It’s a good idea to pay attention to what, arguably, the greatest investor of all time has to to say. The article has his annual investment letter. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
One of the longest running traditions in modern finance is that every year, one Saturday morning in late February, the world’s financial class – from professionals to mere amateurs – sit down as they have for the past 65 or so years – for an hour and read the latest Berkshire annual letter written by Warren Buffett in which the man seen by many as the world’s greatest investor wrote down his reflections, observations, aphorisms and other thoughts which are closely parsed and analyzed for insight into what he may do next, what he thinks of the current economy and market climate, or simply for insights into how to become a better investor. And with Buffett’s long-time investing partner, Charlie Munger, having recently passed away just shy of his 100th birthday and Buffett himself now 93, every such letter may well be the last, which is why – even though their informational content and signal-to-noise ratio has been severely diluted over the year – they are read just as obsessively as they were when Buffett was in his prime.
Which brings us to the latest Berkshire annual report and accompanying letter, which – at 16 pages close in at a good six pages more than last year’s edition – was somewhat of a downer as the Omaha billionaire is quick to warn Berkshire’s shareholders that his massive $900 billion conglomerate, whose share price just close at a new all time high, has “no possibility of eye-popping performance” in the years ahead, which is also why the company’s cash pile hit a new record high of $167.6 billion, as Buffett reiterated that there were very few deals that offer the kind of transformative impact past takeovers have had, such as its purchases of insurers Geico and National Indemnity or the BNSF railroad.
