Could Berkshire purchase Southwest???

I wouldn't worry about this scenario too much if I were you. I think we can all agree that Mr. Buffett is not stupid. If SWA is that attractive to him, that means he believes the company to be well-run and that (as the article says) it is an attractive company at a fair price (as opposed to a fair company at an attractive price). The last thing he would do if he purchased WN (or a majority of the stock) would be to go in and change up the management personnel and activity. WN is a well-run company. Why would he change anything at this point?

The reason WN is an attractive company at a fair price is the same reason most of the other airlines are in that category. Investors are rather cautious about airline stocks. A lot of people have taken serious financial baths over the past years by going long into airline stocks. When a stock can drop from $45/shr to $5/shr in a relatively short period of time as some airline stocks have done, only the brave and very rich see that stock as investment grade regardless of the price. Wall Street wants a guaranteed winner just as much as you and I do.

Full disclosure statement: I had 250 American Airlines stock options with a strike price of $25/shr (long, boring story). I'm the canny investor who (when the stock hit $45/shr) said, "when it hits $50, I'm going to sell." Shortly after I made that statement, the price started it's precipitous plunge into the worthless neighborhood as the company rushed toward bankruptcy. So much for my ability to project stock prices into the future.
 
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I wouldn't worry about this scenario too much if I were you. I think we can all agree that Mr. Buffett is not stupid. If SWA is that attractive to him, that means he believes the company to be well-run and that (as the article says) it is an attractive company at a fair price (as opposed to a fair company at an attractive price). The last thing he would do if he purchased WN (or a majority of the stock) would be to go in and change up the management personnel and activity. WN is a well-run company. Why would he change anything at this point?

The reason WN is an attractive company at a fair price is the same reason most of the other airlines are in that category. Investors are rather cautious about airline stocks. A lot of people have taken serious financial baths over the past years by going long into airline stocks. When a stock can drop from $45/shr to $5/shr in a relatively short period of time as some airline stocks have done, only the brave and very rich see that stock as investment grade regardless of the price. Wall Street wants a guaranteed winner just as much as you and I do.

Full disclosure statement: I had 250 American Airlines stock options with a strike price of $25/shr (long, boring story). I'm the canny investor who (when the stock hit $45/shr) said, "when it hits $50, I'm going to sell." Shortly after I made that statement, the price started it's precipitous plunge into the worthless neighborhood as the company rushed toward bankruptcy. So much for my ability to project stock prices into the future.

I'm not too worried about it. Just hoping for more positive news to put the stock back into the mid 60's. When we were there before a co-worker told me he read somewhere that they (analysis) have said SWA stock will go up to and around 75.00 per share. I told him I do not see our stock breaking 70 and then, there it went, back down to the 50's and even spent a little time at upper 40's.
 
Yeah well, don't feel left out. My AA stock has been as high as $60+/shr this year and is currently at $37. As the Bible teaches us, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. (But evidently not on Kessler Park--where I live.) That last is not from the Bible, just an observation.:rolleyes:
 
Yeah well, don't feel left out. My AA stock has been as high as $60+/shr this year and is currently at $37. As the Bible teaches us, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. (But evidently not on Kessler Park--where I live.) That last is not from the Bible, just an observation.:rolleyes:
Why I sold some SwA stock in January at 66, but I am just a dumb mechanic, what would I know.
 
Yeah well, don't feel left out. My AA stock has been as high as $60+/shr this year and is currently at $37. As the Bible teaches us, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. (But evidently not on Kessler Park--where I live.) That last is not from the Bible, just an observation.:rolleyes:

I hear ya about the rain. We've been dry here for a long, long time and now we are getting upwards of 2 inches over the last week, so thankful for that for sure.