Berkshire CEO Greg Abel sworn in as U.S. citizen at baseball game

LivestreamMenuMake ItselectUSAINTLLivestreamSearch quotes, news & videosLivestreamWatchlistSIGN INCreate free accountMarketsBusinessInvestingTechPoliticsVideoWatchlistInvesting ClubPROLivestreamMenu (This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.) Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel is now a citizen of the United States. Abel, a longtime Iowa resident who was born in the Canadian city of Edmonton in 1962, was among the roughly two dozen people from 16 countries who participated in an annual naturalization ceremony hosted by the Iowa Cubs Thursday night in Des Moines, before the AAA minor league baseball team played the Buffalo Bisons. In an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick during the lunch break of last month's Berkshire annual meeting, Warren Buffett revealed Abel would be getting his American citizenship "very soon" and "as successful as he's been in everything else ... it means something to him to become an American citizen." "You can't buy that anyplace — (laughs) — or package it, you know?" Abel has an estimated net worth of around $1 billion and runs a company valued at more than $1 trillion, but he generally maintains a low profile in public and his role as Berkshire's CEO was not highlighted at the event, even as he threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the game. The report by NBC affiliate WHO-TV says only that "Greg Abel, a former Canadian citizen" threw the first pitch and "the ball went home with him, a nice souvenir from his first day as an American." It was the 18th annual naturalization ceremony organized by the team, with 533 new citizens sworn in. The team says another 5,000 candidates have become citizens at other non-game day ceremonies at the ballpark over the past six years. Iowa Cubs General Manager Randy Wehofer told WHO many of the new citizens have "worked really hard, they've sacrificed a lot [and taken] a big risk to leave their home, to chase the American dream that many of us were born into, but not all. And so I think we can identify with that even if it's not our story. It's the American story." The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a price-weighted index, a relic of its creation in 1896 when it was calculated without the help of modern computers. Unlike the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite, which are capitalization-weighted indexes, stocks with higher stock prices have more influence in its calculation than lower-priced stocks. For all these years, that kept Berkshire Hathaway out of the Dow. Warren Buffett's aversion to stock splits meant its stock price, especially for the A shares, which are currently worth more than $745,000 each, would have overwhelmed the other 29 stocks, making it, in effect, just a Berkshire index. Even the lower-priced B shares, now at $499, used to have a much higher price than the typical Dow stock. In the past decade or so, however, we've seen fewer stock splits as "round lot" trading declined amid the reduction or elimination of commissions and as fractional shares became widely available. As a result, the median Dow stock price is around $244, with the highest-priced component, Goldman Sachs, trading for a once-unthinkable $1020 per share. On Monday, Google parent Alphabet, with a $337 stock price, will replace Verizon Communications and its $47 stock because, S&P Dow Jones Indices says, "Persistently lower-priced stocks have an immaterial impact on the index." That has Andrew Bary at Barron's thinking Nike, and its $41 shares, could be next to go. And while he acknowledges it's hard to predict what company will be added, he thinks Berkshire and its $1 trillion market cap would be a "worthwhile addition," noting "it would be fitting to add the conglomerate while its chairman and controlling shareholder Warren Buffett, 95, is still alive." A "hitch" is Goldman's 13% weighting means the Dow is already "heavy in financial stocks," and Berkshire is classified as a financial company. And while Berkshire's $499 B shares are in the Dow's ballpark, there are still roughly twice the index's median price, and would be larger than every other Dow 30 stock except for Goldman and Caterpillar ($997). Warren Buffett says it's love, not money, that makes you a success. He shares his secret for making sure you never run out of it. AUDIENCE MEMBER: How do you define success and happiness? Are they related? And how would one achieve that? WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I tell college students that when you get to be my age, you will be successful if the people that you would hope to have love you, do love you. I mean, you — if — Charlie and I know a few people that have got a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners, and they get their names on buildings, and the truth is, nobody loves them. And you know, not their family, not the people who name the buildings after them. You know, it's sad. And it's

Berkshire CEO Greg Abel sworn in as U.S. citizen at baseball game

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Berkshire CEO Greg Abel sworn in as U.S. citizen at baseball game

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