In some years, the normalized gains will be small; at other times they will be material. “Rather, they work far more efficiently and thereby produce far more”, he wrote. His unparalleled fortune couldn’t buy what we now take for granted, whether the field is – to name just a few – transportation, entertainment, communication or medical services.
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For reference, of the 48 million brackets submitted to ESPN’s Tournament Challenge over the past six years, only one managed to get even the first round of 32 picks right.
“If there is something major, something that the Attorney General or the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation would be willing to sign and go to a judge on and say, ‘we need this information and we need it now, ‘ I would be willing to trust that official”, he said.
Buffett says the collapse in oil prices will be good overall for the American economy because consumers will have more money to spend. Berkshire is one of the world’s biggest property insurers and insurers against catastrophic risks but given insurance policies are written for one year and repriced upwards to reflect growing risks, climate change may actually increase the firm’s profitability.
He lost a little ground in the eighth year of his $1 million 10-year wager that an cheap plain stock index fund would outperform high-fee hedge funds.
Warren Buffett used his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway Inc., as a means to defend his company’s decisions in 2015.
Warren Buffett is bullish on America. But Buffett said shareholders also deserve the chance to observe the company’s top executives directly to make sure they haven’t “drifted off into la-la land”.
In a wide-ranging interview, Mr. Buffett also said Geico is in the midst of a “fairly elaborate experiment” using International Business Machine Corp.’s ( IBM ) Watson software.
“We bought a preferred [stock] that we liked, and we did not buy the common, and we have not bought the common ever since”.
I remain a fully committed equities man, guided by Buffett’s wisdom and unassuming investment blueprint; focusing on businesses that ceaselessly improve their earnings power on a per-share basis.
He said Berkshire’s businesses will adapt just as the company did when its original Berkshire Hathaway textile operation failed.
Last year, Berkshire increased its ownership in each of its “Big Four” investments – American Express, Coca-Cola, IBM and Wells Fargo.
As Buffett concluded: “It’s better to have a partial interest in the Hope Diamond than to own all of a rhinestone”.
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“The country will grow in value over time”, he said.
