Buffett lauds Wells Fargo

Bloomberg

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

The stress tests are designed to show whether 19 top financial firms need more capital to withstand a deterioration of economic conditions, and results are expected to be disclosed on May 7. Buffett said he judges banks by their "dynamism" and their ability to attract deposits, and singled out Wells Fargo as a "fabulous" company. "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."

"All banks aren’t alike by a long shot, and in our view Wells Fargo, among the large banks, has some advantages the others do not," Buffett said at Berkshire’s annual meeting. U.S. banks can’t be viewed indiscriminately, he said.