Buffett Drops Airline Stocks, Big on Furniture Mart

Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s investment company, has sold its shares of the four largest airlines after taking a $50-billion loss during its most recent quarter.

However, the company still has $137.3 billion in cash.

“The world has changed for the airlines, and I don’t know how it’s changed, and I hope it corrects itself in a reasonably prompt way,” Buffett said during Berkshire’s annual meeting in Omaha. “I don’t know whether the Americans will have now changed their habits or will change their habits because of an extended period if it happens that we’re semi shut down in the economy.”

But Buffett said he feels differently about his Nebraska Furniture Mart chain, even though it is in the battered retail industry, and its stores, including its 1.1-million-square-foot retail-warehouse facility in Kansas City, Kan.

” I can assure you that the Nebraska Furniture Mart and Oriental Trading in my view have a fine future,” Buffett said, also speaking about his online party supplies retail venture.

Read the full transcript of the meeting here.