Battered Pacific Gas and Electric stock, fresh off an all-time low, continued to hemorrhage Monday as the Kincade Fire raged in Northern California.
Shares plunged another 30 percent to a low of $3.55 before recovering some ground. On Friday, the stock closed at $5.00, then its lowest-ever price.
At a news conference Saturday, Gov. Gavin Newsom encouraged billionaire investor Warren Buffett to buy the troubled utility, which has been linked to the 60,000-plus-acre fire burning in Sonoma County. The fire originated near a company transmission tower that experienced a malfunction.
Newsom wants Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate to make a bid for PG&E, but Buffett has so far been silent about the proposal.
Never try to catch a falling knife is Wall Street cliche that warns against buying a stock which is dropping sharply, so it’s not surprising that Buffett might find PG&E a less than appealing target.
In April, Buffett shot down a Bloomberg report that Berkshire Hathaway was in talks to acquire the company, calling it “100% not true.”
www.sfgate.com/business/article/PG-E-shares-crater-again-Newsom-asks-Buffett-to-14568614.php