Welcome to MSN Money Readers and Buying the B Share (Nov 2007 Progress Report)
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Yesterday MSN Money featured my article on Slow Motion Retirement. It was linked on the front page of MSN, and generated a lot of visitors to this site. I want to thank the folks at MSN, who have been wonderful to work with over the past few weeks. In addition, MSN’s Smart Spending money blog features an article from The Dough Roller ever Wednesday. All of this is good news, but now on to some not so good news.
The price of a Berkshire Hathaway B share keeps rising. At the end of October, the B Share closed at about $4,414. Yesterday it closed at $4,750, up $336. At the same time, I only increased my cash to buy a B share by $120, all from blogging income. So last month I lost ground. What would be really nice is if the B Share could actually go down for a change.
A word about blogging income. For purposes of the B Share, I count blogging income once I receive it. In November, this blog generated more than $120, but some of that revenue was received in previous months, and some of it won’t be received until December or even January. In November, The Dough Roller earned about $260 from PPC, PPM and affiliate revenue. Hopefully I can make some positive progress toward the B Share in December.
8 Comments, Comment or Ping
Free From Broke
It’s probably been mentioned before, but can you invest in the Berkshire Hathaway B share through Share Builder? I believe you can buy partial shares through them.
Dec 4th, 2007
DR
I looked into that about 3 months ago. I called Share Builder and they confirmed that you can buy partial shares. Not a bad idea for the “Buying the B Share” program.
Dec 4th, 2007
FourPillars
I would suggest that you consider investing the money in something else ie index fund. At the rate you are going it might be a while before you have a Baby Berk to call your own. Once you have enough then you can buy the Berk.
Mike
Dec 4th, 2007
DR
Point well taken, which is why I think I’m going to follow Free From Broke’s advice and open a Sharebuilder account. By the way, both my retirement and non-retirement investments are in a mix of low cost actively managed and index funds, so the B Share will represent a very small percentage of my investments. I’m working on a post to describe in detail my asset allocation, and hope to have it posted this month.
Dec 4th, 2007
Patrick
I would think twice about buying a partial share via Sharebuilder unless you are going to put in a good chunk of money each time.
Sharebulder normally charges $4 per scheduled transaction (more if you want to buy via an unscheduled transaction). Unless you are putting in a lot at once, you will pay a lot of fees to buy that share by the time it is completely purchased. I would probably want to invest several hundred to $1,000 before I started buying partial shares of BRKB. This will reduce the overall amount of fees you pay.
Also, I e-mailed you a link with a $55 bonus for signing up for Sharebuilder acct. This will give you a free headstart on your BRKB share!
Dec 6th, 2007
DR
Patrick, I got your e-mail and really appreciate the gesture. And I agree you have to watch the fees, although I think I’ll be investing enough to make it worth it.
Dec 6th, 2007
Al
Hi - I think buying the Baby Berk rather than a large cap fund is not a bad idea.
BTW - What happened to both the A and B shares today - down by 2-3%?
Any thoughts?
Dec 12th, 2007
DR
Al, it’s good to hear from you again! If my memory is correct, it’s been a while. In terms of the price of BRK, the only thing I can see is that Progressive warned that earnings were down due to increased competitiveness in its auto insurance division. BRK is heavy in the insurance business, including auto insurance (Geico). Some may have viewed this as a ominous sign for BRK. The fact is that a significant portion of BRK’s amazing earnings come from its insurance business. A major catastrophe (or series of major catastrophes) could upset the party at BRK. As somebody looking to buy, however, that would sure make my job a lot easier.
Dec 13th, 2007
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