In a regulatory filing on February 15th, Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway announced it had sold its entire stake in Bank of America.
The firm held five million (of its original 8.7 million) shares of B of A stock as recently as September, 2010. The result was a staggering loss of two thirds of the value Buffet paid a little over three years ago.
Even the great ones (Buffet, Lynch, Miller, and Gross, to name a few) have suffered colossal losses in their investing lifetimes. The rest of us should feel in good company with the blunders we’ve made along our investing journey. More importantly though, let’s take a valuable lesson away from Berkshire’s recent disclosure. Never get so emotionally tied to your investments that you can’t divest from them, regardless of how scarred you may feel by the financial loss.
To quote a famous line from movie lore…”it’s not personal, it’s business”. Warren Buffet clearly views investing as business. We should too.
