Buffett Disses Bank Stress Tests

At the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting yesterday, Warren Buffett was asked about the bank stress tests that were conducted by the Obama administration. His reply via Bloomberg:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman Warren Buffett dismissed the importance of the government stress tests in helping him assess banks, and said Wells Fargo & Co. will prosper no matter what the results show.

“I think I know their future, frankly, better than somebody that comes in to take a look,” Buffett said yesterday of the bank stocks that Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire owns. Regulators “may be using more of a checklist-type approach.”...

“If you look at Coca-Cola today, for example, and just looked at a balance sheet, it wouldn’t tell you anything at all about Coca-Cola,” the billionaire investor said in a Bloomberg Television interview before Berkshire’s annual meeting at Omaha’s Qwest Center. “It’s what the product is.”

Wells Fargo is Berkshire’s second-largest holding by market value. Berkshire also owns stakes in Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp.,as well as U.S. Bancorp, M&T Bank Corp. and SunTrust Banks Inc.