Berkshire Hathaway

7 Key Takeaways From Warren Buffett’s Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders
The Oracle of Omaha just released his much-anticipated letter. Here’s what he talked about.

Matthew Frankel (TMFMathGuy)
Feb 24, 2018 at 9:39AM

Warren Buffett just released the latest edition of his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE:BRK-A) (NYSE:BRK-B) shareholders. Investors all over the world follow Warren Buffett's letters closely, as they aren't just filled with details about Berkshire's operations, but often have some useful investing lessons and wisdom drawn from Buffett's experience.

This year's letter was shorter than usual at just 16 pages, but wasn't short on information. Buffett simply chose not to include a lengthy discussion of Berkshire's non-insurance businesses, a practice that he feels is becoming repetitive. Here are seven key takeaways from the letter that Berkshire shareholders and Buffett followers need to know.

1. Berkshire's book value grew by 23%, but there's more to the story
2. Future "earnings" numbers may be deceiving
3. A growing cash "problem", and no good solutions (yet)
4. Why Buffett loves the insurance business
5. Berkshire's stock price has crashed before, and will probably do so again
6. Ted and Todd now manage $25 billion of Berkshire's investments
7. No big surprises

More details in https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/2...o-ber.aspx

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought stunning 75 million Apple shares in first quarter

Becky Quick
May 4, 2018

Wall Street may have had doubts about Apple before the company reported its most recent quarterly earnings, but one of the tech company's biggest shareholders — Warren Buffett — didn't.

In the first quarter, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought an astounding 75 million shares of Apple. That adds to the 165.3 million shares Berkshire already owned at the end of 2017.

"It is an unbelievable company," Buffett says. "If you look at Apple, I think it earns almost twice as much as the second most profitable company in the United States."

More details in https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/03/buffetts...arter.html

Berkshire doubles Teva stake, adds to Apple, ends a newspaper bet

Jonathan Stempel
May 16, 2018

(Reuters) - Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) on Tuesday said it has more than doubled its investment in generic drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (TEVA.TA), and confirmed it has become Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) second-largest shareholder.

Berkshire also shed an investment dating to the mid-1970s that reflected Buffett’s longstanding love for newspapers, selling its stake in Graham Holdings Co (GHC.N), the former publisher of the Washington Post.

The changes were disclosed in a regulatory filing detailing Berkshire’s U.S.-listed stock holdings as of March 31.

Berkshire owned about $173 billion of equities, as well as dozens of businesses in the railroad, insurance, energy, chemical, food and retail and other sectors.

Berkshire said it owned about 40.5 million Teva American depositary receipts (ADRs) worth about $693 million as of that date, up from 18.9 million ADRs three months earlier.

More details in https://www.reuters.com/article/us-inves...SKCN1IG36Y

one of my fav parts of this year's annual berkshire meeting is this:
"“The four largest companies by market value don’t need any net tangible assets. They’re not like
AT&T, GM or ExxonMobil requiring lots of capital to produce earnings. American industry is much
more profitable in aggregate over the last twenty years. Earnings on tangible net worth growth is due
to fact that we have become an asset-light economy. We will earn even more with lower taxes.
Carnegie built a steel mill and paid it off and then built another and so on. All enormously were
capital intensive, and now money is in asset light and negative asset business. IBM has a minus
tangible net worth – this is not the world we lived in thirty years ago, and I didn’t see it coming."

Transcript: https://www.valuewalk.com/wp-content/upl...5-2018.pdf

many of the most valuable companies today have very little tangible assets (e.g. air bnb, uber, FANGS etc.). has the world changed or simply getting ahead of itself?

(21-05-2018, 01:05 PM)BRT Wrote: ..

many of the most valuable companies today have very little tangible assets (e.g. air bnb, uber, FANGS etc.). has the world changed or simply getting ahead of itself?

What do you mean by "getting ahead of itself" in this context? I mean, Buffett's comment was not so much about valuation, but how the nature of many top businesses in America has changed today.

perhaps, overestimating the ability to make profits on little/no hard assets. i think his comments are at least a little bit related to valuation. a top biz or large mkt cap biz are at some level considered very valuable to some people, and may well deserve to be so.

Hi, May I know what brokerage firm do u guys use to hold Berkshire ? And why?

(21-05-2018, 05:26 PM)Wildreamz Wrote:

(21-05-2018, 01:05 PM)BRT Wrote: ..

many of the most valuable companies today have very little tangible assets (e.g. air bnb, uber, FANGS etc.). has the world changed or simply getting ahead of itself?

What do you mean by "getting ahead of itself" in this context? I mean, Buffett's comment was not so much about valuation, but how the nature of many top businesses in America has changed today.

 Doesn’t need much capital for Facebook and Google but not the same for Airbnb and Uber. For the later, providers of capital merely shifted. Cars and rooms are still needed, just not by them. Not all the same actually. 

It is true on the less capital or asset light new businesses but the world doesn’t work without the current hard assets.

(08-07-2018, 03:47 AM)Terry Wrote: Hi, May I know what brokerage firm do u guys use to hold Berkshire ? And why?

I use iocbc. No special reason, more like it is a local bank that wont fall, hopefully it wont fall for the next 20,30 years haha. Because it is going to hold your scrips for your foreign counters. So it is very important that the brokerage is very reliable. Generally i think our 3 local banks are fine,i.e. uob kay hian or even dbs vickers. There is a monthly $2 service charge though for each foreign counter you hold, but i am ok with paying some fees

thanks!

btw how do you guys see if a berkshire doing share buyback?

i tried to source for 2009 and 2000 share buy back in www.sec.gov also can't find.