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Today is Financial Friday. Earlier this week Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway B split for 50:1. It was trading around $3,400 and each of those shares was split into about 50 new shares around $70. There are two main stocks maintained by Berkshire Hathaway. B and A. B has always been the cheaper of the two, with A trading in the low hundred thousand dollar range. A has never split, and over the decades has become quite profitable which is why it trades for such a high price. Most of us will likely never be able to dream of even owning one share of A. B was also not exactly affordable for many of us. But this recent split made it much more reasonable and I ended up buying some shares yesterday.

The idea behind the split, according to the press, was really due to a bit of charity by Mr. Buffet. Recently he bought Burlington Northern, the nation's largest railroad operator. In order to give the employees a chance at owning some company stock the members of the board in charge of the stock approved of the split.

What's interesting is why Mr. Buffet decided to buy the railroad at all. He called it "an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States." I think that's a bit rosy. In reality he's probably waging on the price of fuel. Oil isn't getting any cheaper. And I'm pretty sure automotive sales in China just passed us, with them becoming the largest buying market in the world. What this means is that the cost of fuel is going to increase. It makes sense, there's only so much fuel out there and it's not going to last forever. But as the cost of fuel increases, so will the cost to ship products. So things shipped by trucks and airplanes are going to see their prices increased. As a result this will make railroads more lucrative because of the cheaper shipping rates that they offer.

After I bought the shares, at first things were great. The stock rose about 75 cents per share in a short time. My other stocks were doing fantastic too, possibly being fueled by Scott Brown winning the Senate seat in Massachusetts. But then things took a turn. Yesterday afternoon President Obama decided to attack the banks, and just like that I am now down over $400 on the market. For the first time in over a year I had actually been in the clear and was up a few hundred dollars. But I guess if things can't be good on Main Street, the government has decided things shouldn't be good on Wall Street either. Sigh, now I'm just losing twice.