>> rose: look at what the lessons of berkshire hathaway is. the railroad's grown, everything's growing. >> pretty much,. >> rose: you are finding that you need to hire new people. >> sure. we're investing a record $7 billionthis year in capital invement, almost all of which is in the united states. that's at least a billion more than we've ever vested in the past. there's plenty of things to do here. >> rose: you have often said that in a time like this in which there are difficult times, that's the best time for you because you can have more opportunities to buy things that you think are of quality at better prices. >> no question about that. it's like buying on sale. last monday we spent more money in the stock market buying than any day this year. but it was... >> rose: buying stock. >> right. not business. but buying business is very infrequent. there's a lot of happenstance in that but you have to be ready to do it. >> rose: there's much discussion about buying another acquisition of transatlantic, i think it is. >> we made an offer about

the "oracle of omaha's" firm, berkshire hathaway, will get 50,000 preferred shares and a generous annual dividend of 6%. berkshire is also getting warrants allowing it to buy 700 million bank of america common shares at $7.14 any time in the next decade. as erika miller explains, that's more than just good news for that firm; it may also be a vote of confidence in the economic recovery. >> reporter: bank of america had been in the doghouse. it's shares traded at a two-and- a half year low this week. but today, the bank was the darling of wall street, after getting the stamp of approval of warren buffet, arguably the nation's most respected investor. bank analyst jim sinegal says that endorsement comes at a steep price. >> basically, if things go poorly and b-of-a has to raise more common equity, that will actually lower the risk of his preferred stock investment. if things go really well for b-of-a and the company is earning $1.50 to $2.00 a share, trading at $15 to $20 in a few years-- actually, any time up till the next ten years-- buffett will be able to buy that stock at $7.00. >> re

here is a quick look at the largest financial company by market value, berkshire hathaway. these are the "b" shares, falling 6.5%. a new low tonight. s&p kept the company's credit rating unchanged-- double a plus, the same as uncle sam's-- but knocked down berkshire's outlook to "negative." as suzanne mentioned earlier, mortgage rates have been steady, but with worries about higher borrowing costs for home buyers. mortgage insurance stocks were down sharply. m.g.i.c. lost more than 40% of its value. radian group dove more than 28%. and m.b.i.a. was off over 12%. another blue chip getting bruised and battered in today's trading was verizon, falling 5.5%. this brings shares down to their lowest price of the year. what's going on? the selling comes a day after almost half of its traditional landline telephone, internet and cable tv service workers went on strike. about 45,000 walked out over contract talks. the unions have rejected company proposals to cut pensions and increase employee contributions for health insurance. and that's tonight's "market focus." >> tom: since frid

on very important terms for berkshire hathaway. shares of the company jumped on the news. the big meeting in jackson hole, how does the economy shape up for the rest of the year. joining me is jack ablin. jack, good to have you on the program. thank you for your time today. >> thank you, maria. >> so, the markets have been watching and waiting to see what ben bernanke would say and do at this summit in jackson hole, wyoming. what is your reaction to the speech? >> well, i think it was pretty much big swing and a miss for the market. we had a big buildup earlier in the week in stock prices. i was fearful that that was in anticipation of the chairman coming up with some new magic solution. but realizing that he doesn't have a lot of arsenal left, i didn't -- you know, i have to imagine he didn't sleep very well thursday night and, of course, friday morning, we saw that he really put the ball back into congress and the president's court. >> yeah, he said things like, look, we need to see fiscal policy, that encourages companies to create jobs. we need changes on taxes, we nee

. >>> and finally, sunday, warren buffett's berkshire hathaway made a $3.25 billion buyout offer for reinsurer transatlantic holdings. >>> well, a bitter caddie enjoys sweet revenge. the mets postseason hopes end up on the trainer's table. and a nascar driver wins despite a serious handicap. plus it's only fitting a back and forth game concluded the yankees and red sox back and forth weekend series battling for first place. your early morning sports headlines are straight ahead. >>> and we just finished another hot and humid weekend. today, even hotter in some locations. your forecast is coming up. you're watching "early today." >>> good morning. if you're just waking up, this is "early today." in sports it's almost a ritual of the summer. the red sox and yankees battling head-to-head for first place. here's nbc's bill seward with an early look at all your sports headlines. >> hi, everybody. if you're a baseball fan, it doesn't get much better than the yankees and red sox with first place on the line at fenway. pick it up in the ninth inning, sox down one, man on third, all dustin pe

. >>> stocks had opened higher on warren buffett's berkshire hathaway taking a $5 billion stake in the struggling bank of america. boa gained over 9%, accounting for almost 10% of the day's total volume. on the first day of trade since apple co-founder steve jobs' resignation, shares fell only slightly. a sharp drop thursday on germany's dax. at one point by as much as 5% increased jitters and selling on wall street. >>> new jobs numbers also fuelled selling. u.s. jobless claims rose last week to their highest point in five weeks, but that was largely inflated by formally striking workers at verizon. >>> after two days of sharp declines, gold rose more than 1%. elsewhere delta plans to spend billions buying 100 boeing 737 jets to upgrade its fleet. >>> finally, the gas-guzzling favorite of the rich and famous is also apparently the favorite of thieves. a new study finds the cadillac escalade is the most likely vehicle to be targeted by crooks. >>> coming up, preseason football heats up. the red sox live off the long ball, and the u.s. final is set in little league baseball. plus, the n

. >>> stocks had opened higher on warren buffett's berkshire hathaway taking a $5 billion stake in the struggling bank of america. the oa gained over 9%, accounting for almost 10% of the day's total volume. on the first day of trade since apple ko founder steve jobs' resignation, shares fell only slightly. a sharp drop thursday on germany's dax. a one point by as many as 5% increased jitters and selling on wall street. >>> new jobs numbers also fuelled selling. u.s. jobless claims rose last week to their highest points in five weeks, but that was largely inflated by formerly striking workers at verizon. after two days of sharp declines, gold rose more than 1%. elsewhere delta plans to spend billions buying 100 boeing 737 jets to upgrade its fleet. finally, the gas-guzzling favorite of the rich and famous is also apparently the favorite of thieves. a new study finds the cadillac escalade is the most likely vehicle to be targeted by crooks. >>> coming up preseason football heats up. the red sox live off the long ball, and the u.s. final is set in little league baseball. plus, the new yor

. >>> finally, sunday warren buffett's berkshire hathaway made a buy-out for transatlantic holdings. >>> a bitter caddie enjoys sweet revenge. >>> the mets' season's hopes remain on the stratraining tabl >>> the yankees and red sox series battling for first place. first look at sports is straight ahead. you're watching "first look" on msnbc. booking a flight by itself is an uh-oh. see if we can "stitch" together a better deal. that's a hint, antoine. ooh! see what anandra did? booking your flight and hotel at the same time gets you prices hotels and airlines won't let expedia show separately. book it. major wow factor! where you book matters. expedia. go! go! completing an atm deposit in record time... that's a step forward. go! go! with deposit friendly atms, you can make ultra fast, secure deposits with no slips or envelopes. take a step forward and chase what matters. but when she got asthma, all i could do was worry ! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to gre

>> if you look at a lot of things-- every now and then i show my wife-- we were reading in the berkshires a few days ago, and i said, look, there's this, there's that, there's that. all these have in a repertoire of a very creative mind that took-- 100 years ago the industry was aloning how to make an english muffin from the chef. they made an oil cook frea chef from england. the fig newton is another recipe. over these years, the industry perfected recipes like this on large volumes of scale. now, pern is one of the geniuses that have taken a lot of what they have done, but some thug are very althy. lethicin is in all the health food stores-- it's an emulsifier-- and put it in a chef's kitchen. there's a lot of good things-- i admire him. i tell people that he is like beethoven in a way. he's creating the instruments o which other chefs can play their own music. and he's leaving that behind. so he created a lot of new techniques. that he-- and he's extremely sharing and generous-- that other chefs can express themselves through, possibly this a different way. but he's leaving that in our

torrential rains rising in rivers on the east slopes berkshirs, the possibility of record flooding at multiple locations, seek higher ground immediately if you live near a small stream. now that is for this entire big red zone, the flash flood warnings all the way from maine not really along the coast where it didn't rain very much but here through the berkshires and add dirn aks and in the poconos. s it is still raining in most parts. the national guard was called to get people off their roofs. it is raining so hard and there's been a foot of rain this august already and another foot of rain from this storm that it has too run off. it has nowhere to go. it's going to be a life threatening event for everyone from parts of maine all the way back to pennsylvania. you can have a good time in new york city but not having a good time up here where it's raining so hard still. >> let me jump in it's an important point to make. the issue on the upper part of the east coast in pennsylvania and also in new jersey, that i have seen so much rainfall that the ground is so saturated that the water

they are getting a nice pop thanks to berkshire hathaway. up 13%.ll, the dow down 114 points. struggling to shake off a rise in the weekly jobless claims. kyra. >> also with reports to the housing market. the white house may take steps to help struggling homeowners? >> the obama administration is considering proposals to help homeowners and try to stimulate the economy. one proposal would allow millions with government-backed loans to refinance them at current loan mortgage rates which are around 4%. there are estimates it could save $85 billion a year. the new york times said the administration is renting out the foreclosed properties to keep the homes from flooding the market even more. as you can imagine, the president is trying to do everything possible to get americans out buying homes again and keep them in their homes. there are critics that are fearful that the mass refinancings could make borrowing more expensive. they are claiming they don't address the real problem. the homes are worth less than the mortgages. >> alison kosik, thank you s

have the companies that are are being judged paying the bill and they can live around being a big berkshire the mr buffett also pointed out the market requires it because these ratings agencies has been around forever so they're in shrine by government regulations which oh yeah they have a stake in test for objectivity don frank legislation the financial reform has restrictions on rating agencies and the rules that are yet to be written and they carry huge deal about what those rules end up looking like saw it wouldn't surprise me if they were trying to curry favor with politicians in fact they spent a combined total of one point seven six million dollars this year lobbying washington over the regulations which brings us full circle to the downgrade of u.s. credit the u.s. was downgraded by s. and p. because of government debt per member of the government ran up that debt in part because they bailed out the big banks and a.i.g. back in two thousand and eight remember the one saddled with all of those bad mortgage bonds which the ratings agencies graded triple a when in reality they were a d

. >>> shares of bank of america are soaring after berkshire hathaway invested $5 billion. he said he considers b of a a strong company with good leadership. bank of america stock jumped 24% at the opening bell. right now it is up 18%. >>> at this hour, the threat of hurricane irene is forcing the u.s. navy to move ships in virginia further out to sea. irene is over the northwestern section of the bahamas. it has already destroyed 90% of the homes and two settlements. it as a new report that indicates eye reason has caused -- irene has caused $3 billion. irene will get to a category four with winds reaching 130 miles an hour. >>> voluntary evacuations are on the out are banks ahead of hurricane irene. we'll have more on how the entire east coast is bracing for hurricane irene. >>> police in fairfield want your help this morning in identifying a graffiti vandal. take a look at this surveillance photo. it shows the young man commercializing a building in the cordelia area. a previous image appears to sheet same young man. it's believed he's a juvenile. other images show him r