Buffett's a Genius Again

In the past year, Buffett has widened his scope to include more overseas deals, in part to find better opportunities and in part to put on another play on a falling U.S. dollar. But the flood of money seeking deals and driving deal profits lower isn't confined to the U.S.

So I'm going to take my 2006 profits here and patiently wait to see what 2007 will bring. There's a good chance, in my opinion, that by the end of next year I'll be reading new articles arguing that Buffett has lost his touch. At that point, I'll think about jumping on again for the ride to $200,000 a share. Long-term investors -- long term being anything longer than the 12- to 18-month time horizon -- can just hang on through any doldrums.

New Developments on Past Columns

"Five Buys for a Fourth-Quarter Rally": Fourth-quarter sales momentum looks good for Garmin(GRMN Quote). Store advertising and promotions for the big-shopping Friday after Thanksgiving gave Garmin 32.3% of the ad space devoted to GPS units in store circulars, according to brokerage company Thomas Weisel. Garmin has added distribution of its personal-navigation devices through Target(TGT Quote), Wal-Mart(WMT Quote) and Costco Wholesale(COST Quote) this year.

That same source notes that their checks of store sales channels show that GPS devices being heavily featured for the holiday season. And it looks like promotional discounting is relatively modest with average discounts of around 20%.

Looking ahead to 2007, Garmin's new marine products are ready to hit stores in January through March, in time for boating season in the northern hemisphere. The company has only 22% or so of the global marine GPS market -- its lowest share of major GPS markets -- and the new products are likely to let the company pick up share.

At the time of publication, Jim Jubak owned or controlled shares in the following equities mentioned in this column: Berkshire Hathaway and Garmin. He does not own short positions in any stock mentioned in this column.