I don't find even a hint of a clickbait.

Man has preached about insider trading for decades, he himself condemned such activities, he himself encoded the rules.

He still broke those.

As someone who's always thought of Buffet as sort of a role model, it is a sad to see this happen. I have seen him speak and preach about those just too much just to find out it was simply not true.

He even made a specific example about not owning Wells Fargo in his personal portfolio and..he did.

I can't understand people excusing him, a lie is a lie, no matter how harmless and casts a huge shadow on his reputation, integrity and trustability.

I don't even understand the point of having a personal portfolio. It's not illegal or anything. But it's just..odd.

It's really baffling how many people jump on the ship of underplaying this, especially with someone like Buffet who's built his personal brand on condemning such a lack of transparency.

Ok, line by line.

  "I don't find even a hint of a clickbait."

The authors 1) took data without context and 2) did not reach out to any representative for comment. That's shallow, clickbait hit piece 101.

  "He still broke those <insider trading rules>"

Unlikely, see above.

  "He even made a specific example about not owning Wells Fargo in his personal portfolio and..he did."

That's nowhere in the article and sounds silly. Why would he lie about such a thing?

  "I can't understand people excusing him, a lie is a lie, no matter how harmless and casts a huge shadow on his reputation, integrity and trustability."

Again, what lie are you talking about?

  "I don't even understand the point of having a personal portfolio. It's not illegal or anything. But it's just..odd."

In reality, Buffett is one of just a few executives that don't have a meaningful personal portfolio. He claims the only reason he has one is because it's fund to buy things that are too small to make an impact on BRK's trillion dollar book value. I see no reason to not believe that, because at his level of wealth the personal account is play money.

  "Buffet who's built his personal brand on condemning such a lack of transparency."

No, actually, he doesn't have a "personal brand" of "transparency" in stock holdings. Buffett is very much against transparent reporting of stock ownership, always has been. He abhors people following his trades. That shows up a few times in his autobiography and at least once every annual meeting.

I can't believe I'm even replying a troll account nor your rampage into defending Buffet or even yourself lying, the wells Fargo thing is like half the article.

   He said he preferred Wells Fargo, but Berkshire was “buying Wells Fargo stock and that takes me out of the business of buying Wells Fargo,” so he bought shares of Chase for his personal account because it was his second choice.

   “That’s one of the problems I have,” he said. “I can’t be buying what Berkshire is buying and I’ve got some money around and therefore I go into my second choices or into tiny little companies.”

No one's calling him a criminal, rather pointing he's an hypocrite.

By the way CNBC and Probublica both asked Buffet for comments and he declined.

Agreed.

This piece demonstrates that Buffet is human.

AND…

It took a lot of courage by ProPublica to put out this piece knowing they would deal with the wrath of the Buffet faithful. No one had any issues when they were reporting on Clarence Thomas.

Unfortunately there is quite the cult-like mentality around Buffet. He is worshipped by many who fail to see that while gifted he is no different than any other human.

By this I mean he is capable of trading on personal benefit, fear, avarice and ignorance just like any other human being.

Maybe he had Wells in his personal portfolio for awhile, realized it, and then sold. If you look at the chart, it wasn't a particularly good time to sell.

The trades that Congress continually make are much more suspect. I don't understand why there's not more focus on those trades where there is blatant corruption.

> Maybe he had Wells in his personal portfolio for awhile, realized it, and then sold.

How's that relevant to him lying about it and being a hypocrite?

That it wasn't a lie if he believed his statement to be true. He would consequently also not be a hypocrite for it.

He literally went in front of CNBC and told the interviewer he owned JP Morgan because Berkshire owned Wells Fargo. And yet, he owned Fargo.

We don't even know if there were more instances, because only sales are reported, but not buys.

Hypocrisy I say!! Hypocrisy!

People love spending their lives looking for it. Ever watch Fox News for 10 minutes. It’s a business model.

I don't think this is insider trading? Perhaps he benefits from the market flows but none of this is material non public information.

> This all totaled in less than $100 million, 0.1% of Buffet's current net worth.

But also more money than entire families and generations will ever see.

SO here's how he can clear his reputation: give the money back.

To who?

So this guy can track every trade that Buffet made over his lifetime, but somehow it's hard to figure out who was on the other end of that trade?

Probably. I know every trade I've made but no idea who was on the other side