Stocks pitched at the Sohn Conference; Articles that caught my eye about Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway; Another reminder for my big event on Wednesday

1) One of my best sources of great stock ideas over the years has been investing conferences...

As such, I try to go to as many as I can.

Regular readers know that our firm hosts its own annual conference. (This year's edition in Las Vegas is from October 20 to October 22 – you can get more details here.)

And I even co-host a conference – the Value Investing Seminar, which is coming up on July 3 and July 4 in Trani, Italy. (I shared details in my March 21 e-mail.)

Due to the demands of the campaign trail, I wasn't able to attend the annual Sohn Investment Conference this past Wednesday. But Chris Conway of Livewire Markets did – and he wrote about some of the ideas that were pitched: Key insights and stock picks from the 2025 Sohn Conference in New York. Here are the bullet points:

• William Heard of Heard Capital: Adobe (ADBE)
• Joseph Talia of VictoryArc Holdings: Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE.TA)
• Kristov Paulus of Kultura Capital Management: Robinhood Markets (HOOD)
• Connie Lee of Felis Advantage: nCino (NCNO)
• Alexandra Engler of Arene Capital: Celanese (CE)
• Larry Robbins of Glenview Capital Management: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (TEVA) and Global Payments (GPN)
• Rob Citrone of Discovery Capital Management: América Móvil (AMXB.MX)

(Again, you can see Conway's brief summaries on the picks here.)

Of these, I'm most familiar with Adobe, which I had been following along with in recent months here in my daily e-mails.

As I had noted, if the stock got to a point where my team and I thought it looked compelling enough to add to the model portfolio in our Stansberry's Investment Advisory newsletter, subscribers would be the first to know.

Well, that's what happened – we recommended Adobe in the April Investment Advisory issue. And since then, through yesterday's close, it's up 10%.

(Subscribers can read the full issue right here. If you aren't a subscriber, you can find out how to gain access to it and specific buy-up-to advice for Adobe – along with our entire archive of past issues, current open recommendations, and our best ideas in upcoming monthly issues – by clicking here.)

In addition to the stocks, my friend David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital pitched German chemical maker Lanxess (LXS.DE) at the Sohn Conference.

Barron's covered the pitch in this article from Wednesday: Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager Pans Tariffs, Pitches Stock at Sohn Conference. Excerpt:

[Einhorn] pitched Lanxess, a $2.4 billion chemical maker based in Germany. It has transformed over the years, selling assets and becoming more focused on only three business segments: consumer protection, which sells disinfectants, antimicrobials, and crop protectants; specialty additives; and advanced intermediates, which sells industrial chemicals.

The moves helped, as the stock gained five-fold from a low in late 2008 to January 2022. But then, the Russia-Ukraine war started, which caused massive cost inflation, pinched the company's profit margins, and forced it to lift prices, resulting in a loss of market share. Earnings per share dropped from $5.30 in 2021 to $1.71 in 2025, and the stock fell 45% from the end of 2022 through Thursday's close.

The good news, Einhorn points out, is that the market share losses should subside. Sales should hit $7 billion this year, up from $6.9 billion last year. The billionaire also expects Eurozone chemical production to catch up to what has been growing industrial production. Sales will grow, especially as the company de-stocks its inventory and sees better pricing power.

2) Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) CEO Warren Buffett has been in the news recently...

In a front-page story in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, he shared why he decided to pass the reins to Greg Abel at the end of the year. As always, he handled a difficult decision with honesty and grace, and put the company's and shareholders' interests above his own: Warren Buffett Reveals He Stepped Down After Finally Feeling His Age. Excerpt:

"I didn't really start getting old, for some strange reason, until I was about 90," [Buffett] said by phone from his office in Omaha, Neb. "But when you start getting old, it does become – it's irreversible."

He began to lose his balance, occasionally, and sometimes had trouble recalling a person's name. Suddenly, the newspapers he read looked like they were printed with too little ink...

"The difference in energy level and just how much [Abel] could accomplish in a 10-hour day compared to what I could accomplish in a 10-hour day – the difference became more and more dramatic," Buffett said. "He just was so much more effective at getting things done, making changes in management where they were needed, helping people that needed help someplace, but just all kinds of ways.

As Buffett also said in the article, "It was unfair, really, not to put Greg in the job. The more years that Berkshire gets out of Greg, the better."

However, Buffett also said in the article that he isn't going anywhere:

"My health is fine, in the sense that I feel good every day," he said. "I'm here at the office and I get to work with people I love, that they like me pretty well, and we have a good time."

Up next, this Bloomberg article from yesterday highlights that Buffett would be the world's richest person right now if he hadn't already given away such a large chunk of his fortune: A Less-Generous Warren Buffett Would Be $67 Billion Richer Than Elon Musk. Excerpt:

To understand just how successful Warren Buffett has been during his six-decade run atop Berkshire Hathaway Inc., consider this: Even his $167 billion fortune doesn't come close to capturing his wealth and influence.

Over the course of nearly 20 years, Buffett, 94, has gifted Berkshire shares worth more than $60 billion at the time of donation. That stock would now be worth some $230 billion, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Put another way: Had the Oracle of Omaha held onto his stake through the years, he'd have a net worth of almost $400 billion as of April 30, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That's $67 billion more than the fortune of Elon Musk, the world's richest person.

Take a look at this chart from the article:

Moving on, this WSJ article from yesterday summarizes what stocks Buffett, Todd Combs, and Ted Weschler bought and sold during the first quarter: Berkshire Sells Financial Stocks, Doubles Constellation Stake, Holds Steady on Apple. Excerpt:

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sold some Bank of America (BAC) and Capital One Financial (COF) and all of its Citigroup (C) stake earlier this year.

The Omaha, Neb., company doubled its holdings of Pool Corp. (POOL) and Constellation Brands (STZ), which sells Modelo and Corona beer in the U.S., according to a regulatory filing made public after the market closed Thursday.

Berkshire maintained its position in Apple (AAPL), its biggest stockholding, for a second consecutive quarter after selling much of it earlier last year. Berkshire's stake in the iPhone maker was worth $66.6 billion on March 31.

Overall, it wasn't a very active quarter for a company with a $1.1 trillion market cap, as Berkshire bought $3.2 billion worth of stocks and sold $4.7 billion.

Longtime readers might recall that I wrote about Pool a year ago in my May 9, 2024 e-mail after a team of Columbia Business School students pitched it as a short at the 17th annual Pershing Square Challenge. Since then, Pool's stock is down 16%.

I've also written a few times about Constellation Brands, which I like a lot more – see my November 13, December 16, February 19, and April 4 e-mails.

Lastly, I'll note that Buffett hasn't bought any more Occidental Petroleum (OXY) since early February – it has been a dud of an investment so far, as this WSJ article from last week notes: One of Warren Buffett's Last Big Bets Is Souring. Excerpt:

Berkshire entered Occidental's stock in 2022 and has amassed enough shares to own 28% of the company – and earn largest shareholder status. Buffett's endorsement has been a reputation booster for the company and its chief executive, Vicki Hollub.

But with U.S. oil prices dropping below $60 a barrel, crude producers' valuations have slumped. Occidental last month saw its stock drop to a more than three-year low. While Berkshire has snapped up much of its Occidental stake at prices above $50 a share, the stock closed at $39 on Wednesday. Berkshire has seen the value of its Occidental position drop by about $6.4 billion from its peak last year, according to FactSet.

And as the article continues:

Investors and analysts are pondering whether Buffett's appointed successor, Greg Abel, will dump some of the stock, avail himself of the falling price to accumulate more shares, or even make an outright bid to acquire the whole firm. Few expect Berkshire to liquidate the position, noting the company is a patient investor that can afford to wait out slumps.

3) Before I sign off today, remember to register for next Wednesday's big event with me and my friend Jeff Brown if you haven't already...

I'm joining Jeff – the founder and chief investment analyst of our corporate affiliate Brownstone Research – for a special briefing.

In it, we're going to discuss a terrifying new chip that could soon sideline chipmaking giant Nvidia (NVDA) and spawn a new class of artificial-intelligence companies that could soar this year.

It could be your chance to buy into the next generation of Nvidia, Apple, Amazon (AMZN), and Netflix (NFLX).

This briefing next Wednesday is free to attend – all you need to do is register in advance. You can do so right here.

See you then!

Best regards,

Whitney

P.S. I welcome your feedback – send me an e-mail by clicking here.