The stock is down 31.1 percent from its all-time closing high of $149,200 last December.
Berkshire's downdraft, and a weak earnings report for the third quarter, are prompting some talk that Warren Buffett has lost his touch.
CNBC's David Faber reported yesterday that some investors are shorting Berkshire in the wake of Friday's quarterly results.
Investor Doug Kass had been short Berkshire for most of the year, before covering that position at a profit in August. Now he has a new summary of what he sees as Buffett's mistakes over the past few years in a post on TheStreet.com headlined Warren Buffett Has Lost His Groove.
And what about the argument that Buffett invests for the long term, making short-term setbacks unimportant? Kass writes, "Buffett's notion of long term is now becoming a convenient shroud to poorly timed investments."
"Is the notion of long term now irrelevant, particularly given Warren Buffett's age and the likelihood that sooner than later he will be succeeded by one or several new individuals at Berkshire's helm? Is it irrelevant ... in a possible multiyear bear market or in an economy that faces headwinds we haven't seen in decades? Or is it just one of those tautologies that it is safe to buy in the long term?"
Yes, Buffett has been counted out before. See 1999, for example.
But this time, Kass contends, it's different.
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