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If you're lonely, in dire need of a lunch date, or just happen to have a few million dollars lying around, you could try your luck at scoring lunch with the most successful investor in history.
The "Have Lunch with Warren Buffett" auction is this week, and the bid is expected to reach as high as $3 million when all is said and done. Instead of being a meaningless opportunity for rich people to throw money around, the auction raises money for GLIDE, Buffett's late wife's favorite charity, which is geared toward serving San Francisco's homeless population.
Some pretty cool things have happened to those who bid for the meal. Ted Weschler, for example, paid about $5.3 million total to win the auction two years in a row. He now picks stocks and manages over $10 billion at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A).
I have to admit, it would be cool to have lunch with Warren Buffett. I would even pick up the tab for his signature steak and hash browns at Smith & Wollensky or any other steakhouse of his choosing.
But as great a cause as GLIDE is, I would never pony up the kind of money these rich Buffettologists are paying just to say they had lunch with their idol.
Yes, Warren Buffett is still the most successful investor and businessman in American history. He and right-hand man Charlie Munger have transformed Berkshire from an investment firm into an enormous collection of businesses. Very few people on the planet could make that transition with the same level of success.
Although I won't shell out $3 million to share a steak lunch, I've long been brewing over many questions I'd ask him if I had the chance.
And I have three questions that honestly may come off as a bit crass.
But they all concern issues that the Oracle of Omaha needs to get straight, for the sake of individual investors like us...
About the Author
Tim Melvin is an unlikely investment expert by any measure. Raised in the "projects" of Baltimore by a single mother, he never attended college and started out as a door-to-door vacuum salesman. But he knew the real money was in the stock market, so he set sights on investing - and by sheer force of determination, he eventually became a financial advisor to millionaires. Today, after 30 years of managing money for some of the wealthiest people in the world, he draws on his experience to help investors find "unreasonably good" bargain stocks, multiply profits, and build their nest eggs. Tim tirelessly works to find overlooked "hidden gems" in the stock market, drawing on the research of legendary investors like Benjamin Graham, Walter Schloss, and Marty Whitman. He has written and lectured extensively on the markets, with work appearing on Benzinga, Real Money, Daily Speculations, and more. He has published several books in the "Little Book of" Investment Series and a "Junior Chamber Course" geared towards young adults that teaches Graham's principles and techniques to a new generation of investors. Today, he serves as the Special Situations Strategist at Money Morning and the editor of Peak Yield Investor.