Jeff Kilburg, founder and CEO at KKM Financial, talks markets, corporate earnings and airline stocks amid the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. airline shares were down sharply again on Monday, this time after Warren Buffett said Berkshire Hathaway sold its entire stakes in the four largest U.S. carriers as coronavirus devastates travel demand.
Berkshire was among the largest investors in the four — American, Delta, Southwest and United. Buffett announced on Saturday that the firm dumped those shares. Berkshire posted a net loss of close to $50 billion in the first three months of the year.
American was down more than 9% in late morning trading. United and Delta were each down more than 8%, while Southwest fell more than 7% just after the open to a more than five-year low.
Buffett had long shunned airlines. In a 2007 shareholder letter, he said investors in those businesses “poured money into a bottomless pit, attracted by growth when they should have been repelled by it.”
But he returned in 2016 with a surprise bet on the four carriers as the industry was enjoying steady profits and the benefits of strong travel demand and lower fuel costs than in previous years.
The four last month posted their first quarterly losses in years and warned of a slow recovery in demand from prepandemic levels. Delta’s CEO said it could take two to three years.
“I mean, believe me, no joy being a CEO of an airline,” Buffett said at Berkshire’s annual meeting, held virtually this year because of the pandemic. “But the companies we bought were well managed. They did a lot of things right.”
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