Good morning! History unfolds every minute, but historic moments arrive only occasionally. I was lucky to catch one this weekend in Omaha — full dispatch below. First time reading? Join 190,000 self-directed investors and subscribe here.

Inside Warren Buffett’s final Berkshire Hathaway meeting

OMAHA, Neb. — After 55 years, Warren Buffett announced he will step down as the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of 2025 and let vice chairman Greg Abel take his place. 

Upon breaking the news, Buffett received a lengthy standing ovation from a stadium audience that included Apple’s Tim Cook and Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman.

I’ve gathered my takeaways from four days on the ground, drawn from a dozen side events and mini conferences, and conversations with locals, shareholders and billionaires who made the pilgrimage to what turned out to be Buffett’s final meeting as CEO.

The town Warren built

Omaha is a stronghold of quiet Berkshire shareholders disguised as a billionaire’s hometown.

Every single interaction I had with locals reinforced just how much Buffett enriches his fellow townspeople. 

One retiree I met, who spent his career at a railroad company owned by Berkshire, has lived a couple blocks from Buffett’s house for two decades. He told me he’s held Berkshire stock longer than he’s had most of his neighbors.

Many of his friends are millionaires because of it.

He explained that Berkshire’s Class A shares — which hover above $800,000 — are so coveted that periodically Omaha residents will list their homes for sale not in dollars, but in Class A stock.

When I brought this up to an employee in a desserts store, she said she had never heard of this but it wouldn't surprise her because “Berkshire stock only goes up.” 

Indeed, across the downtown area, four different employees working in a vintage clothing shop, cafe, ice cream parlor and hotel bar, respectively, told me that they each own Berkshire stock. 

The only Omaha resident I met who did not own Berkshire stock was an Uber driver — a single mother of two.

She told me that while she isn’t invested in the stock market, she adores Buffett because her daughter attended college for free on a “Buffett scholarship.” 

Another business owner told me he works in the same office building as Buffett. At one point several years ago, when severe tornadoes threatened Omaha, he sheltered in the basement of the building with Buffett, who cracked jokes the whole time.    

Meanwhile, one woman who had her paintings on display in a pop-up art exhibit, told me she went to grade school with Buffett’s son, Howard, who is 70.

The Berkshire secondary market

Like any asset tied to scarcity, Berkshire merch has liquidity of its own.

This starts with the passes. Each shareholder gets multiple tickets to attend the annual meeting, which I’ve learned get flipped on an active secondary market.

In the weeks leading up to the main event, shareholders flood eBay with passes ranging from $30 to $200 each. 

Later, once the exhibit center opens for shopping on Friday and Saturday and attendees buy exclusive and limited-quantity Berkshire items, people list them online the same day at an eight- to ten-fold markup.

Berkshire featured only one book for sale this year, 60 Years of Berkshire Hathaway. I secured one of the 5,000 available copies by waiting in line for nearly an hour the first day.

Shortly after Buffett announced the books had sold out the next morning, I saw copies listed online for eight times the price I paid. 

That pales in comparison to the increasingly popular Squishmallows of Buffett and the late Charlie Munger, which I’ve seen listed for as much as twelve times the purchase price. 

The annual meeting post-Buffett

Buffett at 94 remains a box office headliner.

Doors opened for Buffett’s Saturday Q&A at 7 AM but people began lining up the night before.

(I was able to get a decent seat inside the stadium by showing up just before 6 AM.)

Without Buffett at the helm, however, even long-time attendees aren’t sure they would make the trip to Omaha. 

One shareholder I met who has been to over a dozen Berkshire meetings said he actually expects attendance next year to surpass 2025’s roughly 40,000 guests — a mix of devotees paying homage and newcomers who regret never seeing Buffett. 

After that, though, he said he expects about a 30% drop-off. 

The broad consensus seems to be that only the most serious investors will attend moving forward. 

Many of those who have attended more than once have a network of relationships they can make plans with in Omaha — a feeling similar to the excitement and nostalgia kids feel returning to the same summer camp year after year. 

In their view — one I agree with — the best part of the weekend is the side events and dynamic relationships, not the actual meeting inside the stadium. 

This is hard to grasp without experiencing first-hand. 

One private dinner I attended, for instance, put me at the same table as a real estate mogul, a former Treasury official, a family office investor who piloted his own plane to Omaha, and multiple money managers overseeing eye-watering dollar amounts. 

We all had a great time, and part of that is knowing how hard it’d be to replicate the evening outside of this specific weekend in Omaha.

New attendees won’t feel the same draw. First-timers simply go to see Buffett.

That said, almost everyone at that dinner felt that this would be their last time ever in Nebraska. 

Nonetheless, I’m convinced I’ll return in 2026. 

For what it’s worth, not one single shareholder I met expects Berkshire’s stock to decline, with or without Buffett.

Market snapshot

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Elsewhere

📊The S&P 500 notched its best winning streak in 2 decades. The market advanced for its ninth straight day on Friday, marking its longest positive run since November 2004. Major US indexes have recovered most of their losses since Liberation Day.

🎥 Trump declared 100% tariffs on movies made outside the US. The president said the US movie industry was dying a “very fast death” due to the incentives that other countries use to draw American filmmakers. To his point, film and TV production in LA has dropped 40% over the last decade. (CNBC)

💰️ Warren Buffett keeps growing his cash pile. The conglomerate sold a net $1.5 billion in stocks and grew its cash reserves to a record $347.7 billion in the first quarter. Buffett still sees market valuations as expensive, and his firm has been a net seller of stocks for 10 consecutive quarters. (Business Insider)

Rapid-fire

• The Fed is likely about to hold interest rates steady on Wednesday (Bloomberg)

• China says it’s evaluating approaches from US officials to start tariff negotiations (Yahoo Finance)

• US oil prices tumbled after OPEC+ agreed to surge production in June (CNBC)

• The US dollar weakened Sunday while the Taiwan dollar surged more than 3% (Reuters)

• Gold has outperformed but now it’s bitcoin’s turn (Pomp Letter)

• Take the red pill of finance (and memes)

Last thing

About me

📰 I’m Phil Rosen, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Opening Bell Daily. I’ve published books, lived on three continents, and won awards for my journalism, which has appeared in Business Insider, Fortune, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg and Inc. Magazine.

I write our flagship newsletter to prepare you for each trading day, unpacking markets, economic data and Wall Street with analysis you won’t find anywhere else. Feedback? Reply to this email, ping me on X @philrosenn, or write me directly at [email protected].