Author Archives: 1investor

Thinking of Buying Foreign Stocks? Here’s How Canadians Can Do It

Last week [link to May 30] I talked about Berkshire Hathaway’s (NYSE: BRK.B) investment in five big Japanese trading companies. Doing deep due diligence on them turned out to be too complicated for me – but that doesn’t mean you can’t explore investing in them yourself.

If you’re thinking about picking up shares of one of the Japanese companies Buffett invested in – nice! 😊 But you’ll quickly notice something odd: they’re listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), and also on something called the OTC Markets (OTCM) in the US. (For this section, TSE refers to the Tokyo Stock Exchange – not Toronto.)

So, what’s the difference? And what makes the most sense for investors like us in Canada (or the US)?

Buffett Goes to Japan: Why Berkshire Bought Into 5 Giant Trading Companies

A few years back, Warren Buffett made headlines – not by adding more Apple (NASD: AAPL) or Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) to Berkshire Hathaway’s (NYSE: BRK.B) portfolio, but by putting billions into five Japanese companies most people outside Japan had barely heard of. These weren’t flashy tech stocks or hot new startups. They were century-old industrial titans known in Japan as sōgō shōsha – general trading companies that do a little bit of everything.

From metals and energy to food, finance, and even convenience stores, these trading houses are quietly woven into the fabric of the global economy. And Buffett, always a fan of strong cash flow and solid management, saw something special in them.

Let’s take a closer look at the five companies Berkshire invested in – and what made them attractive to Buffet.

Before the week even got started, markets got a bit of a jolt when credit ratings agency Moody’s downgraded the US credit rating from its highest level, Aaa, to one notch lower at Aa1 on Friday, May 16, 2025—after markets had already closed for the week. This was the first time in over a century the agency has lowered the US’s credit rating. Since the announcement came after the close, Monday was the first chance investors had to react.

This move also makes Moody’s the third and final major credit rating agency to downgrade the US from its top rating, following Fitch in 2023 and Standard & Poor’s back in 2011. It reflects growing concern over America’s rising government debt and the soaring cost of interest payments. According to Moody’s, the US now carries a much heavier debt load than countries still holding top-tier ratings. Only eleven nations currently retain Moody’s highest score – including Canada, Germany, and Australia. So this week, I thought we’d take a look at what credit ratings really mean – for countries, for companies, and for us as investors.