Warren Buffett
The world’s most famous investor lays out his basic principles in this year’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.
Every few years, critics say Warren Buffett has lost his touch. He’s too old and too old-fashioned, they claim. He doesn’t get it anymore. This time he’s wrong.
It happened during the dot-com bubble, when Buffett was mocked for refusing to join the party. And it happened again last year. As the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) tumbled below 7,000, Buffett came under fire for having jumped into the crisis too early and too boldly, making big bets on Goldman Sachs (GS, news, msgs) and General Electric (GE, news, msgs) during the fall of 2008, and urging the public to plunge into shares.
Now it’s time for those critics to sit down for their traditional three-course meal: humble pie, their own words and crow.
On Saturday, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, news, msgs) reported that net earnings rocketed 61% last year to $5,193 per share, while book value jumped 20% to a record high. Berkshire’s Class A shares, which slumped to nearly $70,000 last year, have rebounded to $120,000.
