Finance

Berkshire employee wins $1 million in Warren Buffett’s March Madness bracket challenge

Published

1 day ago

March 24, 2025

Cooper Flagg #2 of the Duke Blue Devils moves the ball against the Baylor Bears during the second round of the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament held at Lenovo Center on March 23, 2025 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Grant Halverson | NCAA Photos | Getty Images

For the first time in nearly 10 years, a Berkshire Hathaway employee claimed Warren Buffett’s $1 million grand prize for his company’s NCAA bracket contest.

An anonymous employee from aviation training company FlightSafety International, a subsidiary of Buffett’s Berkshire, won the annual internal bracket contest after correctly calling 31 of the 32 games in the first round of the men’s basketball tournament dubbed March Madness, according to a statement.

The 94-year-old Oracle of Omaha was finally able to give out the big prize after relaxing the rules multiple times since the competition’s inception in 2016. Originally, Buffett, a Creighton basketball fan, set out to award anyone who could perfectly predict the Sweet Sixteen.

Then in 2024, after the $1 million jackpot remained unclaimed, participants were given the advantage of waiving the results of the eight games among the No.1 and No. 2 seeds. Still, nobody cracked the code.

This year, the rules were changed again so anyone who picks the winners of at least 30 of the tournament’s 32 first-round games would be eligible to win the prize.

In fact, 12 Berkshire employees guessed 31 of the 32 first-round games correctly. The $1 million prize went to the person from that group that picked 29 games consecutively before a loss. That winner went on to pick 44 of the 45 games correctly.

The other 11 contestants are getting $100,000 each.

Finance

GameStop says it will add bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset

Published

2 hours ago

March 25, 2025

Business Finance News

A general view of the GameStop logo on one of its stores in the city center of Cologne, Germany.

Ying Tang | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Video game retailer GameStop announced Tuesday its board has unanimously approved a plan to add Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset.

The meme stock jumped more than 6% in extended trading following the news. The announcement confirmed CNBC’s reporting in February on GameStop’s intention to invest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to its balance sheet.

GameStop would be following in the footsteps of Strategy, which has bought billions of dollars worth of bitcoin in recent years and transformed from a software stock to a bitcoin holding vehicle. The decision helped fuel a rapid, if volatile, rise for Strategy’s stock.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

Finance

How much Capital One’s stock would be worth post-Discover deal, per an analyst

Published

5 hours ago

March 25, 2025

Business Finance News

How much would Capital One’s stock be worth if it completes its blockbuster merger of Discover Financial Services ? The answer, according to one Wall Street firm, is a whole lot more. The news In a Tuesday note, BTIG analysts said they believe shares of Capital One would be worth $427 apiece if the Discover deal is completed — implying eye-popping upside of more than 137% from Monday’s close. The analysts upgraded the stock to a buy rating from hold in the same note. “We see significant earnings power as Capital One fully utilizes Discover’s network to take market share in the prime transactor credit card space,” the analysts wrote. “It has long been a [Discover] investor bull case that Discover has an unpolished diamond in its payments network,” and Capital One’s technology capabilities could help the network better compete against rival operators Visa and Mastercard, the analysts argued. BTIG is upbeat on Capital One’s stock even if the merger, which is awaiting approval from a pair of financial regulators, does not go through. The firm’s price target of $208 a share values the company on a standalone basis and implies about 15% upside from Monday’s close. The primary reason that BTIG still likes Capital One, even on its own, is all the excess capital that the firm has built up since the $35 billion acquisition was announced in February 2024. That could enable Capital One to repurchase $25 billion in stock over the next three years instead, equivalent to 12% of the company, analysts predicted, providing a major lift to earnings per share. Analysts also said that while Capital One is not totally immune to a weakening consumer, its decision to tighten underwriting standards a few years ago was smart and improves its competitive positioning against the likes of American Express and Ally Financial . Shares of Capital One are up nearly 1% Tuesday. COF YTD mountain Capital One Financial (COF) year-to-date performance Big picture BTIG’s optimistic call arrives roughly a week after Capital One’s stock fell in response to an unconfirmed report about the Justice Department’s thinking on the Capital One-Discover merger. The report specifically said the DOJ is concerned about the combined entity’s concentration in the subprime credit cart market. In response, a Capital One spokesperson told CNBC that the deal remains “well-positioned to gain approval” and meets all legal requirements. Citi, KBW and Jefferies all came to the stock’s defense last week, with analysts at each firm still expecting the deal to be completed. Capital One shares have rebounded from that initial sell-off on March 17 and traded above $182 apiece Tuesday — up nearly 6% since March 14, outperforming both the S & P 500 overall and the financial sector in that stretch. The antirust discussion also comes against the backdrop of a legal battle between Capital One and President Donald Trump’s family business. The Trump Organization filed a lawsuit against the credit card lender on March 7, alleging that Capital One violated consumer protections laws by closing its accounts in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Capital One has said it does not close customer accounts for political reasons. Bottom line We’re quite bullish on Capital One — even if we haven’t thrown out an estimate of what the stock would be worth post-Discover like BTIG has with its $427 figure. Our current price target of $210 a share is pretty close to the firm’s standalone target. The pending Discover deal is a major reason why we first initiated a position in Capital One earlier this month. If completed, Capital One will be able to shift some of its transactions onto Discover’s payments network, reducing what it has to pay out in fees to Mastercard and Visa . “We tell people to hold on with this one,” Jim Cramer said during Tuesday’s Morning Meeting . While it’s encouraging to see BTIG’s positivity on Capital One even as a standalone player, our belief remains that the Discover acquisition will go through. Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank will do whatever it takes to appease regulators if there are, in fact, antitrust concerns. One compromise could include a possible sale of Discover’s subprime portfolio. “They could sell a piece of that business, and because the deal is still so accretive, it just makes sense to do what you can to get the deal to go through,” said Jeff Marks, the Investing Club’s director of portfolio analysis. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long COF. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

Screens display the logos and trading information for Capital One Financial and Discover Financial as traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange on Feb. 20, 2024.

Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters