.
COVAX aims to narrow the vaccination gap between rich and low-income countries and vaccinate 20% of the people in the world’s 92 poorest countries.
Wealthy nations had secured 53% of the world’s supply of the best-performing vaccines by December despite only making up 14% of the world’s population.

Source: WSJ

This partnership is the latest example of pharmaceutical rivals working together.
Merck’s role will include producing the vaccines as well as filling vials with the vaccine and having them readied for shipment.
Biden says the U.S. will have enough vaccines for all American adults by the end of May, but it’s not clear when everyone will be able to get the shot.

The Fed’s Financial-Services Systems were down for several hours Wednesday due to a technical error. The Fed uses this to collect checks, perform electronic transfers, and transacting Treasury bills. (Source: WSJ)
AOC and other progressives pushed back on Biden after the White House walked back on increasing the federal minimum wage $15/hour (Source: Bloomberg)
US treasury yields fell to 1.429% on Monday after increasing the past week, which fueled the tech sell-off. When interest rates rise, bond prices fall. The rise in rates the past week reflects the markets’ expectation of the Fed possibly raising interest rates in lieu of high economic growth. (Source: WSJ)

GameStop stock price rose again on Wednesday and Thursday even after GameStop’s CFO announced his resignation from the company late Tuesday (2/23); other meme stocks such as AME and Nokia rose as well (Source: MarketWatch)
According to Tech Analysts, electric vehicle stocks could potentially surge by up to 50% this year because of the “green tidal wave” (Source: CNBC)
Zoom’s revenue is said to rise more than 41% this year as the company continues to see growth in the company, despite the decreasing pandemic pressures. (Source: WSJ)

Verizon pledged $45.5B for the midrange spectrum rights to enable faster 5G wireless service (Source: WSJ)
Hertz, a car rental company, plans to follow a restructuring plan that was proposed on Tuesday in order to exit bankruptcy (Source: WSJ)
McKinsey & Co.’s partners voted to replace Kevin Sneader as the consulting firm’s leader. It’s the first time in decades a McKinsey leader has not won a second term (Source: WSJ)

Written By:

Director: Jacquline Ruan

Managers: Vaibhavi Bamane, Melissa Chen, Stacy Kim