Warren Buffett's right-hand man flags a 'speculative frenzy' in the stock market and bemoans the lack of bargains in a new shareholder letter

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Warren Buffett's right-hand man flags a 'speculative frenzy' in the stock market and bemoans the lack of bargains in a new shareholder letter
Charlie Munger.Lane Hickenbottom/Reuters
  • Warren Buffett's longtime business partner called out a "speculative frenzy" in the stock market.
  • Charlie Munger told Daily Journal stockholders that their shares were unlikely to rise much further.
  • The Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman also bemoaned the lack of bargains in the market.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
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Warren Buffett's right-hand man flagged a "speculative frenzy" in the stock market and signaled that he doesn't expect share prices to climb much higher.

Charlie Munger, the vice chairman of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, is also the chairman of Daily Journal Corporation, a newspaper publisher and software developer.

Daily Journal's stock price hit a record high of $404 on December 31. It had surged by roughly 50% in the previous four weeks.

"This price was reached amid much speculative frenzy and much forced buying by index funds," Munger said in his letter to Daily Journal shareholders this month.

Read more: GOLDMAN SACHS: These 22 stocks still haven't recovered to pre-pandemic levels - and are set to explode amid higher earnings in 2021 as the economy recovers

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The 97-year-old investor also touched on Daily Journal's stock portfolio, which counts Bank of America and Wells Fargo among its holdings. Its value soared by 45%, to $260 million, in the fourth quarter of 2020.

"Shareholders should not expect any significant appreciation above that level anytime soon," he said.

Moreover, Munger highlighted the difficulty of finding bargains in the market. Daily Journal's "trove of liquid wealth" - its cash and stocks - stemmed from "retained newspaper earnings, multiplied by seizing opportunities of a type no longer widely available," he said.

Munger's letter echoed his comments in a virtual interview last month. The investor had also spoken of a "frenzy" in stocks and described technology companies such as Apple securing trillion-dollar market capitalizations as "the most dramatic thing that's almost ever happened in the entire world history of finance."

Read more: A portfolio manager who has invested in SPACs since 2007 recounts their evolution from 'financial backwater' to 'feeding frenzy' - and shares how to identify attractive ones, including 3 on his radar

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