Current one: Buffett's 2017 Letter to Berkshire Shareholders

Whoever like to read his message, here is the link.

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2017ltr.pdf

Berkshire’s gain in net worth during 2017 was $65.3 billion !!!

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WB bought GM last year. You in?

No, not yet in GM.

Did you notice BRK owns “BYD Company Ltd”?

He bought BYD a long time ago. Did he increase stake?

He did not increase. You can see his changes/add/reduce here

https://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=Warren+Buffett

Interesting post about the investments…(Bond vs Stocks)

Buffett recounted that he and his counterpart in the bet, Protege Partners, funded the prize by each purchasing in 2007 $500,000 worth of zero-coupon bonds maturing in 10 years. Purchased at a little less than 64 cents on the dollar, they would deliver an implied return of 4.56% if held to maturity.

By November 2012, with around five years to go to maturity, the bonds were selling for 95.7% of their face value—an annual yield to maturity of just 0.88%, Buffett noted.

“Given that pathetic return, our bonds had become a dumb—a really dumb—investment compared to American equities. Over time, the S&P 500 SPX, +1.60% —which mirrors a huge cross-section of American business, appropriately weighted by market value—has earned far more than 10% annually on shareholders’ equity (net worth),” he wrote.

Meanwhile, in November 2012, the cash return on dividends on the S&P 500 was 2.5% annually, around triple the yield on the U.S. Treasury bond, Buffett said, with the dividend payments almost certain to grow and companies retaining earnings that would be used to expand operations and repurchase shares.

So in late 2012, Buffett and Protege agreed to sell the bonds and use the proceeds to buy 11,200 Berkshire “B” shares. As a result, Girls Inc. of Omaha, the charity picked by Buffett to be the beneficiary of the wager, got more than $2.2 million instead of the original $1 million. (In the event Berkshire shares went south, Buffett had pledged to make up the difference between the value of the holding and the original $1 million wager).

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??? You mean berkshire’s market cap gained $65.3 billion? There’s no such thing as “net worth” for a company…

Hell no.

You are not destined to be great like WB then. :smile:

Mr. Musk’s net worth will surpass WB’s soon enough :grin:

No worries for me… :rofl:

Power of compounding:

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That’s 50 years of time… I don’t know where I’ll be 50 years from now… hopefully not dead… :sweat_smile:

Then you better compound at 2x WB’s rate. Time to get rid of your losers…

Well… if WB also bought into a loser like GM, I can afford to keep a few losers around…

No,No,No…GM is not loser, they are revenue generating machines, 95% of WB stocks are dividend machines.

Look at GM’s stock chart the past 8 years. How does that compare to the S&P 500? How does that compare to a winner like Tsla? Good luck investing into it.

Just like you have faith in Elon, I have faith in WB…Of course, you see WB reduced his stake in GM last qtr !

Elon is like beautiful hollywood actress ! TSLA is running on his beauty, but not on fundamentals. WB is a fundamentals believer, dividend stock investor, he won’t vote for it :rofl:

Just read the letter. Good read. Required reading for all capitalists, even if you disagree with Buffett.

One RE related tidbit in the letter:

I have told you several times about HomeServices, our growing real estate brokerage operation. Berkshire backed into this business in 2000 when we acquired a majority interest in MidAmerican Energy (now named Berkshire Hathaway Energy). MidAmerican’s activities were then largely in the electric utility field, and I originally paid little attention to HomeServices.

But, year-by-year, the company added brokers and, by the end of 2016, HomeServices was the second-largest brokerage operation in the country – still ranking, though, far behind the leader, Realogy. In 2017, however, HomeServices’ growth exploded. We acquired the industry’s third-largest operator, Long and Foster; number 12, Houlihan Lawrence; and Gloria Nilson.

With those purchases we added 12,300 agents, raising our total to 40,950. HomeServices is now close to leading the country in home sales, having participated (including our three acquisitions pro-forma) in $127 billion of “sides” during 2017. To explain that term, there are two “sides” to every transaction; if we represent both buyer and seller, the dollar value of the transaction is counted twice.

Despite its recent acquisitions, HomeServices is on track to do only about 3% of the country’s home- brokerage business in 2018. That leaves 97% to go. Given sensible prices, we will keep adding brokers in this most fundamental of businesses.

Together with their ownership of Clayton Homes, which bought some other conventional home builders, WB is into RE in a very big way.

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Tell that to an investor who bought BRK in 1999 and sold in 2009.

How many are willing to be bag holders for 16 years? Apparently many did :slight_smile: if my small sample can be extended.