WoW Warren Buffett
he doesnt make it look dark, he's very good---
Buffett predicts erosion of dollar.. Warren Buffett, who posted Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s first annual losses from foreign currency investments last year, is still predicting the U.S. dollar will erode.
"I think over time the dollar will weaken," Buffett told reporters after ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday. "I have no idea if it'll be this year or five years from now."
Buffett, chairman of the insurance and investment firm, has been betting the U.S. trade deficit would weaken the nation's currency since 2002. The 75-year-old also said he hopes his retirement "isn't too soon" and predicted returns for Berkshire investors would average 6 percent to 8 percent a year.
Buffett attended the opening ceremony to mark Berkshire's acquisition of Business Wire, a distributor of press releases. Shares of Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire rose $1,100, or 1.2 percent, to $89,900 in NYSE composite trading today.
Between 2002 and 2004, Berkshire made $2.96 billion on Buffett's bet against the dollar. Last year the company had $955 million in losses as the U.S. Dollar Index advanced 13 percent.
"It's the consumer action in the end. We have no governmental policies to counteract that we are sending a couple billion dollars a day abroad," Buffett said. "We are buying goods and selling capital."
The deficit in the current account, the broadest measure of international trade, widened to a record $224.9 billion in the fourth quarter, while the trade deficit, a monthly figure, grew to a record $68.5 billion in January, from $65.1 billion a month earlier.
To compensate for the current-account deficit and maintain the value of the dollar, the U.S. needs to attract about $2.5 billion a day from overseas, or about $75 billion a month.
The dollar index, which measures the dollar against six major currencies, has fallen 2.2 percent so far this year. The dollar dropped 2.6 percent against the euro and 1.1 percent against the yen.
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http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/...s/14149301.htm