从巴菲特指标看 美景气欠佳

　股神巴菲特和前美国联储局主席格林斯潘这两位财经界巨头，当前对经济前景都各有看法。巴菲特指出，铁路货 运量可说是最重要的景气观测指标；而格林斯潘则把废钢价格视为一项重要的景气风向球。从巴菲特的指标看来，美国景气似乎不太理想，美国铁路协会刚公布，截 至上周为止，今年的铁路货运量较去年同期萎缩19.2%，巴菲特直言对此感到忧心。

Buffett’s Most-Watched Index Takes a Tumble: Chart of the Day

By David Wilson

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- For Warren Buffett, freight-train traffic has the kind of importance that Alan Greenspan attached to scrap-steel prices as Federal Reserve chairman -- and it isn’t going his way.

The CHART OF THE DAY compares the number of freight carloads at six of the largest U.S. railroads this year with the same period of 2008. Shipments tumbled 19.2 percent through last week from a year earlier, the Association of American Railroads reported yesterday.

Buffett follows this gauge more closely than any other index, Bianna Golodryga, a reporter for ABC’s “Good Morning America” program, said yesterday after she interviewed the billionaire investor. Its drop worries him, she reported.

Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns a 23 percent stake in Burlington Northern Santa Fe Inc., the biggest U.S. railroad by revenue. The holding’s value was $5.25 billion at yesterday’s close. Among Berkshire’s common-share investments, only Coca- Cola Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. were bigger.

Berkshire also has stakes in Norfolk Southern Corp. and Union Pacific Corp., two other U.S. railroads. The value of those shares totaled about $545 million yesterday.

Greenspan followed the scrap-steel market to gain insight into the U.S. economy’s prospects. The rate at which cars and trucks are scrapped “has a pronounced cyclical pattern,” he wrote in a study that the Fed released in 1996.

(To save a copy of the chart, click here.)

To contact the reporter on this story: David Wilson in New York at dwilson@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 9, 2009 21:01 EDT