‘We diss what we miss’: Shankar Sharma on Charlie Munger’s anti-cryptocurrency rant Updated : February 26, 2021 05:36 PM IST Shankar Sharma, a Veteran market watcher, took a dig at Munger and ‘Dalal Street old fogeys’ on Friday, saying those who miss out on top assets later diss them.He referred to Charlie Munger’s anti-cryptocurrency rant on Wednesday when he likened investing in Bitcoin to fox hunting and quoted Oscar Wilde.@cnbctv18news share
Veteran investor Shankar Sharma took a dig at Warren Buffett’s long-time partner Charlie Munger and ‘Dalal Street old fogeys’ on Friday, suggesting that those who miss out on high-performing investments tend to criticise them later.
He referred to Munger’s recent criticism of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin when he likened investing in Bitcoin to fox hunting and quoted Oscar Wilde — it is the pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable.
Sharma, who has an eye to spot seemingly junk shares that eventually turn out to be gold, wrote on Twitter: “In investing, we diss what we miss.So, it’s perfectly logical for Charlie Munger and some Dalal Street old fogeys to diss crypto.”
Ninety-seven-year-old Munger is the vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, and has played a major role in Buffett’s success, pushing him from being a bargain hunter who would not be averse to investing in ordinary companies to one who made his billions by investing in great companies with competitive advantages.
But for long, Berkshire Hathaway, the investment vehicle managed by the duo had a policy of not investing in tech shares because ‘they are difficult to understand’, a policy that helped them avoid the dotcom bust in 2000.
Buffett and Munger have also been vocal critics of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, which went up about 4 times in 2020, before rising another 50 percent this year.
Recently, Munger dismissed that the bitcoin rally as frenzy, and said hopes that the digital asset will replace fiat currency as a medium of exchange the world over were misplaced.
He dismissed the recent bitcoin frenzy and said he doesn’t believe it will end up as a medium of exchange.
Munger added that bitcoin was too volatile to be considered an alternative currency and that its key feature — anonymised transactions out of reach of central banks — will become its bane.
“I do think that…the central banks of the world like controlling their own banking system and their own money supplies,” Munger said, likening its appeal as being similar to gold, again considered by many as a store of value, and another asset class that he and Munger frown upon.
“I think it’s kind of an artificial substitute for gold.
And since I never buy any gold, I never buy any bitcoin,” Munger said.
However, over the past few years, Munger and the 90-year-old Buffett have faced increasing criticism over the under-performance of Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio, which has been failed to beat the index.
Critics say Berkshire, which missed out on investing in most of the leading technology companies of the past four decades starting with Intel, Microsoft, Google and Facebook, has lost touch with new dynamics of investing with technology companies poised to disrupt several traditional businesses.
That changed in 2011 when Berkshire put money in IBM, but that investment was also positioned as a value instead of growth play, and was unwound at a loss in 2018.
The saving grace was when Berkshire finally picked up a sizeable chunk in Apple — a decision likely pushed the company’s next-in-line investment managers such as Todd Combs and one that helped the company save face as shares of the cash-throwing Apple continued to sizzle.
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