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2022-02-26

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Buffett Full Annual Letter：Apple is One of ‘Four Giants’ Driving the Conglomerate’s Value

2022-03-26

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@Thomas Chua:How Warren Buffett Uses Options

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Chua","avatar":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/ab38b543b0aa3966844ee05dc256e2c6","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"3573698655176134","authorIdStr":"3573698655176134"},"themes":[],"title":"How Warren Buffett Uses Options","htmlText":"“Indeed, at Berkshire, I sometimes engage in large-scale derivatives transactions in order to facilitate certain investment strategies.” Warren Buffett That’s right, Warren Buffett is a big user of these weapons of mass destruction. Jest aside, options can be a great tool to complement investing when used appropriately. Buffett’s Thoughts on Options In Berkshire’s 2008 and 2010 annual letter, after highlighting the dangers of derivatives, Buffett explained in detail why he uses options to generate float for investing: “Both Charlie and I believe that Black-Scholes produces wildly inappropriate values when applied to long-dated options.We put our money where our mouth was by entering into our equity put contracts. By doing so, we implicitly asserted that the Black-Scholes calculations use","listText":"“Indeed, at Berkshire, I sometimes engage in large-scale derivatives transactions in order to facilitate certain investment strategies.” Warren Buffett That’s right, Warren Buffett is a big user of these weapons of mass destruction. Jest aside, options can be a great tool to complement investing when used appropriately. Buffett’s Thoughts on Options In Berkshire’s 2008 and 2010 annual letter, after highlighting the dangers of derivatives, Buffett explained in detail why he uses options to generate float for investing: “Both Charlie and I believe that Black-Scholes produces wildly inappropriate values when applied to long-dated options.We put our money where our mouth was by entering into our equity put contracts. By doing so, we implicitly asserted that the Black-Scholes calculations use","text":"“Indeed, at Berkshire, I sometimes engage in large-scale derivatives transactions in order to facilitate certain investment strategies.” Warren Buffett That’s right, Warren Buffett is a big user of these weapons of mass destruction. Jest aside, options can be a great tool to complement investing when used appropriately. Buffett’s Thoughts on Options In Berkshire’s 2008 and 2010 annual letter, after highlighting the dangers of derivatives, Buffett explained in detail why he uses options to generate float for investing: “Both Charlie and I believe that Black-Scholes produces wildly inappropriate values when applied to long-dated options.We put our money where our mouth was by entering into our equity put contracts. By doing so, we implicitly asserted that the Black-Scholes calculations use","images":[{"img":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/46df49751705e181d2546999ab34657a","width":"-1","height":"-1"}],"top":1,"highlighted":2,"essential":2,"paper":2,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9010031378","isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":0,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":1,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":583,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":9039980605,"gmtCreate":1645882375224,"gmtModify":1676534072296,"author":{"id":"4094035207038280","authorId":"4094035207038280","name":"Jimtrade","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/18b3b901678b1e74f18040911759d917","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"4094035207038280","authorIdStr":"4094035207038280"},"themes":[],"htmlText":".","listText":".","text":".","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9039980605","repostId":"1125580913","repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1125580913","weMediaInfo":{"introduction":"Providing stock market headlines, business news, financials and earnings ","home_visible":1,"media_name":"Tiger Newspress","id":"1079075236","head_image":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8274c5b9d4c2852bfb1c4d6ce16c68ba"},"pubTimestamp":1645926503,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1125580913?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2022-02-27 09:48","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Buffett Full Annual Letter：Apple is One of ‘Four Giants’ Driving the Conglomerate’s Value","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1125580913","media":"Tiger Newspress","summary":"Warren Buffett released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday. The 91-yea","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Warren Buffett released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday. The 91-year-old investing legend has been publishing the letter for over six decades and it has become required reading for investors around the world.</p><p>Warren Buffett said he now considers tech giant Apple as one of the four pillars driving Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate of mostly old-economy businesses he’s assembled over the last five decades.</p><p>In his annual letter to shareholders released on Saturday, the 91-year-old investing legend listed Apple under the heading “Our Four Giants” and even called the company the second-most important after Berkshire’s cluster of insurers, thanks to its chief executive.</p><p>“Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well,” the letter stated.</p><p>Buffett made clear he is a fan of Cook’s stock repurchase strategy, and how it gives the conglomerate increased ownership of each dollar of the iPhone maker’s earnings without the investor having to lift a finger.</p><p>“Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier,” Buffett said in the letter. “That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.”</p><p>Berkshire began buying Apple stock in 2016 under the influence of Buffett’s investing deputies Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. By mid-2018, the conglomerate accumulated 5% ownership of the iPhone maker, a stake that cost $36 billion. Today, the Apple investment is now worth more than $160 billion, taking up 40% of Berkshire’s equity portfolio.</p><p>“It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our ‘share’ of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud,” Buffett said.</p><p>Berkshire is Apple’s largest shareholder, outside of index and exchange-traded fund providers.</p><p>Buffett also credited his railroad business BNSF and energy segment BHE as two other giants of the conglomerate, which both registered record earnings in 2021.</p><p>“BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire,” Buffett said. “BHE has become a utility powerhouse and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.”</p><p><b>Read the full letter here：</b></p><p>To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:</p><p>Charlie Munger, my long-time partner, and I have the job of managing a portion of your savings. We are honored by your trust.</p><p>Our position carries with it the responsibility to report to you what we would like to know if we were the absentee owner and you were the manager. We enjoy communicating directly with you through this annual letter, and through the annual meeting as well.</p><p>Our policy is to treat all shareholders equally. Therefore, we do not hold discussions with analysts nor large institutions. Whenever possible, also, we release important communications on Saturday mornings in order to maximize the time for shareholders and the media to absorb the news before markets open on Monday.</p><p>A wealth of Berkshire facts and figures are set forth in the annual 10-K that the company regularly files with the S.E.C. and that we reproduce on pages K-1 – K-119. Some shareholders will find this detail engrossing; others will simply prefer to learn what Charlie and I believe is new or interesting at Berkshire.</p><p>Alas, there was little action of that sort in 2021. We did, though, make reasonable progress in increasing the intrinsic value of your shares. That task has been my primary duty for 57 years. And it will continue to be.</p><p><b>What You Own</b></p><p>Berkshire owns a wide variety of businesses, some in their entirety, some only in part. The second group largely consists of marketable common stocks of major American companies. Additionally, we own a few non-U.S. equities and participate in several joint ventures or other collaborative activities.</p><p>Whatever our form of ownership, our goal is to have meaningful investments in businesses with both durable economic advantages and a first-class CEO. Please note particularly that we own stocks based upon our expectations about their long-term business performance and not because we view them as vehicles for timely market moves. That point is crucial: Charlie and I are not stock-pickers; we are business-pickers.</p><p>I make many mistakes. Consequently, our extensive collection of businesses includes some enterprises that have truly extraordinary economics, many others that enjoy good economic characteristics, and a few that are marginal. One advantage of our common-stock segment is that – on occasion – it becomes easy to buy pieces of wonderful businesses at wonderful prices. That shooting-fish-in-a-barrel experience is very rare in negotiated transactions and never occurs en masse. It is also far easier to exit from a mistake when it has been made in the marketable arena.</p><h2><b>Surprise, Surprise</b></h2><p>Here are a few items about your company that often surprise even seasoned investors:</p><p>• Many people perceive Berkshire as a large and somewhat strange collection of financial assets. In truth, Berkshire owns and operates more U.S.-based “infrastructure” assets – classified on our balance sheet as property, plant and equipment – than are owned and operated by any other American corporation. That supremacy has never been our goal. It has, however, become a fact.</p><p>At yearend, those domestic infrastructure assets were carried on Berkshire’s balance sheet at $158 billion. That number increased last year and will continue to increase. Berkshire always will be building.</p><p>• Every year, your company makes substantial federal income tax payments. In 2021, for example, we paid</p><p>$3.3 billion while the U.S. Treasury reported total corporate income-tax receipts of $402 billion. Additionally, Berkshire pays substantial state and foreign taxes. “I gave at the office” is an unassailable assertion when made by Berkshire shareholders.</p><p>Berkshire’s history vividly illustrates the invisible and often unrecognized financial partnership between  government and American businesses. Our tale begins early in 1955, when Berkshire Fine Spinning and Hathaway Manufacturing agreed to merge their businesses. In their requests for shareholder approval, these venerable New England textile companies expressed high hopes for the combination.</p><p></p><p>The Hathaway solicitation, for example, assured its shareholders that “The combination of the resources and managements will result in one of the strongest and most efficient organizations in the textile industry.” That upbeat view was endorsed by the company’s advisor, Lehman Brothers (yes, that Lehman Brothers).</p><p>I’m sure it was a joyous day in both Fall River (Berkshire) and New Bedford (Hathaway) when the union was consummated. After the bands stopped playing and the bankers went home, however, the shareholders reaped a disaster.</p><p>In the nine years following the merger, Berkshire’s owners watched the company’s net worth crater from</p><p>$51.4 million to $22.1 million. In part, this decline was caused by stock repurchases, ill-advised dividends and plant shutdowns. But nine years of effort by many thousands of employees delivered an operating loss as well. Berkshire’s struggles were not unusual: The New England textile industry had silently entered an extended and non-reversible death march.</p><p>During the nine post-merger years, the U.S. Treasury suffered as well from Berkshire’s troubles. All told, the company paid the government only $337,359 in income tax during that period – a pathetic $100 per day.</p><p>Early in 1965, things changed. Berkshire installed new management that redeployed available cash and steered essentially all earnings into a variety of good businesses, most of which remained good through the years. Coupling reinvestment of earnings with the power of compounding worked its magic, and shareholders prospered.</p><p>Berkshire’s owners, it should be noted, were not the only beneficiary of that course correction. Their “silent partner,” the U.S. Treasury, proceeded to collect many tens of billions of dollars from the company in income tax payments. Remember the $100 daily? Now, Berkshire pays roughly $9 million daily to the Treasury.</p><p>In fairness to our governmental partner, our shareholders should acknowledge – indeed trumpet – the fact that Berkshire’s prosperity has been fostered mightily because the company has operated in America. Our country would have done splendidly in the years since 1965 without Berkshire. Absent our American home, however, Berkshire would never have come close to becoming what it is today. When you see the flag, say thanks.</p><p>• From an $8.6 million purchase of National Indemnity in 1967, Berkshire has become the world leader in insurance “float” – money we hold and can invest but that does not belong to us. Including a relatively small sum derived from life insurance, Berkshire’s total float has grown from $19 million when we entered the insurance business to $147 billion.</p><p>So far, this float has cost us less than nothing. Though we have experienced a number of years when insurance losses combined with operating expenses exceeded premiums, overall we have earned a modest 55-year profit from the underwriting activities that generated our float.</p><p>Of equal importance, float is very sticky. Funds attributable to our insurance operations come and go daily, but their aggregate total is immune from precipitous decline. When it comes to investing float, we can therefore think long-term.</p><p>If you are not already familiar with the concept of float, I refer you to a long explanation on page A-5. To my surprise, our float increased $9 billion last year, a buildup of value that is important to Berkshire owners though is not reflected in our GAAP (“generally-accepted accounting principles”) presentation of earnings and net worth.</p><p>Much of our huge value creation in insurance is attributable to Berkshire’s good luck in my 1986 hiring of Ajit Jain. We first met on a Saturday morning, and I quickly asked Ajit what his insurance experience had been. He replied, “None.”</p><p>I said, “Nobody’s perfect,” and hired him. That was my lucky day: Ajit actually was as perfect a choice as could have been made. Better yet, he continues to be – 35 years later.</p><p>One final thought about insurance: I believe that it is likely – but far from assured – that Berkshire’s float can be maintained without our incurring a long-term underwriting loss. I am certain, however, that there will be some years when we experience such losses, perhaps involving very large sums.</p><p>Berkshire is constructed to handle catastrophic events as no other insurer – and that priority will remain long after Charlie and I are gone.</p><h2>Our Four Giants</h2><p>Through Berkshire, our shareholders own many dozens of businesses. Some of these, in turn, have a collection of subsidiaries of their own. For example, Marmon has more than 100 individual business operations, ranging from the leasing of railroad cars to the manufacture of medical devices.</p><p>• Nevertheless, operations of our “Big Four” companies account for a very large chunk of Berkshire’s value. Leading this list is our cluster of insurers. Berkshire effectively owns 100% of this group, whose massive float value we earlier described. The invested assets of these insurers are further enlarged by the extraordinary amount of capital we invest to back up their promises.</p><p>The insurance business is made to order for Berkshire. The product will never be obsolete, and sales volume will generally increase along with both economic growth and inflation. Also, integrity and capital will forever be important. Our company can and will behave well.</p><p>There are, of course, other insurers with excellent business models and prospects. Replication of Berkshire’s operation, however, would be almost impossible.</p><p>• Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier. That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.</p><p>It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our “share” of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud. Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well.</p><p>• BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire. If the many essential products BNSF carries were instead hauled by truck, America’s carbon emissions would soar.</p><p>Your railroad had record earnings of $6 billion in 2021. Here, it should be noted, we are talking about the old-fashioned sort of earnings that we favor: a figure calculated after interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and all forms of compensation. (Our definition suggests a warning: Deceptive “adjustments” to earnings – to use a polite description – have become both more frequent and more fanciful as stocks have risen. Speaking less politely, I would say that bull markets breed bloviated bull )</p><p>BNSF trains traveled 143 million miles last year and carried 535 million tons of cargo. Both accomplishments far exceed those of any other American carrier. You can be proud of your railroad.</p><p>• BHE, our final Giant, earned a record $4 billion in 2021. That’s up more than 30-fold from the $122 million earned in 2000, the year that Berkshire first purchased a BHE stake. Now, Berkshire owns 91.1% of the company.</p><p>BHE’s record of societal accomplishment is as remarkable as its financial performance. The company had no wind or solar generation in 2000. It was then regarded simply as a relatively new and minor participant in the huge electric utility industry. Subsequently, under David Sokol’s and Greg Abel’s leadership, BHE has become a utility powerhouse (no groaning, please) and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.</p><p>Greg’s report on these accomplishments appears on pages A-3 and A-4. The profile you will find there is not in any way one of those currently-fashionable “green-washing” stories. BHE has been faithfully detailing its plans and performance in renewables and transmissions every year since 2007.</p><p>To further review this information, visit BHE’s website at brkenergy.com. There, you will see that the company has long been making climate-conscious moves that soak up all of its earnings. More opportunities lie ahead. BHE has the management, the experience, the capital and the appetite for the huge power projects that our country needs.</p><h2>Investments</h2><p>Now let’s talk about companies we don’t control, a list that again references Apple. Below we list our fifteen largest equity holdings, several of which are selections of Berkshire’s two long-time investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. At yearend, this valued pair had total authority in respect to $34 billion of investments, many of which do not meet the threshold value we use in the table. Also, a significant portion of the dollars that Todd and Ted manage are lodged in various pension plans of Berkshire-owned businesses, with the assets of these plans not included in this table.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d43587e9f59c0ff76e6c04c6bf9af324\" tg-width=\"1047\" tg-height=\"530\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/>* This is our actual purchase price and also our tax basis.</p><p>** Held by BHE; consequently, Berkshire shareholders have only a 91.1% interest in this position.</p><p>*** Includes a $10 billion investment in Occidental Petroleum, consisting of preferred stock and warrants to buy common stock, a combination now being valued at $10.7 billion.</p><p>In addition to the footnoted Occidental holding and our various common-stock positions, Berkshire also owns a 26.6% interest in Kraft Heinz (accounted for on the “equity” method, not market value, and carried at $13.1 billion) and 38.6% of Pilot Corp., a leader in travel centers that had revenues last year of $45 billion.</p><p>Since we purchased our Pilot stake in 2017, this holding has warranted “equity” accounting treatment. Early in 2023, Berkshire will purchase an additional interest in Pilot that will raise our ownership to 80% and lead to our fully consolidating Pilot’s earnings, assets and liabilities in our financial statements.</p><h2>U.S. Treasury Bills</h2><p>Berkshire’s balance sheet includes $144 billion of cash and cash equivalents (excluding the holdings of BNSF and BHE). Of this sum, $120 billion is held in U.S. Treasury bills, all maturing in less than a year. That stake leaves Berkshire financing about 12 of 1% of the publicly-held national debt.</p><p>Charlie and I have pledged that Berkshire (along with our subsidiaries other than BNSF and BHE) will always hold more than $30 billion of cash and equivalents. We want your company to be financially impregnable and never dependent on the kindness of strangers (or even that of friends). Both of us like to sleep soundly, and we want our creditors, insurance claimants and you to do so as well.</p><h2>But $144 billion?</h2><p>That imposing sum, I assure you, is not some deranged expression of patriotism. Nor have Charlie and I lost our overwhelming preference for business ownership. Indeed, I first manifested my enthusiasm for that 80 years ago, on March 11, 1942, when I purchased three shares of Cities Services preferred stock. Their cost was $114.75 and required all of my savings. (The Dow Jones Industrial Average that day closed at 99, a fact that should scream to you: Never bet against America.)</p><p>After my initial plunge, I always kept at least 80% of my net worth in equities. My favored status throughout that period was 100% – and still is. Berkshire’s current 80%-or-so position in businesses is a consequence of my failure to find entire companies or small portions thereof (that is, marketable stocks) which meet our criteria for long- term holding.</p><p>Charlie and I have endured similar cash-heavy positions from time to time in the past. These periods are never pleasant; they are also never permanent. And, fortunately, we have had a mildly attractive alternative during 2020 and 2021 for deploying capital. Read on.</p><h2>Share Repurchases</h2><p>There are three ways that we can increase the value of your investment. The first is always front and center in our minds: Increase the long-term earning power of Berkshire’s controlled businesses through internal growth or by making acquisitions. Today, internal opportunities deliver far better returns than acquisitions. The size of those opportunities, however, is small compared to Berkshire’s resources.</p><p>Our second choice is to buy non-controlling part-interests in the many good or great businesses that are publicly traded. From time to time, such possibilities are both numerous and blatantly attractive. Today, though, we find little that excites us.</p><p>That’s largely because of a truism: Long-term interest rates that are low push the prices of all productive investments upward, whether these are stocks, apartments, farms, oil wells, whatever. Other factors influence valuations as well, but interest rates will always be important.</p><p>Our final path to value creation is to repurchase Berkshire shares. Through that simple act, we increase your share of the many controlled and non-controlled businesses Berkshire owns. When the price/value equation is right, this path is the easiest and most certain way for us to increase your wealth. (Alongside the accretion of value to continuing shareholders, a couple of other parties gain: Repurchases are modestly beneficial to the seller of the repurchased shares and to society as well.)</p><p>Periodically, as alternative paths become unattractive, repurchases make good sense for Berkshire’s owners. During the past two years, we therefore repurchased 9% of the shares that were outstanding at yearend 2019 for a total cost of $51.7 billion. That expenditure left our continuing shareholders owning about 10% more of all Berkshire businesses, whether these are wholly-owned (such as BNSF and GEICO) or partly-owned (such as Coca-Cola and Moody’s).</p><p>I want to underscore that for Berkshire repurchases to make sense, our shares must offer appropriate value. We don’t want to overpay for the shares of other companies, and it would be value-destroying if we were to overpay when we are buying Berkshire. As of February 23, 2022, since yearend we repurchased additional shares at a cost of $1.2 billion. Our appetite remains large but will always remain price-dependent.</p><p>It should be noted that Berkshire’s buyback opportunities are limited because of its high-class investor base. If our shares were heavily held by short-term speculators, both price volatility and transaction volumes would materially increase. That kind of reshaping would offer us far greater opportunities for creating value by making repurchases. Nevertheless, Charlie and I far prefer the owners we have, even though their admirable buy-and-keep attitudes limit the extent to which long-term shareholders can profit from opportunistic repurchases.</p><p>Finally, one easily-overlooked value calculation specific to Berkshire: As we’ve discussed, insurance “float” of the right sort is of great value to us. As it happens, repurchases automatically increase the amount of “float” per share. That figure has increased during the past two years by 25% – going from $79,387 per “A” share to $99,497, a meaningful gain that, as noted, owes some thanks to repurchases.</p><h2>A Wonderful Man and a Wonderful Business</h2><p>Last year, Paul Andrews died. Paul was the founder and CEO of TTI, a Fort Worth-based subsidiary of Berkshire. Throughout his life – in both his business and his personal pursuits – Paul quietly displayed all the qualities that Charlie and I admire. His story should be told.</p><p>In 1971, Paul was working as a purchasing agent for General Dynamics when the roof fell in. After losing a huge defense contract, the company fired thousands of employees, including Paul.</p><p>With his first child due soon, Paul decided to bet on himself, using $500 of his savings to found Tex-Tronics (later renamed TTI). The company set itself up to distribute small electronic components, and first-year sales totaled $112,000. Today, TTI markets more than one million different items with annual volume of $7.7 billion.</p><p>But back to 2006: Paul, at 63, then found himself happy with his family, his job, and his associates. But he had one nagging worry, heightened because he had recently witnessed a friend’s early death and the disastrous results that followed for that man’s family and business. What, Paul asked himself in 2006, would happen to the many people depending on him if he should unexpectedly die?</p><p>For a year, Paul wrestled with his options. Sell to a competitor? From a strictly economic viewpoint, that course made the most sense. After all, competitors could envision lucrative “synergies” – savings that would be achieved as the acquiror slashed duplicated functions at TTI.</p><p>But . . . Such a purchaser would most certainly also retain its CFO, its legal counsel, its HR unit. Their TTI counterparts would therefore be sent packing. And ugh! If a new distribution center were to be needed, the acquirer’s home city would certainly be favored over Fort Worth.</p><p>Whatever the financial benefits, Paul quickly concluded that selling to a competitor was not for him. He next considered seeking a financial buyer, a species once labeled – aptly so – a leveraged buyout firm. Paul knew, however, that such a purchaser would be focused on an “exit strategy.” And who could know what that would be? Brooding over it all, Paul found himself having no interest in handing his 35-year-old creation over to a reseller.</p><p>When Paul met me, he explained why he had eliminated these two alternatives as buyers. He then summed up his dilemma by saying – in far more tactful phrasing than this – “After a year of pondering the alternatives, I want to sell to Berkshire because you are the only guy left.” So, I made an offer and Paul said “Yes.” One meeting; one lunch; one deal.</p><p>To say we both lived happily ever after is an understatement. When Berkshire purchased TTI, the company employed 2,387. Now the number is 8,043. A large percentage of that growth took place in Fort Worth and environs. Earnings have increased 673%.</p><p>Annually, I would call Paul and tell him his salary should be substantially increased. Annually, he would tell me, “We can talk about that next year, Warren; I’m too busy now.”</p><p>When Greg Abel and I attended Paul’s memorial service, we met children, grandchildren, long-time associates (including TTI’s first employee) and John Roach, the former CEO of a Fort Worth company Berkshire had purchased in 2000. John had steered his friend Paul to Omaha, instinctively knowing we would be a match.</p><p>At the service, Greg and I heard about the multitudes of people and organizations that Paul had silently supported. The breadth of his generosity was extraordinary – geared always to improving the lives of others, particularly those in Fort Worth.</p><p>In all ways, Paul was a class act.</p><p>* * * * * * * * * * * *</p><p>Good luck – occasionally extraordinary luck – has played its part at Berkshire. If Paul and I had not enjoyed a mutual friend – John Roach – TTI would not have found its home with us. But that ample serving of luck was only the beginning. TTI was soon to lead Berkshire to its most important acquisition.</p><p>Every fall, Berkshire directors gather for a presentation by a few of our executives. We sometimes choose the site based upon the location of a recent acquisition, by that means allowing directors to meet the new subsidiary’s CEO and learn more about the acquiree’s activities.</p><p>In the fall of 2009, we consequently selected Fort Worth so that we could visit TTI. At that time, BNSF, which also had Fort Worth as its hometown, was the third-largest holding among our marketable equities. Despite that large stake, I had never visited the railroad’s headquarters.</p><p>Deb Bosanek, my assistant, scheduled our board’s opening dinner for October 22. Meanwhile, I arranged to arrive earlier that day to meet with Matt Rose, CEO of BNSF, whose accomplishments I had long admired. When I made the date, I had no idea that our get-together would coincide with BNSF’s third-quarter earnings report, which was released late on the 22nd.</p><p>The market reacted badly to the railroad’s results. The Great Recession was in full force in the third quarter, and BNSF’s earnings reflected that slump. The economic outlook was also bleak, and Wall Street wasn’t feeling friendly to railroads – or much else.</p><p>On the following day, I again got together with Matt and suggested that Berkshire would offer the railroad a better long-term home than it could expect as a public company. I also told him the maximum price that Berkshire would pay.</p><p>Matt relayed the offer to his directors and advisors. Eleven busy days later, Berkshire and BNSF announced a firm deal. And here I’ll venture a rare prediction: BNSF will be a key asset for Berkshire and our country a century from now.</p><p>The BNSF acquisition would never have happened if Paul Andrews hadn’t sized up Berkshire as the right home for TTI.</p><h2>Thanks</h2><p>I taught my first investing class 70 years ago. Since then, I have enjoyed working almost every year with students of all ages, finally “retiring” from that pursuit in 2018.</p><p>Along the way, my toughest audience was my grandson’s fifth-grade class. The 11-year-olds were squirming in their seats and giving me blank stares until I mentioned Coca-Cola and its famous secret formula. Instantly, every hand went up, and I learned that “secrets” are catnip to kids.</p><p>Teaching, like writing, has helped me develop and clarify my own thoughts. Charlie calls this phenomenon the orangutan effect: If you sit down with an orangutan and carefully explain to it one of your cherished ideas, you may leave behind a puzzled primate, but will yourself exit thinking more clearly.</p><p>Talking to university students is far superior. I have urged that they seek employment in (1) the field and (2) with the kind of people they would select, if they had no need for money. Economic realities, I acknowledge, may interfere with that kind of search. Even so, I urge the students never to give up the quest, for when they find that sort of job, they will no longer be “working.”</p><p>Charlie and I, ourselves, followed that liberating course after a few early stumbles. We both started as part- timers at my grandfather’s grocery store, Charlie in 1940 and I in 1942. We were each assigned boring tasks and paid little, definitely not what we had in mind. Charlie later took up law, and I tried selling securities. Job satisfaction continued to elude us.</p><p>Finally, at Berkshire, we found what we love to do. With very few exceptions, we have now “worked” for many decades with people whom we like and trust. It’s a joy in life to join with managers such as Paul Andrews or the Berkshire families I told you about last year. In our home office, we employ decent and talented people – no jerks. Turnover averages, perhaps, one person per year.</p><p>I would like, however, to emphasize a further item that turns our jobs into fun and satisfaction working</p><p>for you. There is nothing more rewarding to Charlie and me than enjoying the trust of individual long-term shareholders who, for many decades, have joined us with the expectation that we would be a reliable custodian of their funds.</p><p>Obviously, we can’t select our owners, as we could do if our form of operation were a partnership. Anyone can buy shares of Berkshire today with the intention of soon reselling them. For sure, we get a few of that type of shareholder, just as we get index funds that own huge amounts of Berkshire simply because they are required to do so.</p><p>To a truly unusual degree, however, Berkshire has as owners a very large corps of individuals and families that have elected to join us with an intent approaching “til death do us part.” Often, they have trusted us with a large – some might say excessive – portion of their savings.</p><p>Berkshire, these shareholders would sometimes acknowledge, might be far from the best selection they could have made. But they would add that Berkshire would rank high among those with which they would be most comfortable. And people who are comfortable with their investments will, on average, achieve better results than those who are motivated by ever-changing headlines, chatter and promises.</p><p>Long-term individual owners are both the “partners” Charlie and I have always sought and the ones we constantly have in mind as we make decisions at Berkshire. To them we say, “It feels good to ‘work’ for you, and you have our thanks for your trust.”</p><h2>The Annual Meeting</h2><p>Clear your calendar! Berkshire will have its annual gathering of capitalists in Omaha on Friday, April 29th through Sunday, May 1st. The details regarding the weekend are laid out on pages A-1 and A-2. Omaha eagerly awaits you, as do I.</p><p>I will end this letter with a sales pitch. “Cousin” Jimmy Buffett has designed a pontoon “party” boat that is now being manufactured by Forest River, a Berkshire subsidiary. The boat will be introduced on April 29 at our Berkshire Bazaar of Bargains. And, for two days only, shareholders will be able to purchase Jimmy’s masterpiece at a 10% discount. Your bargain-hunting chairman will be buying a boat for his family’s use. Join me.</p><p>February 26, 2022</p><p>Warren E. Buffett Chairman of the Board</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Buffett Full Annual Letter：Apple is One of ‘Four Giants’ Driving the Conglomerate’s Value</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nBuffett Full Annual Letter：Apple is One of ‘Four Giants’ Driving the Conglomerate’s Value\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n<a class=\"head\" href=\"https://laohu8.com/wemedia/1079075236\">\n\n\n<div class=\"h-thumb\" style=\"background-image:url(https://static.tigerbbs.com/8274c5b9d4c2852bfb1c4d6ce16c68ba);background-size:cover;\"></div>\n\n<div class=\"h-content\">\n<p class=\"h-name\">Tiger Newspress </p>\n<p class=\"h-time\">2022-02-27 09:48</p>\n</div>\n\n</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<html><head></head><body><p>Warren Buffett released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday. The 91-year-old investing legend has been publishing the letter for over six decades and it has become required reading for investors around the world.</p><p>Warren Buffett said he now considers tech giant Apple as one of the four pillars driving Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate of mostly old-economy businesses he’s assembled over the last five decades.</p><p>In his annual letter to shareholders released on Saturday, the 91-year-old investing legend listed Apple under the heading “Our Four Giants” and even called the company the second-most important after Berkshire’s cluster of insurers, thanks to its chief executive.</p><p>“Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well,” the letter stated.</p><p>Buffett made clear he is a fan of Cook’s stock repurchase strategy, and how it gives the conglomerate increased ownership of each dollar of the iPhone maker’s earnings without the investor having to lift a finger.</p><p>“Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier,” Buffett said in the letter. “That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.”</p><p>Berkshire began buying Apple stock in 2016 under the influence of Buffett’s investing deputies Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. By mid-2018, the conglomerate accumulated 5% ownership of the iPhone maker, a stake that cost $36 billion. Today, the Apple investment is now worth more than $160 billion, taking up 40% of Berkshire’s equity portfolio.</p><p>“It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our ‘share’ of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud,” Buffett said.</p><p>Berkshire is Apple’s largest shareholder, outside of index and exchange-traded fund providers.</p><p>Buffett also credited his railroad business BNSF and energy segment BHE as two other giants of the conglomerate, which both registered record earnings in 2021.</p><p>“BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire,” Buffett said. “BHE has become a utility powerhouse and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.”</p><p><b>Read the full letter here：</b></p><p>To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:</p><p>Charlie Munger, my long-time partner, and I have the job of managing a portion of your savings. We are honored by your trust.</p><p>Our position carries with it the responsibility to report to you what we would like to know if we were the absentee owner and you were the manager. We enjoy communicating directly with you through this annual letter, and through the annual meeting as well.</p><p>Our policy is to treat all shareholders equally. Therefore, we do not hold discussions with analysts nor large institutions. Whenever possible, also, we release important communications on Saturday mornings in order to maximize the time for shareholders and the media to absorb the news before markets open on Monday.</p><p>A wealth of Berkshire facts and figures are set forth in the annual 10-K that the company regularly files with the S.E.C. and that we reproduce on pages K-1 – K-119. Some shareholders will find this detail engrossing; others will simply prefer to learn what Charlie and I believe is new or interesting at Berkshire.</p><p>Alas, there was little action of that sort in 2021. We did, though, make reasonable progress in increasing the intrinsic value of your shares. That task has been my primary duty for 57 years. And it will continue to be.</p><p><b>What You Own</b></p><p>Berkshire owns a wide variety of businesses, some in their entirety, some only in part. The second group largely consists of marketable common stocks of major American companies. Additionally, we own a few non-U.S. equities and participate in several joint ventures or other collaborative activities.</p><p>Whatever our form of ownership, our goal is to have meaningful investments in businesses with both durable economic advantages and a first-class CEO. Please note particularly that we own stocks based upon our expectations about their long-term business performance and not because we view them as vehicles for timely market moves. That point is crucial: Charlie and I are not stock-pickers; we are business-pickers.</p><p>I make many mistakes. Consequently, our extensive collection of businesses includes some enterprises that have truly extraordinary economics, many others that enjoy good economic characteristics, and a few that are marginal. One advantage of our common-stock segment is that – on occasion – it becomes easy to buy pieces of wonderful businesses at wonderful prices. That shooting-fish-in-a-barrel experience is very rare in negotiated transactions and never occurs en masse. It is also far easier to exit from a mistake when it has been made in the marketable arena.</p><h2><b>Surprise, Surprise</b></h2><p>Here are a few items about your company that often surprise even seasoned investors:</p><p>• Many people perceive Berkshire as a large and somewhat strange collection of financial assets. In truth, Berkshire owns and operates more U.S.-based “infrastructure” assets – classified on our balance sheet as property, plant and equipment – than are owned and operated by any other American corporation. That supremacy has never been our goal. It has, however, become a fact.</p><p>At yearend, those domestic infrastructure assets were carried on Berkshire’s balance sheet at $158 billion. That number increased last year and will continue to increase. Berkshire always will be building.</p><p>• Every year, your company makes substantial federal income tax payments. In 2021, for example, we paid</p><p>$3.3 billion while the U.S. Treasury reported total corporate income-tax receipts of $402 billion. Additionally, Berkshire pays substantial state and foreign taxes. “I gave at the office” is an unassailable assertion when made by Berkshire shareholders.</p><p>Berkshire’s history vividly illustrates the invisible and often unrecognized financial partnership between  government and American businesses. Our tale begins early in 1955, when Berkshire Fine Spinning and Hathaway Manufacturing agreed to merge their businesses. In their requests for shareholder approval, these venerable New England textile companies expressed high hopes for the combination.</p><p></p><p>The Hathaway solicitation, for example, assured its shareholders that “The combination of the resources and managements will result in one of the strongest and most efficient organizations in the textile industry.” That upbeat view was endorsed by the company’s advisor, Lehman Brothers (yes, that Lehman Brothers).</p><p>I’m sure it was a joyous day in both Fall River (Berkshire) and New Bedford (Hathaway) when the union was consummated. After the bands stopped playing and the bankers went home, however, the shareholders reaped a disaster.</p><p>In the nine years following the merger, Berkshire’s owners watched the company’s net worth crater from</p><p>$51.4 million to $22.1 million. In part, this decline was caused by stock repurchases, ill-advised dividends and plant shutdowns. But nine years of effort by many thousands of employees delivered an operating loss as well. Berkshire’s struggles were not unusual: The New England textile industry had silently entered an extended and non-reversible death march.</p><p>During the nine post-merger years, the U.S. Treasury suffered as well from Berkshire’s troubles. All told, the company paid the government only $337,359 in income tax during that period – a pathetic $100 per day.</p><p>Early in 1965, things changed. Berkshire installed new management that redeployed available cash and steered essentially all earnings into a variety of good businesses, most of which remained good through the years. Coupling reinvestment of earnings with the power of compounding worked its magic, and shareholders prospered.</p><p>Berkshire’s owners, it should be noted, were not the only beneficiary of that course correction. Their “silent partner,” the U.S. Treasury, proceeded to collect many tens of billions of dollars from the company in income tax payments. Remember the $100 daily? Now, Berkshire pays roughly $9 million daily to the Treasury.</p><p>In fairness to our governmental partner, our shareholders should acknowledge – indeed trumpet – the fact that Berkshire’s prosperity has been fostered mightily because the company has operated in America. Our country would have done splendidly in the years since 1965 without Berkshire. Absent our American home, however, Berkshire would never have come close to becoming what it is today. When you see the flag, say thanks.</p><p>• From an $8.6 million purchase of National Indemnity in 1967, Berkshire has become the world leader in insurance “float” – money we hold and can invest but that does not belong to us. Including a relatively small sum derived from life insurance, Berkshire’s total float has grown from $19 million when we entered the insurance business to $147 billion.</p><p>So far, this float has cost us less than nothing. Though we have experienced a number of years when insurance losses combined with operating expenses exceeded premiums, overall we have earned a modest 55-year profit from the underwriting activities that generated our float.</p><p>Of equal importance, float is very sticky. Funds attributable to our insurance operations come and go daily, but their aggregate total is immune from precipitous decline. When it comes to investing float, we can therefore think long-term.</p><p>If you are not already familiar with the concept of float, I refer you to a long explanation on page A-5. To my surprise, our float increased $9 billion last year, a buildup of value that is important to Berkshire owners though is not reflected in our GAAP (“generally-accepted accounting principles”) presentation of earnings and net worth.</p><p>Much of our huge value creation in insurance is attributable to Berkshire’s good luck in my 1986 hiring of Ajit Jain. We first met on a Saturday morning, and I quickly asked Ajit what his insurance experience had been. He replied, “None.”</p><p>I said, “Nobody’s perfect,” and hired him. That was my lucky day: Ajit actually was as perfect a choice as could have been made. Better yet, he continues to be – 35 years later.</p><p>One final thought about insurance: I believe that it is likely – but far from assured – that Berkshire’s float can be maintained without our incurring a long-term underwriting loss. I am certain, however, that there will be some years when we experience such losses, perhaps involving very large sums.</p><p>Berkshire is constructed to handle catastrophic events as no other insurer – and that priority will remain long after Charlie and I are gone.</p><h2>Our Four Giants</h2><p>Through Berkshire, our shareholders own many dozens of businesses. Some of these, in turn, have a collection of subsidiaries of their own. For example, Marmon has more than 100 individual business operations, ranging from the leasing of railroad cars to the manufacture of medical devices.</p><p>• Nevertheless, operations of our “Big Four” companies account for a very large chunk of Berkshire’s value. Leading this list is our cluster of insurers. Berkshire effectively owns 100% of this group, whose massive float value we earlier described. The invested assets of these insurers are further enlarged by the extraordinary amount of capital we invest to back up their promises.</p><p>The insurance business is made to order for Berkshire. The product will never be obsolete, and sales volume will generally increase along with both economic growth and inflation. Also, integrity and capital will forever be important. Our company can and will behave well.</p><p>There are, of course, other insurers with excellent business models and prospects. Replication of Berkshire’s operation, however, would be almost impossible.</p><p>• Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier. That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.</p><p>It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our “share” of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud. Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well.</p><p>• BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire. If the many essential products BNSF carries were instead hauled by truck, America’s carbon emissions would soar.</p><p>Your railroad had record earnings of $6 billion in 2021. Here, it should be noted, we are talking about the old-fashioned sort of earnings that we favor: a figure calculated after interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and all forms of compensation. (Our definition suggests a warning: Deceptive “adjustments” to earnings – to use a polite description – have become both more frequent and more fanciful as stocks have risen. Speaking less politely, I would say that bull markets breed bloviated bull )</p><p>BNSF trains traveled 143 million miles last year and carried 535 million tons of cargo. Both accomplishments far exceed those of any other American carrier. You can be proud of your railroad.</p><p>• BHE, our final Giant, earned a record $4 billion in 2021. That’s up more than 30-fold from the $122 million earned in 2000, the year that Berkshire first purchased a BHE stake. Now, Berkshire owns 91.1% of the company.</p><p>BHE’s record of societal accomplishment is as remarkable as its financial performance. The company had no wind or solar generation in 2000. It was then regarded simply as a relatively new and minor participant in the huge electric utility industry. Subsequently, under David Sokol’s and Greg Abel’s leadership, BHE has become a utility powerhouse (no groaning, please) and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.</p><p>Greg’s report on these accomplishments appears on pages A-3 and A-4. The profile you will find there is not in any way one of those currently-fashionable “green-washing” stories. BHE has been faithfully detailing its plans and performance in renewables and transmissions every year since 2007.</p><p>To further review this information, visit BHE’s website at brkenergy.com. There, you will see that the company has long been making climate-conscious moves that soak up all of its earnings. More opportunities lie ahead. BHE has the management, the experience, the capital and the appetite for the huge power projects that our country needs.</p><h2>Investments</h2><p>Now let’s talk about companies we don’t control, a list that again references Apple. Below we list our fifteen largest equity holdings, several of which are selections of Berkshire’s two long-time investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. At yearend, this valued pair had total authority in respect to $34 billion of investments, many of which do not meet the threshold value we use in the table. Also, a significant portion of the dollars that Todd and Ted manage are lodged in various pension plans of Berkshire-owned businesses, with the assets of these plans not included in this table.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d43587e9f59c0ff76e6c04c6bf9af324\" tg-width=\"1047\" tg-height=\"530\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/>* This is our actual purchase price and also our tax basis.</p><p>** Held by BHE; consequently, Berkshire shareholders have only a 91.1% interest in this position.</p><p>*** Includes a $10 billion investment in Occidental Petroleum, consisting of preferred stock and warrants to buy common stock, a combination now being valued at $10.7 billion.</p><p>In addition to the footnoted Occidental holding and our various common-stock positions, Berkshire also owns a 26.6% interest in Kraft Heinz (accounted for on the “equity” method, not market value, and carried at $13.1 billion) and 38.6% of Pilot Corp., a leader in travel centers that had revenues last year of $45 billion.</p><p>Since we purchased our Pilot stake in 2017, this holding has warranted “equity” accounting treatment. Early in 2023, Berkshire will purchase an additional interest in Pilot that will raise our ownership to 80% and lead to our fully consolidating Pilot’s earnings, assets and liabilities in our financial statements.</p><h2>U.S. Treasury Bills</h2><p>Berkshire’s balance sheet includes $144 billion of cash and cash equivalents (excluding the holdings of BNSF and BHE). Of this sum, $120 billion is held in U.S. Treasury bills, all maturing in less than a year. That stake leaves Berkshire financing about 12 of 1% of the publicly-held national debt.</p><p>Charlie and I have pledged that Berkshire (along with our subsidiaries other than BNSF and BHE) will always hold more than $30 billion of cash and equivalents. We want your company to be financially impregnable and never dependent on the kindness of strangers (or even that of friends). Both of us like to sleep soundly, and we want our creditors, insurance claimants and you to do so as well.</p><h2>But $144 billion?</h2><p>That imposing sum, I assure you, is not some deranged expression of patriotism. Nor have Charlie and I lost our overwhelming preference for business ownership. Indeed, I first manifested my enthusiasm for that 80 years ago, on March 11, 1942, when I purchased three shares of Cities Services preferred stock. Their cost was $114.75 and required all of my savings. (The Dow Jones Industrial Average that day closed at 99, a fact that should scream to you: Never bet against America.)</p><p>After my initial plunge, I always kept at least 80% of my net worth in equities. My favored status throughout that period was 100% – and still is. Berkshire’s current 80%-or-so position in businesses is a consequence of my failure to find entire companies or small portions thereof (that is, marketable stocks) which meet our criteria for long- term holding.</p><p>Charlie and I have endured similar cash-heavy positions from time to time in the past. These periods are never pleasant; they are also never permanent. And, fortunately, we have had a mildly attractive alternative during 2020 and 2021 for deploying capital. Read on.</p><h2>Share Repurchases</h2><p>There are three ways that we can increase the value of your investment. The first is always front and center in our minds: Increase the long-term earning power of Berkshire’s controlled businesses through internal growth or by making acquisitions. Today, internal opportunities deliver far better returns than acquisitions. The size of those opportunities, however, is small compared to Berkshire’s resources.</p><p>Our second choice is to buy non-controlling part-interests in the many good or great businesses that are publicly traded. From time to time, such possibilities are both numerous and blatantly attractive. Today, though, we find little that excites us.</p><p>That’s largely because of a truism: Long-term interest rates that are low push the prices of all productive investments upward, whether these are stocks, apartments, farms, oil wells, whatever. Other factors influence valuations as well, but interest rates will always be important.</p><p>Our final path to value creation is to repurchase Berkshire shares. Through that simple act, we increase your share of the many controlled and non-controlled businesses Berkshire owns. When the price/value equation is right, this path is the easiest and most certain way for us to increase your wealth. (Alongside the accretion of value to continuing shareholders, a couple of other parties gain: Repurchases are modestly beneficial to the seller of the repurchased shares and to society as well.)</p><p>Periodically, as alternative paths become unattractive, repurchases make good sense for Berkshire’s owners. During the past two years, we therefore repurchased 9% of the shares that were outstanding at yearend 2019 for a total cost of $51.7 billion. That expenditure left our continuing shareholders owning about 10% more of all Berkshire businesses, whether these are wholly-owned (such as BNSF and GEICO) or partly-owned (such as Coca-Cola and Moody’s).</p><p>I want to underscore that for Berkshire repurchases to make sense, our shares must offer appropriate value. We don’t want to overpay for the shares of other companies, and it would be value-destroying if we were to overpay when we are buying Berkshire. As of February 23, 2022, since yearend we repurchased additional shares at a cost of $1.2 billion. Our appetite remains large but will always remain price-dependent.</p><p>It should be noted that Berkshire’s buyback opportunities are limited because of its high-class investor base. If our shares were heavily held by short-term speculators, both price volatility and transaction volumes would materially increase. That kind of reshaping would offer us far greater opportunities for creating value by making repurchases. Nevertheless, Charlie and I far prefer the owners we have, even though their admirable buy-and-keep attitudes limit the extent to which long-term shareholders can profit from opportunistic repurchases.</p><p>Finally, one easily-overlooked value calculation specific to Berkshire: As we’ve discussed, insurance “float” of the right sort is of great value to us. As it happens, repurchases automatically increase the amount of “float” per share. That figure has increased during the past two years by 25% – going from $79,387 per “A” share to $99,497, a meaningful gain that, as noted, owes some thanks to repurchases.</p><h2>A Wonderful Man and a Wonderful Business</h2><p>Last year, Paul Andrews died. Paul was the founder and CEO of TTI, a Fort Worth-based subsidiary of Berkshire. Throughout his life – in both his business and his personal pursuits – Paul quietly displayed all the qualities that Charlie and I admire. His story should be told.</p><p>In 1971, Paul was working as a purchasing agent for General Dynamics when the roof fell in. After losing a huge defense contract, the company fired thousands of employees, including Paul.</p><p>With his first child due soon, Paul decided to bet on himself, using $500 of his savings to found Tex-Tronics (later renamed TTI). The company set itself up to distribute small electronic components, and first-year sales totaled $112,000. Today, TTI markets more than one million different items with annual volume of $7.7 billion.</p><p>But back to 2006: Paul, at 63, then found himself happy with his family, his job, and his associates. But he had one nagging worry, heightened because he had recently witnessed a friend’s early death and the disastrous results that followed for that man’s family and business. What, Paul asked himself in 2006, would happen to the many people depending on him if he should unexpectedly die?</p><p>For a year, Paul wrestled with his options. Sell to a competitor? From a strictly economic viewpoint, that course made the most sense. After all, competitors could envision lucrative “synergies” – savings that would be achieved as the acquiror slashed duplicated functions at TTI.</p><p>But . . . Such a purchaser would most certainly also retain its CFO, its legal counsel, its HR unit. Their TTI counterparts would therefore be sent packing. And ugh! If a new distribution center were to be needed, the acquirer’s home city would certainly be favored over Fort Worth.</p><p>Whatever the financial benefits, Paul quickly concluded that selling to a competitor was not for him. He next considered seeking a financial buyer, a species once labeled – aptly so – a leveraged buyout firm. Paul knew, however, that such a purchaser would be focused on an “exit strategy.” And who could know what that would be? Brooding over it all, Paul found himself having no interest in handing his 35-year-old creation over to a reseller.</p><p>When Paul met me, he explained why he had eliminated these two alternatives as buyers. He then summed up his dilemma by saying – in far more tactful phrasing than this – “After a year of pondering the alternatives, I want to sell to Berkshire because you are the only guy left.” So, I made an offer and Paul said “Yes.” One meeting; one lunch; one deal.</p><p>To say we both lived happily ever after is an understatement. When Berkshire purchased TTI, the company employed 2,387. Now the number is 8,043. A large percentage of that growth took place in Fort Worth and environs. Earnings have increased 673%.</p><p>Annually, I would call Paul and tell him his salary should be substantially increased. Annually, he would tell me, “We can talk about that next year, Warren; I’m too busy now.”</p><p>When Greg Abel and I attended Paul’s memorial service, we met children, grandchildren, long-time associates (including TTI’s first employee) and John Roach, the former CEO of a Fort Worth company Berkshire had purchased in 2000. John had steered his friend Paul to Omaha, instinctively knowing we would be a match.</p><p>At the service, Greg and I heard about the multitudes of people and organizations that Paul had silently supported. The breadth of his generosity was extraordinary – geared always to improving the lives of others, particularly those in Fort Worth.</p><p>In all ways, Paul was a class act.</p><p>* * * * * * * * * * * *</p><p>Good luck – occasionally extraordinary luck – has played its part at Berkshire. If Paul and I had not enjoyed a mutual friend – John Roach – TTI would not have found its home with us. But that ample serving of luck was only the beginning. TTI was soon to lead Berkshire to its most important acquisition.</p><p>Every fall, Berkshire directors gather for a presentation by a few of our executives. We sometimes choose the site based upon the location of a recent acquisition, by that means allowing directors to meet the new subsidiary’s CEO and learn more about the acquiree’s activities.</p><p>In the fall of 2009, we consequently selected Fort Worth so that we could visit TTI. At that time, BNSF, which also had Fort Worth as its hometown, was the third-largest holding among our marketable equities. Despite that large stake, I had never visited the railroad’s headquarters.</p><p>Deb Bosanek, my assistant, scheduled our board’s opening dinner for October 22. Meanwhile, I arranged to arrive earlier that day to meet with Matt Rose, CEO of BNSF, whose accomplishments I had long admired. When I made the date, I had no idea that our get-together would coincide with BNSF’s third-quarter earnings report, which was released late on the 22nd.</p><p>The market reacted badly to the railroad’s results. The Great Recession was in full force in the third quarter, and BNSF’s earnings reflected that slump. The economic outlook was also bleak, and Wall Street wasn’t feeling friendly to railroads – or much else.</p><p>On the following day, I again got together with Matt and suggested that Berkshire would offer the railroad a better long-term home than it could expect as a public company. I also told him the maximum price that Berkshire would pay.</p><p>Matt relayed the offer to his directors and advisors. Eleven busy days later, Berkshire and BNSF announced a firm deal. And here I’ll venture a rare prediction: BNSF will be a key asset for Berkshire and our country a century from now.</p><p>The BNSF acquisition would never have happened if Paul Andrews hadn’t sized up Berkshire as the right home for TTI.</p><h2>Thanks</h2><p>I taught my first investing class 70 years ago. Since then, I have enjoyed working almost every year with students of all ages, finally “retiring” from that pursuit in 2018.</p><p>Along the way, my toughest audience was my grandson’s fifth-grade class. The 11-year-olds were squirming in their seats and giving me blank stares until I mentioned Coca-Cola and its famous secret formula. Instantly, every hand went up, and I learned that “secrets” are catnip to kids.</p><p>Teaching, like writing, has helped me develop and clarify my own thoughts. Charlie calls this phenomenon the orangutan effect: If you sit down with an orangutan and carefully explain to it one of your cherished ideas, you may leave behind a puzzled primate, but will yourself exit thinking more clearly.</p><p>Talking to university students is far superior. I have urged that they seek employment in (1) the field and (2) with the kind of people they would select, if they had no need for money. Economic realities, I acknowledge, may interfere with that kind of search. Even so, I urge the students never to give up the quest, for when they find that sort of job, they will no longer be “working.”</p><p>Charlie and I, ourselves, followed that liberating course after a few early stumbles. We both started as part- timers at my grandfather’s grocery store, Charlie in 1940 and I in 1942. We were each assigned boring tasks and paid little, definitely not what we had in mind. Charlie later took up law, and I tried selling securities. Job satisfaction continued to elude us.</p><p>Finally, at Berkshire, we found what we love to do. With very few exceptions, we have now “worked” for many decades with people whom we like and trust. It’s a joy in life to join with managers such as Paul Andrews or the Berkshire families I told you about last year. In our home office, we employ decent and talented people – no jerks. Turnover averages, perhaps, one person per year.</p><p>I would like, however, to emphasize a further item that turns our jobs into fun and satisfaction working</p><p>for you. There is nothing more rewarding to Charlie and me than enjoying the trust of individual long-term shareholders who, for many decades, have joined us with the expectation that we would be a reliable custodian of their funds.</p><p>Obviously, we can’t select our owners, as we could do if our form of operation were a partnership. Anyone can buy shares of Berkshire today with the intention of soon reselling them. For sure, we get a few of that type of shareholder, just as we get index funds that own huge amounts of Berkshire simply because they are required to do so.</p><p>To a truly unusual degree, however, Berkshire has as owners a very large corps of individuals and families that have elected to join us with an intent approaching “til death do us part.” Often, they have trusted us with a large – some might say excessive – portion of their savings.</p><p>Berkshire, these shareholders would sometimes acknowledge, might be far from the best selection they could have made. But they would add that Berkshire would rank high among those with which they would be most comfortable. And people who are comfortable with their investments will, on average, achieve better results than those who are motivated by ever-changing headlines, chatter and promises.</p><p>Long-term individual owners are both the “partners” Charlie and I have always sought and the ones we constantly have in mind as we make decisions at Berkshire. To them we say, “It feels good to ‘work’ for you, and you have our thanks for your trust.”</p><h2>The Annual Meeting</h2><p>Clear your calendar! Berkshire will have its annual gathering of capitalists in Omaha on Friday, April 29th through Sunday, May 1st. The details regarding the weekend are laid out on pages A-1 and A-2. Omaha eagerly awaits you, as do I.</p><p>I will end this letter with a sales pitch. “Cousin” Jimmy Buffett has designed a pontoon “party” boat that is now being manufactured by Forest River, a Berkshire subsidiary. The boat will be introduced on April 29 at our Berkshire Bazaar of Bargains. And, for two days only, shareholders will be able to purchase Jimmy’s masterpiece at a 10% discount. Your bargain-hunting chairman will be buying a boat for his family’s use. Join me.</p><p>February 26, 2022</p><p>Warren E. Buffett Chairman of the Board</p></body></html>\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BRK.A":"伯克希尔","BRK.B":"伯克希尔B"},"source_url":"","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1125580913","content_text":"Warren Buffett released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday. The 91-year-old investing legend has been publishing the letter for over six decades and it has become required reading for investors around the world.Warren Buffett said he now considers tech giant Apple as one of the four pillars driving Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate of mostly old-economy businesses he’s assembled over the last five decades.In his annual letter to shareholders released on Saturday, the 91-year-old investing legend listed Apple under the heading “Our Four Giants” and even called the company the second-most important after Berkshire’s cluster of insurers, thanks to its chief executive.“Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well,” the letter stated.Buffett made clear he is a fan of Cook’s stock repurchase strategy, and how it gives the conglomerate increased ownership of each dollar of the iPhone maker’s earnings without the investor having to lift a finger.“Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier,” Buffett said in the letter. “That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.”Berkshire began buying Apple stock in 2016 under the influence of Buffett’s investing deputies Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. By mid-2018, the conglomerate accumulated 5% ownership of the iPhone maker, a stake that cost $36 billion. Today, the Apple investment is now worth more than $160 billion, taking up 40% of Berkshire’s equity portfolio.“It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our ‘share’ of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud,” Buffett said.Berkshire is Apple’s largest shareholder, outside of index and exchange-traded fund providers.Buffett also credited his railroad business BNSF and energy segment BHE as two other giants of the conglomerate, which both registered record earnings in 2021.“BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire,” Buffett said. “BHE has become a utility powerhouse and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.”Read the full letter here：To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:Charlie Munger, my long-time partner, and I have the job of managing a portion of your savings. We are honored by your trust.Our position carries with it the responsibility to report to you what we would like to know if we were the absentee owner and you were the manager. We enjoy communicating directly with you through this annual letter, and through the annual meeting as well.Our policy is to treat all shareholders equally. Therefore, we do not hold discussions with analysts nor large institutions. Whenever possible, also, we release important communications on Saturday mornings in order to maximize the time for shareholders and the media to absorb the news before markets open on Monday.A wealth of Berkshire facts and figures are set forth in the annual 10-K that the company regularly files with the S.E.C. and that we reproduce on pages K-1 – K-119. Some shareholders will find this detail engrossing; others will simply prefer to learn what Charlie and I believe is new or interesting at Berkshire.Alas, there was little action of that sort in 2021. We did, though, make reasonable progress in increasing the intrinsic value of your shares. That task has been my primary duty for 57 years. And it will continue to be.What You OwnBerkshire owns a wide variety of businesses, some in their entirety, some only in part. The second group largely consists of marketable common stocks of major American companies. Additionally, we own a few non-U.S. equities and participate in several joint ventures or other collaborative activities.Whatever our form of ownership, our goal is to have meaningful investments in businesses with both durable economic advantages and a first-class CEO. Please note particularly that we own stocks based upon our expectations about their long-term business performance and not because we view them as vehicles for timely market moves. That point is crucial: Charlie and I are not stock-pickers; we are business-pickers.I make many mistakes. Consequently, our extensive collection of businesses includes some enterprises that have truly extraordinary economics, many others that enjoy good economic characteristics, and a few that are marginal. One advantage of our common-stock segment is that – on occasion – it becomes easy to buy pieces of wonderful businesses at wonderful prices. That shooting-fish-in-a-barrel experience is very rare in negotiated transactions and never occurs en masse. It is also far easier to exit from a mistake when it has been made in the marketable arena.Surprise, SurpriseHere are a few items about your company that often surprise even seasoned investors:• Many people perceive Berkshire as a large and somewhat strange collection of financial assets. In truth, Berkshire owns and operates more U.S.-based “infrastructure” assets – classified on our balance sheet as property, plant and equipment – than are owned and operated by any other American corporation. That supremacy has never been our goal. It has, however, become a fact.At yearend, those domestic infrastructure assets were carried on Berkshire’s balance sheet at $158 billion. That number increased last year and will continue to increase. Berkshire always will be building.• Every year, your company makes substantial federal income tax payments. In 2021, for example, we paid$3.3 billion while the U.S. Treasury reported total corporate income-tax receipts of $402 billion. Additionally, Berkshire pays substantial state and foreign taxes. “I gave at the office” is an unassailable assertion when made by Berkshire shareholders.Berkshire’s history vividly illustrates the invisible and often unrecognized financial partnership between  government and American businesses. Our tale begins early in 1955, when Berkshire Fine Spinning and Hathaway Manufacturing agreed to merge their businesses. In their requests for shareholder approval, these venerable New England textile companies expressed high hopes for the combination.The Hathaway solicitation, for example, assured its shareholders that “The combination of the resources and managements will result in one of the strongest and most efficient organizations in the textile industry.” That upbeat view was endorsed by the company’s advisor, Lehman Brothers (yes, that Lehman Brothers).I’m sure it was a joyous day in both Fall River (Berkshire) and New Bedford (Hathaway) when the union was consummated. After the bands stopped playing and the bankers went home, however, the shareholders reaped a disaster.In the nine years following the merger, Berkshire’s owners watched the company’s net worth crater from$51.4 million to $22.1 million. In part, this decline was caused by stock repurchases, ill-advised dividends and plant shutdowns. But nine years of effort by many thousands of employees delivered an operating loss as well. Berkshire’s struggles were not unusual: The New England textile industry had silently entered an extended and non-reversible death march.During the nine post-merger years, the U.S. Treasury suffered as well from Berkshire’s troubles. All told, the company paid the government only $337,359 in income tax during that period – a pathetic $100 per day.Early in 1965, things changed. Berkshire installed new management that redeployed available cash and steered essentially all earnings into a variety of good businesses, most of which remained good through the years. Coupling reinvestment of earnings with the power of compounding worked its magic, and shareholders prospered.Berkshire’s owners, it should be noted, were not the only beneficiary of that course correction. Their “silent partner,” the U.S. Treasury, proceeded to collect many tens of billions of dollars from the company in income tax payments. Remember the $100 daily? Now, Berkshire pays roughly $9 million daily to the Treasury.In fairness to our governmental partner, our shareholders should acknowledge – indeed trumpet – the fact that Berkshire’s prosperity has been fostered mightily because the company has operated in America. Our country would have done splendidly in the years since 1965 without Berkshire. Absent our American home, however, Berkshire would never have come close to becoming what it is today. When you see the flag, say thanks.• From an $8.6 million purchase of National Indemnity in 1967, Berkshire has become the world leader in insurance “float” – money we hold and can invest but that does not belong to us. Including a relatively small sum derived from life insurance, Berkshire’s total float has grown from $19 million when we entered the insurance business to $147 billion.So far, this float has cost us less than nothing. Though we have experienced a number of years when insurance losses combined with operating expenses exceeded premiums, overall we have earned a modest 55-year profit from the underwriting activities that generated our float.Of equal importance, float is very sticky. Funds attributable to our insurance operations come and go daily, but their aggregate total is immune from precipitous decline. When it comes to investing float, we can therefore think long-term.If you are not already familiar with the concept of float, I refer you to a long explanation on page A-5. To my surprise, our float increased $9 billion last year, a buildup of value that is important to Berkshire owners though is not reflected in our GAAP (“generally-accepted accounting principles”) presentation of earnings and net worth.Much of our huge value creation in insurance is attributable to Berkshire’s good luck in my 1986 hiring of Ajit Jain. We first met on a Saturday morning, and I quickly asked Ajit what his insurance experience had been. He replied, “None.”I said, “Nobody’s perfect,” and hired him. That was my lucky day: Ajit actually was as perfect a choice as could have been made. Better yet, he continues to be – 35 years later.One final thought about insurance: I believe that it is likely – but far from assured – that Berkshire’s float can be maintained without our incurring a long-term underwriting loss. I am certain, however, that there will be some years when we experience such losses, perhaps involving very large sums.Berkshire is constructed to handle catastrophic events as no other insurer – and that priority will remain long after Charlie and I are gone.Our Four GiantsThrough Berkshire, our shareholders own many dozens of businesses. Some of these, in turn, have a collection of subsidiaries of their own. For example, Marmon has more than 100 individual business operations, ranging from the leasing of railroad cars to the manufacture of medical devices.• Nevertheless, operations of our “Big Four” companies account for a very large chunk of Berkshire’s value. Leading this list is our cluster of insurers. Berkshire effectively owns 100% of this group, whose massive float value we earlier described. The invested assets of these insurers are further enlarged by the extraordinary amount of capital we invest to back up their promises.The insurance business is made to order for Berkshire. The product will never be obsolete, and sales volume will generally increase along with both economic growth and inflation. Also, integrity and capital will forever be important. Our company can and will behave well.There are, of course, other insurers with excellent business models and prospects. Replication of Berkshire’s operation, however, would be almost impossible.• Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier. That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our “share” of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud. Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well.• BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire. If the many essential products BNSF carries were instead hauled by truck, America’s carbon emissions would soar.Your railroad had record earnings of $6 billion in 2021. Here, it should be noted, we are talking about the old-fashioned sort of earnings that we favor: a figure calculated after interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and all forms of compensation. (Our definition suggests a warning: Deceptive “adjustments” to earnings – to use a polite description – have become both more frequent and more fanciful as stocks have risen. Speaking less politely, I would say that bull markets breed bloviated bull )BNSF trains traveled 143 million miles last year and carried 535 million tons of cargo. Both accomplishments far exceed those of any other American carrier. You can be proud of your railroad.• BHE, our final Giant, earned a record $4 billion in 2021. That’s up more than 30-fold from the $122 million earned in 2000, the year that Berkshire first purchased a BHE stake. Now, Berkshire owns 91.1% of the company.BHE’s record of societal accomplishment is as remarkable as its financial performance. The company had no wind or solar generation in 2000. It was then regarded simply as a relatively new and minor participant in the huge electric utility industry. Subsequently, under David Sokol’s and Greg Abel’s leadership, BHE has become a utility powerhouse (no groaning, please) and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.Greg’s report on these accomplishments appears on pages A-3 and A-4. The profile you will find there is not in any way one of those currently-fashionable “green-washing” stories. BHE has been faithfully detailing its plans and performance in renewables and transmissions every year since 2007.To further review this information, visit BHE’s website at brkenergy.com. There, you will see that the company has long been making climate-conscious moves that soak up all of its earnings. More opportunities lie ahead. BHE has the management, the experience, the capital and the appetite for the huge power projects that our country needs.InvestmentsNow let’s talk about companies we don’t control, a list that again references Apple. Below we list our fifteen largest equity holdings, several of which are selections of Berkshire’s two long-time investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. At yearend, this valued pair had total authority in respect to $34 billion of investments, many of which do not meet the threshold value we use in the table. Also, a significant portion of the dollars that Todd and Ted manage are lodged in various pension plans of Berkshire-owned businesses, with the assets of these plans not included in this table.* This is our actual purchase price and also our tax basis.** Held by BHE; consequently, Berkshire shareholders have only a 91.1% interest in this position.*** Includes a $10 billion investment in Occidental Petroleum, consisting of preferred stock and warrants to buy common stock, a combination now being valued at $10.7 billion.In addition to the footnoted Occidental holding and our various common-stock positions, Berkshire also owns a 26.6% interest in Kraft Heinz (accounted for on the “equity” method, not market value, and carried at $13.1 billion) and 38.6% of Pilot Corp., a leader in travel centers that had revenues last year of $45 billion.Since we purchased our Pilot stake in 2017, this holding has warranted “equity” accounting treatment. Early in 2023, Berkshire will purchase an additional interest in Pilot that will raise our ownership to 80% and lead to our fully consolidating Pilot’s earnings, assets and liabilities in our financial statements.U.S. Treasury BillsBerkshire’s balance sheet includes $144 billion of cash and cash equivalents (excluding the holdings of BNSF and BHE). Of this sum, $120 billion is held in U.S. Treasury bills, all maturing in less than a year. That stake leaves Berkshire financing about 12 of 1% of the publicly-held national debt.Charlie and I have pledged that Berkshire (along with our subsidiaries other than BNSF and BHE) will always hold more than $30 billion of cash and equivalents. We want your company to be financially impregnable and never dependent on the kindness of strangers (or even that of friends). Both of us like to sleep soundly, and we want our creditors, insurance claimants and you to do so as well.But $144 billion?That imposing sum, I assure you, is not some deranged expression of patriotism. Nor have Charlie and I lost our overwhelming preference for business ownership. Indeed, I first manifested my enthusiasm for that 80 years ago, on March 11, 1942, when I purchased three shares of Cities Services preferred stock. Their cost was $114.75 and required all of my savings. (The Dow Jones Industrial Average that day closed at 99, a fact that should scream to you: Never bet against America.)After my initial plunge, I always kept at least 80% of my net worth in equities. My favored status throughout that period was 100% – and still is. Berkshire’s current 80%-or-so position in businesses is a consequence of my failure to find entire companies or small portions thereof (that is, marketable stocks) which meet our criteria for long- term holding.Charlie and I have endured similar cash-heavy positions from time to time in the past. These periods are never pleasant; they are also never permanent. And, fortunately, we have had a mildly attractive alternative during 2020 and 2021 for deploying capital. Read on.Share RepurchasesThere are three ways that we can increase the value of your investment. The first is always front and center in our minds: Increase the long-term earning power of Berkshire’s controlled businesses through internal growth or by making acquisitions. Today, internal opportunities deliver far better returns than acquisitions. The size of those opportunities, however, is small compared to Berkshire’s resources.Our second choice is to buy non-controlling part-interests in the many good or great businesses that are publicly traded. From time to time, such possibilities are both numerous and blatantly attractive. Today, though, we find little that excites us.That’s largely because of a truism: Long-term interest rates that are low push the prices of all productive investments upward, whether these are stocks, apartments, farms, oil wells, whatever. Other factors influence valuations as well, but interest rates will always be important.Our final path to value creation is to repurchase Berkshire shares. Through that simple act, we increase your share of the many controlled and non-controlled businesses Berkshire owns. When the price/value equation is right, this path is the easiest and most certain way for us to increase your wealth. (Alongside the accretion of value to continuing shareholders, a couple of other parties gain: Repurchases are modestly beneficial to the seller of the repurchased shares and to society as well.)Periodically, as alternative paths become unattractive, repurchases make good sense for Berkshire’s owners. During the past two years, we therefore repurchased 9% of the shares that were outstanding at yearend 2019 for a total cost of $51.7 billion. That expenditure left our continuing shareholders owning about 10% more of all Berkshire businesses, whether these are wholly-owned (such as BNSF and GEICO) or partly-owned (such as Coca-Cola and Moody’s).I want to underscore that for Berkshire repurchases to make sense, our shares must offer appropriate value. We don’t want to overpay for the shares of other companies, and it would be value-destroying if we were to overpay when we are buying Berkshire. As of February 23, 2022, since yearend we repurchased additional shares at a cost of $1.2 billion. Our appetite remains large but will always remain price-dependent.It should be noted that Berkshire’s buyback opportunities are limited because of its high-class investor base. If our shares were heavily held by short-term speculators, both price volatility and transaction volumes would materially increase. That kind of reshaping would offer us far greater opportunities for creating value by making repurchases. Nevertheless, Charlie and I far prefer the owners we have, even though their admirable buy-and-keep attitudes limit the extent to which long-term shareholders can profit from opportunistic repurchases.Finally, one easily-overlooked value calculation specific to Berkshire: As we’ve discussed, insurance “float” of the right sort is of great value to us. As it happens, repurchases automatically increase the amount of “float” per share. That figure has increased during the past two years by 25% – going from $79,387 per “A” share to $99,497, a meaningful gain that, as noted, owes some thanks to repurchases.A Wonderful Man and a Wonderful BusinessLast year, Paul Andrews died. Paul was the founder and CEO of TTI, a Fort Worth-based subsidiary of Berkshire. Throughout his life – in both his business and his personal pursuits – Paul quietly displayed all the qualities that Charlie and I admire. His story should be told.In 1971, Paul was working as a purchasing agent for General Dynamics when the roof fell in. After losing a huge defense contract, the company fired thousands of employees, including Paul.With his first child due soon, Paul decided to bet on himself, using $500 of his savings to found Tex-Tronics (later renamed TTI). The company set itself up to distribute small electronic components, and first-year sales totaled $112,000. Today, TTI markets more than one million different items with annual volume of $7.7 billion.But back to 2006: Paul, at 63, then found himself happy with his family, his job, and his associates. But he had one nagging worry, heightened because he had recently witnessed a friend’s early death and the disastrous results that followed for that man’s family and business. What, Paul asked himself in 2006, would happen to the many people depending on him if he should unexpectedly die?For a year, Paul wrestled with his options. Sell to a competitor? From a strictly economic viewpoint, that course made the most sense. After all, competitors could envision lucrative “synergies” – savings that would be achieved as the acquiror slashed duplicated functions at TTI.But . . . Such a purchaser would most certainly also retain its CFO, its legal counsel, its HR unit. Their TTI counterparts would therefore be sent packing. And ugh! If a new distribution center were to be needed, the acquirer’s home city would certainly be favored over Fort Worth.Whatever the financial benefits, Paul quickly concluded that selling to a competitor was not for him. He next considered seeking a financial buyer, a species once labeled – aptly so – a leveraged buyout firm. Paul knew, however, that such a purchaser would be focused on an “exit strategy.” And who could know what that would be? Brooding over it all, Paul found himself having no interest in handing his 35-year-old creation over to a reseller.When Paul met me, he explained why he had eliminated these two alternatives as buyers. He then summed up his dilemma by saying – in far more tactful phrasing than this – “After a year of pondering the alternatives, I want to sell to Berkshire because you are the only guy left.” So, I made an offer and Paul said “Yes.” One meeting; one lunch; one deal.To say we both lived happily ever after is an understatement. When Berkshire purchased TTI, the company employed 2,387. Now the number is 8,043. A large percentage of that growth took place in Fort Worth and environs. Earnings have increased 673%.Annually, I would call Paul and tell him his salary should be substantially increased. Annually, he would tell me, “We can talk about that next year, Warren; I’m too busy now.”When Greg Abel and I attended Paul’s memorial service, we met children, grandchildren, long-time associates (including TTI’s first employee) and John Roach, the former CEO of a Fort Worth company Berkshire had purchased in 2000. John had steered his friend Paul to Omaha, instinctively knowing we would be a match.At the service, Greg and I heard about the multitudes of people and organizations that Paul had silently supported. The breadth of his generosity was extraordinary – geared always to improving the lives of others, particularly those in Fort Worth.In all ways, Paul was a class act.* * * * * * * * * * * *Good luck – occasionally extraordinary luck – has played its part at Berkshire. If Paul and I had not enjoyed a mutual friend – John Roach – TTI would not have found its home with us. But that ample serving of luck was only the beginning. TTI was soon to lead Berkshire to its most important acquisition.Every fall, Berkshire directors gather for a presentation by a few of our executives. We sometimes choose the site based upon the location of a recent acquisition, by that means allowing directors to meet the new subsidiary’s CEO and learn more about the acquiree’s activities.In the fall of 2009, we consequently selected Fort Worth so that we could visit TTI. At that time, BNSF, which also had Fort Worth as its hometown, was the third-largest holding among our marketable equities. Despite that large stake, I had never visited the railroad’s headquarters.Deb Bosanek, my assistant, scheduled our board’s opening dinner for October 22. Meanwhile, I arranged to arrive earlier that day to meet with Matt Rose, CEO of BNSF, whose accomplishments I had long admired. When I made the date, I had no idea that our get-together would coincide with BNSF’s third-quarter earnings report, which was released late on the 22nd.The market reacted badly to the railroad’s results. The Great Recession was in full force in the third quarter, and BNSF’s earnings reflected that slump. The economic outlook was also bleak, and Wall Street wasn’t feeling friendly to railroads – or much else.On the following day, I again got together with Matt and suggested that Berkshire would offer the railroad a better long-term home than it could expect as a public company. I also told him the maximum price that Berkshire would pay.Matt relayed the offer to his directors and advisors. Eleven busy days later, Berkshire and BNSF announced a firm deal. And here I’ll venture a rare prediction: BNSF will be a key asset for Berkshire and our country a century from now.The BNSF acquisition would never have happened if Paul Andrews hadn’t sized up Berkshire as the right home for TTI.ThanksI taught my first investing class 70 years ago. Since then, I have enjoyed working almost every year with students of all ages, finally “retiring” from that pursuit in 2018.Along the way, my toughest audience was my grandson’s fifth-grade class. The 11-year-olds were squirming in their seats and giving me blank stares until I mentioned Coca-Cola and its famous secret formula. Instantly, every hand went up, and I learned that “secrets” are catnip to kids.Teaching, like writing, has helped me develop and clarify my own thoughts. Charlie calls this phenomenon the orangutan effect: If you sit down with an orangutan and carefully explain to it one of your cherished ideas, you may leave behind a puzzled primate, but will yourself exit thinking more clearly.Talking to university students is far superior. I have urged that they seek employment in (1) the field and (2) with the kind of people they would select, if they had no need for money. Economic realities, I acknowledge, may interfere with that kind of search. Even so, I urge the students never to give up the quest, for when they find that sort of job, they will no longer be “working.”Charlie and I, ourselves, followed that liberating course after a few early stumbles. We both started as part- timers at my grandfather’s grocery store, Charlie in 1940 and I in 1942. We were each assigned boring tasks and paid little, definitely not what we had in mind. Charlie later took up law, and I tried selling securities. Job satisfaction continued to elude us.Finally, at Berkshire, we found what we love to do. With very few exceptions, we have now “worked” for many decades with people whom we like and trust. It’s a joy in life to join with managers such as Paul Andrews or the Berkshire families I told you about last year. In our home office, we employ decent and talented people – no jerks. Turnover averages, perhaps, one person per year.I would like, however, to emphasize a further item that turns our jobs into fun and satisfaction workingfor you. There is nothing more rewarding to Charlie and me than enjoying the trust of individual long-term shareholders who, for many decades, have joined us with the expectation that we would be a reliable custodian of their funds.Obviously, we can’t select our owners, as we could do if our form of operation were a partnership. Anyone can buy shares of Berkshire today with the intention of soon reselling them. For sure, we get a few of that type of shareholder, just as we get index funds that own huge amounts of Berkshire simply because they are required to do so.To a truly unusual degree, however, Berkshire has as owners a very large corps of individuals and families that have elected to join us with an intent approaching “til death do us part.” Often, they have trusted us with a large – some might say excessive – portion of their savings.Berkshire, these shareholders would sometimes acknowledge, might be far from the best selection they could have made. But they would add that Berkshire would rank high among those with which they would be most comfortable. And people who are comfortable with their investments will, on average, achieve better results than those who are motivated by ever-changing headlines, chatter and promises.Long-term individual owners are both the “partners” Charlie and I have always sought and the ones we constantly have in mind as we make decisions at Berkshire. To them we say, “It feels good to ‘work’ for you, and you have our thanks for your trust.”The Annual MeetingClear your calendar! Berkshire will have its annual gathering of capitalists in Omaha on Friday, April 29th through Sunday, May 1st. The details regarding the weekend are laid out on pages A-1 and A-2. Omaha eagerly awaits you, as do I.I will end this letter with a sales pitch. “Cousin” Jimmy Buffett has designed a pontoon “party” boat that is now being manufactured by Forest River, a Berkshire subsidiary. The boat will be introduced on April 29 at our Berkshire Bazaar of Bargains. And, for two days only, shareholders will be able to purchase Jimmy’s masterpiece at a 10% discount. Your bargain-hunting chairman will be buying a boat for his family’s use. Join me.February 26, 2022Warren E. Buffett Chairman of the Board","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":920,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0}],"hots":[{"id":9039980605,"gmtCreate":1645882375224,"gmtModify":1676534072296,"author":{"id":"4094035207038280","authorId":"4094035207038280","name":"Jimtrade","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/18b3b901678b1e74f18040911759d917","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"4094035207038280","authorIdStr":"4094035207038280"},"themes":[],"htmlText":".","listText":".","text":".","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9039980605","repostId":"1125580913","repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1125580913","weMediaInfo":{"introduction":"Providing stock market headlines, business news, financials and earnings ","home_visible":1,"media_name":"Tiger Newspress","id":"1079075236","head_image":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8274c5b9d4c2852bfb1c4d6ce16c68ba"},"pubTimestamp":1645926503,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1125580913?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2022-02-27 09:48","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Buffett Full Annual Letter：Apple is One of ‘Four Giants’ Driving the Conglomerate’s Value","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1125580913","media":"Tiger Newspress","summary":"Warren Buffett released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday. The 91-yea","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Warren Buffett released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday. The 91-year-old investing legend has been publishing the letter for over six decades and it has become required reading for investors around the world.</p><p>Warren Buffett said he now considers tech giant Apple as one of the four pillars driving Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate of mostly old-economy businesses he’s assembled over the last five decades.</p><p>In his annual letter to shareholders released on Saturday, the 91-year-old investing legend listed Apple under the heading “Our Four Giants” and even called the company the second-most important after Berkshire’s cluster of insurers, thanks to its chief executive.</p><p>“Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well,” the letter stated.</p><p>Buffett made clear he is a fan of Cook’s stock repurchase strategy, and how it gives the conglomerate increased ownership of each dollar of the iPhone maker’s earnings without the investor having to lift a finger.</p><p>“Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier,” Buffett said in the letter. “That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.”</p><p>Berkshire began buying Apple stock in 2016 under the influence of Buffett’s investing deputies Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. By mid-2018, the conglomerate accumulated 5% ownership of the iPhone maker, a stake that cost $36 billion. Today, the Apple investment is now worth more than $160 billion, taking up 40% of Berkshire’s equity portfolio.</p><p>“It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our ‘share’ of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud,” Buffett said.</p><p>Berkshire is Apple’s largest shareholder, outside of index and exchange-traded fund providers.</p><p>Buffett also credited his railroad business BNSF and energy segment BHE as two other giants of the conglomerate, which both registered record earnings in 2021.</p><p>“BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire,” Buffett said. “BHE has become a utility powerhouse and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.”</p><p><b>Read the full letter here：</b></p><p>To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:</p><p>Charlie Munger, my long-time partner, and I have the job of managing a portion of your savings. We are honored by your trust.</p><p>Our position carries with it the responsibility to report to you what we would like to know if we were the absentee owner and you were the manager. We enjoy communicating directly with you through this annual letter, and through the annual meeting as well.</p><p>Our policy is to treat all shareholders equally. Therefore, we do not hold discussions with analysts nor large institutions. Whenever possible, also, we release important communications on Saturday mornings in order to maximize the time for shareholders and the media to absorb the news before markets open on Monday.</p><p>A wealth of Berkshire facts and figures are set forth in the annual 10-K that the company regularly files with the S.E.C. and that we reproduce on pages K-1 – K-119. Some shareholders will find this detail engrossing; others will simply prefer to learn what Charlie and I believe is new or interesting at Berkshire.</p><p>Alas, there was little action of that sort in 2021. We did, though, make reasonable progress in increasing the intrinsic value of your shares. That task has been my primary duty for 57 years. And it will continue to be.</p><p><b>What You Own</b></p><p>Berkshire owns a wide variety of businesses, some in their entirety, some only in part. The second group largely consists of marketable common stocks of major American companies. Additionally, we own a few non-U.S. equities and participate in several joint ventures or other collaborative activities.</p><p>Whatever our form of ownership, our goal is to have meaningful investments in businesses with both durable economic advantages and a first-class CEO. Please note particularly that we own stocks based upon our expectations about their long-term business performance and not because we view them as vehicles for timely market moves. That point is crucial: Charlie and I are not stock-pickers; we are business-pickers.</p><p>I make many mistakes. Consequently, our extensive collection of businesses includes some enterprises that have truly extraordinary economics, many others that enjoy good economic characteristics, and a few that are marginal. One advantage of our common-stock segment is that – on occasion – it becomes easy to buy pieces of wonderful businesses at wonderful prices. That shooting-fish-in-a-barrel experience is very rare in negotiated transactions and never occurs en masse. It is also far easier to exit from a mistake when it has been made in the marketable arena.</p><h2><b>Surprise, Surprise</b></h2><p>Here are a few items about your company that often surprise even seasoned investors:</p><p>• Many people perceive Berkshire as a large and somewhat strange collection of financial assets. In truth, Berkshire owns and operates more U.S.-based “infrastructure” assets – classified on our balance sheet as property, plant and equipment – than are owned and operated by any other American corporation. That supremacy has never been our goal. It has, however, become a fact.</p><p>At yearend, those domestic infrastructure assets were carried on Berkshire’s balance sheet at $158 billion. That number increased last year and will continue to increase. Berkshire always will be building.</p><p>• Every year, your company makes substantial federal income tax payments. In 2021, for example, we paid</p><p>$3.3 billion while the U.S. Treasury reported total corporate income-tax receipts of $402 billion. Additionally, Berkshire pays substantial state and foreign taxes. “I gave at the office” is an unassailable assertion when made by Berkshire shareholders.</p><p>Berkshire’s history vividly illustrates the invisible and often unrecognized financial partnership between  government and American businesses. Our tale begins early in 1955, when Berkshire Fine Spinning and Hathaway Manufacturing agreed to merge their businesses. In their requests for shareholder approval, these venerable New England textile companies expressed high hopes for the combination.</p><p></p><p>The Hathaway solicitation, for example, assured its shareholders that “The combination of the resources and managements will result in one of the strongest and most efficient organizations in the textile industry.” That upbeat view was endorsed by the company’s advisor, Lehman Brothers (yes, that Lehman Brothers).</p><p>I’m sure it was a joyous day in both Fall River (Berkshire) and New Bedford (Hathaway) when the union was consummated. After the bands stopped playing and the bankers went home, however, the shareholders reaped a disaster.</p><p>In the nine years following the merger, Berkshire’s owners watched the company’s net worth crater from</p><p>$51.4 million to $22.1 million. In part, this decline was caused by stock repurchases, ill-advised dividends and plant shutdowns. But nine years of effort by many thousands of employees delivered an operating loss as well. Berkshire’s struggles were not unusual: The New England textile industry had silently entered an extended and non-reversible death march.</p><p>During the nine post-merger years, the U.S. Treasury suffered as well from Berkshire’s troubles. All told, the company paid the government only $337,359 in income tax during that period – a pathetic $100 per day.</p><p>Early in 1965, things changed. Berkshire installed new management that redeployed available cash and steered essentially all earnings into a variety of good businesses, most of which remained good through the years. Coupling reinvestment of earnings with the power of compounding worked its magic, and shareholders prospered.</p><p>Berkshire’s owners, it should be noted, were not the only beneficiary of that course correction. Their “silent partner,” the U.S. Treasury, proceeded to collect many tens of billions of dollars from the company in income tax payments. Remember the $100 daily? Now, Berkshire pays roughly $9 million daily to the Treasury.</p><p>In fairness to our governmental partner, our shareholders should acknowledge – indeed trumpet – the fact that Berkshire’s prosperity has been fostered mightily because the company has operated in America. Our country would have done splendidly in the years since 1965 without Berkshire. Absent our American home, however, Berkshire would never have come close to becoming what it is today. When you see the flag, say thanks.</p><p>• From an $8.6 million purchase of National Indemnity in 1967, Berkshire has become the world leader in insurance “float” – money we hold and can invest but that does not belong to us. Including a relatively small sum derived from life insurance, Berkshire’s total float has grown from $19 million when we entered the insurance business to $147 billion.</p><p>So far, this float has cost us less than nothing. Though we have experienced a number of years when insurance losses combined with operating expenses exceeded premiums, overall we have earned a modest 55-year profit from the underwriting activities that generated our float.</p><p>Of equal importance, float is very sticky. Funds attributable to our insurance operations come and go daily, but their aggregate total is immune from precipitous decline. When it comes to investing float, we can therefore think long-term.</p><p>If you are not already familiar with the concept of float, I refer you to a long explanation on page A-5. To my surprise, our float increased $9 billion last year, a buildup of value that is important to Berkshire owners though is not reflected in our GAAP (“generally-accepted accounting principles”) presentation of earnings and net worth.</p><p>Much of our huge value creation in insurance is attributable to Berkshire’s good luck in my 1986 hiring of Ajit Jain. We first met on a Saturday morning, and I quickly asked Ajit what his insurance experience had been. He replied, “None.”</p><p>I said, “Nobody’s perfect,” and hired him. That was my lucky day: Ajit actually was as perfect a choice as could have been made. Better yet, he continues to be – 35 years later.</p><p>One final thought about insurance: I believe that it is likely – but far from assured – that Berkshire’s float can be maintained without our incurring a long-term underwriting loss. I am certain, however, that there will be some years when we experience such losses, perhaps involving very large sums.</p><p>Berkshire is constructed to handle catastrophic events as no other insurer – and that priority will remain long after Charlie and I are gone.</p><h2>Our Four Giants</h2><p>Through Berkshire, our shareholders own many dozens of businesses. Some of these, in turn, have a collection of subsidiaries of their own. For example, Marmon has more than 100 individual business operations, ranging from the leasing of railroad cars to the manufacture of medical devices.</p><p>• Nevertheless, operations of our “Big Four” companies account for a very large chunk of Berkshire’s value. Leading this list is our cluster of insurers. Berkshire effectively owns 100% of this group, whose massive float value we earlier described. The invested assets of these insurers are further enlarged by the extraordinary amount of capital we invest to back up their promises.</p><p>The insurance business is made to order for Berkshire. The product will never be obsolete, and sales volume will generally increase along with both economic growth and inflation. Also, integrity and capital will forever be important. Our company can and will behave well.</p><p>There are, of course, other insurers with excellent business models and prospects. Replication of Berkshire’s operation, however, would be almost impossible.</p><p>• Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier. That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.</p><p>It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our “share” of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud. Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well.</p><p>• BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire. If the many essential products BNSF carries were instead hauled by truck, America’s carbon emissions would soar.</p><p>Your railroad had record earnings of $6 billion in 2021. Here, it should be noted, we are talking about the old-fashioned sort of earnings that we favor: a figure calculated after interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and all forms of compensation. (Our definition suggests a warning: Deceptive “adjustments” to earnings – to use a polite description – have become both more frequent and more fanciful as stocks have risen. Speaking less politely, I would say that bull markets breed bloviated bull )</p><p>BNSF trains traveled 143 million miles last year and carried 535 million tons of cargo. Both accomplishments far exceed those of any other American carrier. You can be proud of your railroad.</p><p>• BHE, our final Giant, earned a record $4 billion in 2021. That’s up more than 30-fold from the $122 million earned in 2000, the year that Berkshire first purchased a BHE stake. Now, Berkshire owns 91.1% of the company.</p><p>BHE’s record of societal accomplishment is as remarkable as its financial performance. The company had no wind or solar generation in 2000. It was then regarded simply as a relatively new and minor participant in the huge electric utility industry. Subsequently, under David Sokol’s and Greg Abel’s leadership, BHE has become a utility powerhouse (no groaning, please) and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.</p><p>Greg’s report on these accomplishments appears on pages A-3 and A-4. The profile you will find there is not in any way one of those currently-fashionable “green-washing” stories. BHE has been faithfully detailing its plans and performance in renewables and transmissions every year since 2007.</p><p>To further review this information, visit BHE’s website at brkenergy.com. There, you will see that the company has long been making climate-conscious moves that soak up all of its earnings. More opportunities lie ahead. BHE has the management, the experience, the capital and the appetite for the huge power projects that our country needs.</p><h2>Investments</h2><p>Now let’s talk about companies we don’t control, a list that again references Apple. Below we list our fifteen largest equity holdings, several of which are selections of Berkshire’s two long-time investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. At yearend, this valued pair had total authority in respect to $34 billion of investments, many of which do not meet the threshold value we use in the table. Also, a significant portion of the dollars that Todd and Ted manage are lodged in various pension plans of Berkshire-owned businesses, with the assets of these plans not included in this table.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d43587e9f59c0ff76e6c04c6bf9af324\" tg-width=\"1047\" tg-height=\"530\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/>* This is our actual purchase price and also our tax basis.</p><p>** Held by BHE; consequently, Berkshire shareholders have only a 91.1% interest in this position.</p><p>*** Includes a $10 billion investment in Occidental Petroleum, consisting of preferred stock and warrants to buy common stock, a combination now being valued at $10.7 billion.</p><p>In addition to the footnoted Occidental holding and our various common-stock positions, Berkshire also owns a 26.6% interest in Kraft Heinz (accounted for on the “equity” method, not market value, and carried at $13.1 billion) and 38.6% of Pilot Corp., a leader in travel centers that had revenues last year of $45 billion.</p><p>Since we purchased our Pilot stake in 2017, this holding has warranted “equity” accounting treatment. Early in 2023, Berkshire will purchase an additional interest in Pilot that will raise our ownership to 80% and lead to our fully consolidating Pilot’s earnings, assets and liabilities in our financial statements.</p><h2>U.S. Treasury Bills</h2><p>Berkshire’s balance sheet includes $144 billion of cash and cash equivalents (excluding the holdings of BNSF and BHE). Of this sum, $120 billion is held in U.S. Treasury bills, all maturing in less than a year. That stake leaves Berkshire financing about 12 of 1% of the publicly-held national debt.</p><p>Charlie and I have pledged that Berkshire (along with our subsidiaries other than BNSF and BHE) will always hold more than $30 billion of cash and equivalents. We want your company to be financially impregnable and never dependent on the kindness of strangers (or even that of friends). Both of us like to sleep soundly, and we want our creditors, insurance claimants and you to do so as well.</p><h2>But $144 billion?</h2><p>That imposing sum, I assure you, is not some deranged expression of patriotism. Nor have Charlie and I lost our overwhelming preference for business ownership. Indeed, I first manifested my enthusiasm for that 80 years ago, on March 11, 1942, when I purchased three shares of Cities Services preferred stock. Their cost was $114.75 and required all of my savings. (The Dow Jones Industrial Average that day closed at 99, a fact that should scream to you: Never bet against America.)</p><p>After my initial plunge, I always kept at least 80% of my net worth in equities. My favored status throughout that period was 100% – and still is. Berkshire’s current 80%-or-so position in businesses is a consequence of my failure to find entire companies or small portions thereof (that is, marketable stocks) which meet our criteria for long- term holding.</p><p>Charlie and I have endured similar cash-heavy positions from time to time in the past. These periods are never pleasant; they are also never permanent. And, fortunately, we have had a mildly attractive alternative during 2020 and 2021 for deploying capital. Read on.</p><h2>Share Repurchases</h2><p>There are three ways that we can increase the value of your investment. The first is always front and center in our minds: Increase the long-term earning power of Berkshire’s controlled businesses through internal growth or by making acquisitions. Today, internal opportunities deliver far better returns than acquisitions. The size of those opportunities, however, is small compared to Berkshire’s resources.</p><p>Our second choice is to buy non-controlling part-interests in the many good or great businesses that are publicly traded. From time to time, such possibilities are both numerous and blatantly attractive. Today, though, we find little that excites us.</p><p>That’s largely because of a truism: Long-term interest rates that are low push the prices of all productive investments upward, whether these are stocks, apartments, farms, oil wells, whatever. Other factors influence valuations as well, but interest rates will always be important.</p><p>Our final path to value creation is to repurchase Berkshire shares. Through that simple act, we increase your share of the many controlled and non-controlled businesses Berkshire owns. When the price/value equation is right, this path is the easiest and most certain way for us to increase your wealth. (Alongside the accretion of value to continuing shareholders, a couple of other parties gain: Repurchases are modestly beneficial to the seller of the repurchased shares and to society as well.)</p><p>Periodically, as alternative paths become unattractive, repurchases make good sense for Berkshire’s owners. During the past two years, we therefore repurchased 9% of the shares that were outstanding at yearend 2019 for a total cost of $51.7 billion. That expenditure left our continuing shareholders owning about 10% more of all Berkshire businesses, whether these are wholly-owned (such as BNSF and GEICO) or partly-owned (such as Coca-Cola and Moody’s).</p><p>I want to underscore that for Berkshire repurchases to make sense, our shares must offer appropriate value. We don’t want to overpay for the shares of other companies, and it would be value-destroying if we were to overpay when we are buying Berkshire. As of February 23, 2022, since yearend we repurchased additional shares at a cost of $1.2 billion. Our appetite remains large but will always remain price-dependent.</p><p>It should be noted that Berkshire’s buyback opportunities are limited because of its high-class investor base. If our shares were heavily held by short-term speculators, both price volatility and transaction volumes would materially increase. That kind of reshaping would offer us far greater opportunities for creating value by making repurchases. Nevertheless, Charlie and I far prefer the owners we have, even though their admirable buy-and-keep attitudes limit the extent to which long-term shareholders can profit from opportunistic repurchases.</p><p>Finally, one easily-overlooked value calculation specific to Berkshire: As we’ve discussed, insurance “float” of the right sort is of great value to us. As it happens, repurchases automatically increase the amount of “float” per share. That figure has increased during the past two years by 25% – going from $79,387 per “A” share to $99,497, a meaningful gain that, as noted, owes some thanks to repurchases.</p><h2>A Wonderful Man and a Wonderful Business</h2><p>Last year, Paul Andrews died. Paul was the founder and CEO of TTI, a Fort Worth-based subsidiary of Berkshire. Throughout his life – in both his business and his personal pursuits – Paul quietly displayed all the qualities that Charlie and I admire. His story should be told.</p><p>In 1971, Paul was working as a purchasing agent for General Dynamics when the roof fell in. After losing a huge defense contract, the company fired thousands of employees, including Paul.</p><p>With his first child due soon, Paul decided to bet on himself, using $500 of his savings to found Tex-Tronics (later renamed TTI). The company set itself up to distribute small electronic components, and first-year sales totaled $112,000. Today, TTI markets more than one million different items with annual volume of $7.7 billion.</p><p>But back to 2006: Paul, at 63, then found himself happy with his family, his job, and his associates. But he had one nagging worry, heightened because he had recently witnessed a friend’s early death and the disastrous results that followed for that man’s family and business. What, Paul asked himself in 2006, would happen to the many people depending on him if he should unexpectedly die?</p><p>For a year, Paul wrestled with his options. Sell to a competitor? From a strictly economic viewpoint, that course made the most sense. After all, competitors could envision lucrative “synergies” – savings that would be achieved as the acquiror slashed duplicated functions at TTI.</p><p>But . . . Such a purchaser would most certainly also retain its CFO, its legal counsel, its HR unit. Their TTI counterparts would therefore be sent packing. And ugh! If a new distribution center were to be needed, the acquirer’s home city would certainly be favored over Fort Worth.</p><p>Whatever the financial benefits, Paul quickly concluded that selling to a competitor was not for him. He next considered seeking a financial buyer, a species once labeled – aptly so – a leveraged buyout firm. Paul knew, however, that such a purchaser would be focused on an “exit strategy.” And who could know what that would be? Brooding over it all, Paul found himself having no interest in handing his 35-year-old creation over to a reseller.</p><p>When Paul met me, he explained why he had eliminated these two alternatives as buyers. He then summed up his dilemma by saying – in far more tactful phrasing than this – “After a year of pondering the alternatives, I want to sell to Berkshire because you are the only guy left.” So, I made an offer and Paul said “Yes.” One meeting; one lunch; one deal.</p><p>To say we both lived happily ever after is an understatement. When Berkshire purchased TTI, the company employed 2,387. Now the number is 8,043. A large percentage of that growth took place in Fort Worth and environs. Earnings have increased 673%.</p><p>Annually, I would call Paul and tell him his salary should be substantially increased. Annually, he would tell me, “We can talk about that next year, Warren; I’m too busy now.”</p><p>When Greg Abel and I attended Paul’s memorial service, we met children, grandchildren, long-time associates (including TTI’s first employee) and John Roach, the former CEO of a Fort Worth company Berkshire had purchased in 2000. John had steered his friend Paul to Omaha, instinctively knowing we would be a match.</p><p>At the service, Greg and I heard about the multitudes of people and organizations that Paul had silently supported. The breadth of his generosity was extraordinary – geared always to improving the lives of others, particularly those in Fort Worth.</p><p>In all ways, Paul was a class act.</p><p>* * * * * * * * * * * *</p><p>Good luck – occasionally extraordinary luck – has played its part at Berkshire. If Paul and I had not enjoyed a mutual friend – John Roach – TTI would not have found its home with us. But that ample serving of luck was only the beginning. TTI was soon to lead Berkshire to its most important acquisition.</p><p>Every fall, Berkshire directors gather for a presentation by a few of our executives. We sometimes choose the site based upon the location of a recent acquisition, by that means allowing directors to meet the new subsidiary’s CEO and learn more about the acquiree’s activities.</p><p>In the fall of 2009, we consequently selected Fort Worth so that we could visit TTI. At that time, BNSF, which also had Fort Worth as its hometown, was the third-largest holding among our marketable equities. Despite that large stake, I had never visited the railroad’s headquarters.</p><p>Deb Bosanek, my assistant, scheduled our board’s opening dinner for October 22. Meanwhile, I arranged to arrive earlier that day to meet with Matt Rose, CEO of BNSF, whose accomplishments I had long admired. When I made the date, I had no idea that our get-together would coincide with BNSF’s third-quarter earnings report, which was released late on the 22nd.</p><p>The market reacted badly to the railroad’s results. The Great Recession was in full force in the third quarter, and BNSF’s earnings reflected that slump. The economic outlook was also bleak, and Wall Street wasn’t feeling friendly to railroads – or much else.</p><p>On the following day, I again got together with Matt and suggested that Berkshire would offer the railroad a better long-term home than it could expect as a public company. I also told him the maximum price that Berkshire would pay.</p><p>Matt relayed the offer to his directors and advisors. Eleven busy days later, Berkshire and BNSF announced a firm deal. And here I’ll venture a rare prediction: BNSF will be a key asset for Berkshire and our country a century from now.</p><p>The BNSF acquisition would never have happened if Paul Andrews hadn’t sized up Berkshire as the right home for TTI.</p><h2>Thanks</h2><p>I taught my first investing class 70 years ago. Since then, I have enjoyed working almost every year with students of all ages, finally “retiring” from that pursuit in 2018.</p><p>Along the way, my toughest audience was my grandson’s fifth-grade class. The 11-year-olds were squirming in their seats and giving me blank stares until I mentioned Coca-Cola and its famous secret formula. Instantly, every hand went up, and I learned that “secrets” are catnip to kids.</p><p>Teaching, like writing, has helped me develop and clarify my own thoughts. Charlie calls this phenomenon the orangutan effect: If you sit down with an orangutan and carefully explain to it one of your cherished ideas, you may leave behind a puzzled primate, but will yourself exit thinking more clearly.</p><p>Talking to university students is far superior. I have urged that they seek employment in (1) the field and (2) with the kind of people they would select, if they had no need for money. Economic realities, I acknowledge, may interfere with that kind of search. Even so, I urge the students never to give up the quest, for when they find that sort of job, they will no longer be “working.”</p><p>Charlie and I, ourselves, followed that liberating course after a few early stumbles. We both started as part- timers at my grandfather’s grocery store, Charlie in 1940 and I in 1942. We were each assigned boring tasks and paid little, definitely not what we had in mind. Charlie later took up law, and I tried selling securities. Job satisfaction continued to elude us.</p><p>Finally, at Berkshire, we found what we love to do. With very few exceptions, we have now “worked” for many decades with people whom we like and trust. It’s a joy in life to join with managers such as Paul Andrews or the Berkshire families I told you about last year. In our home office, we employ decent and talented people – no jerks. Turnover averages, perhaps, one person per year.</p><p>I would like, however, to emphasize a further item that turns our jobs into fun and satisfaction working</p><p>for you. There is nothing more rewarding to Charlie and me than enjoying the trust of individual long-term shareholders who, for many decades, have joined us with the expectation that we would be a reliable custodian of their funds.</p><p>Obviously, we can’t select our owners, as we could do if our form of operation were a partnership. Anyone can buy shares of Berkshire today with the intention of soon reselling them. For sure, we get a few of that type of shareholder, just as we get index funds that own huge amounts of Berkshire simply because they are required to do so.</p><p>To a truly unusual degree, however, Berkshire has as owners a very large corps of individuals and families that have elected to join us with an intent approaching “til death do us part.” Often, they have trusted us with a large – some might say excessive – portion of their savings.</p><p>Berkshire, these shareholders would sometimes acknowledge, might be far from the best selection they could have made. But they would add that Berkshire would rank high among those with which they would be most comfortable. And people who are comfortable with their investments will, on average, achieve better results than those who are motivated by ever-changing headlines, chatter and promises.</p><p>Long-term individual owners are both the “partners” Charlie and I have always sought and the ones we constantly have in mind as we make decisions at Berkshire. To them we say, “It feels good to ‘work’ for you, and you have our thanks for your trust.”</p><h2>The Annual Meeting</h2><p>Clear your calendar! Berkshire will have its annual gathering of capitalists in Omaha on Friday, April 29th through Sunday, May 1st. The details regarding the weekend are laid out on pages A-1 and A-2. Omaha eagerly awaits you, as do I.</p><p>I will end this letter with a sales pitch. “Cousin” Jimmy Buffett has designed a pontoon “party” boat that is now being manufactured by Forest River, a Berkshire subsidiary. The boat will be introduced on April 29 at our Berkshire Bazaar of Bargains. And, for two days only, shareholders will be able to purchase Jimmy’s masterpiece at a 10% discount. Your bargain-hunting chairman will be buying a boat for his family’s use. Join me.</p><p>February 26, 2022</p><p>Warren E. Buffett Chairman of the Board</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Buffett Full Annual Letter：Apple is One of ‘Four Giants’ Driving the Conglomerate’s Value</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nBuffett Full Annual Letter：Apple is One of ‘Four Giants’ Driving the Conglomerate’s Value\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n<a class=\"head\" href=\"https://laohu8.com/wemedia/1079075236\">\n\n\n<div class=\"h-thumb\" style=\"background-image:url(https://static.tigerbbs.com/8274c5b9d4c2852bfb1c4d6ce16c68ba);background-size:cover;\"></div>\n\n<div class=\"h-content\">\n<p class=\"h-name\">Tiger Newspress </p>\n<p class=\"h-time\">2022-02-27 09:48</p>\n</div>\n\n</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<html><head></head><body><p>Warren Buffett released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday. The 91-year-old investing legend has been publishing the letter for over six decades and it has become required reading for investors around the world.</p><p>Warren Buffett said he now considers tech giant Apple as one of the four pillars driving Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate of mostly old-economy businesses he’s assembled over the last five decades.</p><p>In his annual letter to shareholders released on Saturday, the 91-year-old investing legend listed Apple under the heading “Our Four Giants” and even called the company the second-most important after Berkshire’s cluster of insurers, thanks to its chief executive.</p><p>“Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well,” the letter stated.</p><p>Buffett made clear he is a fan of Cook’s stock repurchase strategy, and how it gives the conglomerate increased ownership of each dollar of the iPhone maker’s earnings without the investor having to lift a finger.</p><p>“Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier,” Buffett said in the letter. “That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.”</p><p>Berkshire began buying Apple stock in 2016 under the influence of Buffett’s investing deputies Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. By mid-2018, the conglomerate accumulated 5% ownership of the iPhone maker, a stake that cost $36 billion. Today, the Apple investment is now worth more than $160 billion, taking up 40% of Berkshire’s equity portfolio.</p><p>“It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our ‘share’ of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud,” Buffett said.</p><p>Berkshire is Apple’s largest shareholder, outside of index and exchange-traded fund providers.</p><p>Buffett also credited his railroad business BNSF and energy segment BHE as two other giants of the conglomerate, which both registered record earnings in 2021.</p><p>“BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire,” Buffett said. “BHE has become a utility powerhouse and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.”</p><p><b>Read the full letter here：</b></p><p>To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:</p><p>Charlie Munger, my long-time partner, and I have the job of managing a portion of your savings. We are honored by your trust.</p><p>Our position carries with it the responsibility to report to you what we would like to know if we were the absentee owner and you were the manager. We enjoy communicating directly with you through this annual letter, and through the annual meeting as well.</p><p>Our policy is to treat all shareholders equally. Therefore, we do not hold discussions with analysts nor large institutions. Whenever possible, also, we release important communications on Saturday mornings in order to maximize the time for shareholders and the media to absorb the news before markets open on Monday.</p><p>A wealth of Berkshire facts and figures are set forth in the annual 10-K that the company regularly files with the S.E.C. and that we reproduce on pages K-1 – K-119. Some shareholders will find this detail engrossing; others will simply prefer to learn what Charlie and I believe is new or interesting at Berkshire.</p><p>Alas, there was little action of that sort in 2021. We did, though, make reasonable progress in increasing the intrinsic value of your shares. That task has been my primary duty for 57 years. And it will continue to be.</p><p><b>What You Own</b></p><p>Berkshire owns a wide variety of businesses, some in their entirety, some only in part. The second group largely consists of marketable common stocks of major American companies. Additionally, we own a few non-U.S. equities and participate in several joint ventures or other collaborative activities.</p><p>Whatever our form of ownership, our goal is to have meaningful investments in businesses with both durable economic advantages and a first-class CEO. Please note particularly that we own stocks based upon our expectations about their long-term business performance and not because we view them as vehicles for timely market moves. That point is crucial: Charlie and I are not stock-pickers; we are business-pickers.</p><p>I make many mistakes. Consequently, our extensive collection of businesses includes some enterprises that have truly extraordinary economics, many others that enjoy good economic characteristics, and a few that are marginal. One advantage of our common-stock segment is that – on occasion – it becomes easy to buy pieces of wonderful businesses at wonderful prices. That shooting-fish-in-a-barrel experience is very rare in negotiated transactions and never occurs en masse. It is also far easier to exit from a mistake when it has been made in the marketable arena.</p><h2><b>Surprise, Surprise</b></h2><p>Here are a few items about your company that often surprise even seasoned investors:</p><p>• Many people perceive Berkshire as a large and somewhat strange collection of financial assets. In truth, Berkshire owns and operates more U.S.-based “infrastructure” assets – classified on our balance sheet as property, plant and equipment – than are owned and operated by any other American corporation. That supremacy has never been our goal. It has, however, become a fact.</p><p>At yearend, those domestic infrastructure assets were carried on Berkshire’s balance sheet at $158 billion. That number increased last year and will continue to increase. Berkshire always will be building.</p><p>• Every year, your company makes substantial federal income tax payments. In 2021, for example, we paid</p><p>$3.3 billion while the U.S. Treasury reported total corporate income-tax receipts of $402 billion. Additionally, Berkshire pays substantial state and foreign taxes. “I gave at the office” is an unassailable assertion when made by Berkshire shareholders.</p><p>Berkshire’s history vividly illustrates the invisible and often unrecognized financial partnership between  government and American businesses. Our tale begins early in 1955, when Berkshire Fine Spinning and Hathaway Manufacturing agreed to merge their businesses. In their requests for shareholder approval, these venerable New England textile companies expressed high hopes for the combination.</p><p></p><p>The Hathaway solicitation, for example, assured its shareholders that “The combination of the resources and managements will result in one of the strongest and most efficient organizations in the textile industry.” That upbeat view was endorsed by the company’s advisor, Lehman Brothers (yes, that Lehman Brothers).</p><p>I’m sure it was a joyous day in both Fall River (Berkshire) and New Bedford (Hathaway) when the union was consummated. After the bands stopped playing and the bankers went home, however, the shareholders reaped a disaster.</p><p>In the nine years following the merger, Berkshire’s owners watched the company’s net worth crater from</p><p>$51.4 million to $22.1 million. In part, this decline was caused by stock repurchases, ill-advised dividends and plant shutdowns. But nine years of effort by many thousands of employees delivered an operating loss as well. Berkshire’s struggles were not unusual: The New England textile industry had silently entered an extended and non-reversible death march.</p><p>During the nine post-merger years, the U.S. Treasury suffered as well from Berkshire’s troubles. All told, the company paid the government only $337,359 in income tax during that period – a pathetic $100 per day.</p><p>Early in 1965, things changed. Berkshire installed new management that redeployed available cash and steered essentially all earnings into a variety of good businesses, most of which remained good through the years. Coupling reinvestment of earnings with the power of compounding worked its magic, and shareholders prospered.</p><p>Berkshire’s owners, it should be noted, were not the only beneficiary of that course correction. Their “silent partner,” the U.S. Treasury, proceeded to collect many tens of billions of dollars from the company in income tax payments. Remember the $100 daily? Now, Berkshire pays roughly $9 million daily to the Treasury.</p><p>In fairness to our governmental partner, our shareholders should acknowledge – indeed trumpet – the fact that Berkshire’s prosperity has been fostered mightily because the company has operated in America. Our country would have done splendidly in the years since 1965 without Berkshire. Absent our American home, however, Berkshire would never have come close to becoming what it is today. When you see the flag, say thanks.</p><p>• From an $8.6 million purchase of National Indemnity in 1967, Berkshire has become the world leader in insurance “float” – money we hold and can invest but that does not belong to us. Including a relatively small sum derived from life insurance, Berkshire’s total float has grown from $19 million when we entered the insurance business to $147 billion.</p><p>So far, this float has cost us less than nothing. Though we have experienced a number of years when insurance losses combined with operating expenses exceeded premiums, overall we have earned a modest 55-year profit from the underwriting activities that generated our float.</p><p>Of equal importance, float is very sticky. Funds attributable to our insurance operations come and go daily, but their aggregate total is immune from precipitous decline. When it comes to investing float, we can therefore think long-term.</p><p>If you are not already familiar with the concept of float, I refer you to a long explanation on page A-5. To my surprise, our float increased $9 billion last year, a buildup of value that is important to Berkshire owners though is not reflected in our GAAP (“generally-accepted accounting principles”) presentation of earnings and net worth.</p><p>Much of our huge value creation in insurance is attributable to Berkshire’s good luck in my 1986 hiring of Ajit Jain. We first met on a Saturday morning, and I quickly asked Ajit what his insurance experience had been. He replied, “None.”</p><p>I said, “Nobody’s perfect,” and hired him. That was my lucky day: Ajit actually was as perfect a choice as could have been made. Better yet, he continues to be – 35 years later.</p><p>One final thought about insurance: I believe that it is likely – but far from assured – that Berkshire’s float can be maintained without our incurring a long-term underwriting loss. I am certain, however, that there will be some years when we experience such losses, perhaps involving very large sums.</p><p>Berkshire is constructed to handle catastrophic events as no other insurer – and that priority will remain long after Charlie and I are gone.</p><h2>Our Four Giants</h2><p>Through Berkshire, our shareholders own many dozens of businesses. Some of these, in turn, have a collection of subsidiaries of their own. For example, Marmon has more than 100 individual business operations, ranging from the leasing of railroad cars to the manufacture of medical devices.</p><p>• Nevertheless, operations of our “Big Four” companies account for a very large chunk of Berkshire’s value. Leading this list is our cluster of insurers. Berkshire effectively owns 100% of this group, whose massive float value we earlier described. The invested assets of these insurers are further enlarged by the extraordinary amount of capital we invest to back up their promises.</p><p>The insurance business is made to order for Berkshire. The product will never be obsolete, and sales volume will generally increase along with both economic growth and inflation. Also, integrity and capital will forever be important. Our company can and will behave well.</p><p>There are, of course, other insurers with excellent business models and prospects. Replication of Berkshire’s operation, however, would be almost impossible.</p><p>• Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier. That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.</p><p>It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our “share” of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud. Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well.</p><p>• BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire. If the many essential products BNSF carries were instead hauled by truck, America’s carbon emissions would soar.</p><p>Your railroad had record earnings of $6 billion in 2021. Here, it should be noted, we are talking about the old-fashioned sort of earnings that we favor: a figure calculated after interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and all forms of compensation. (Our definition suggests a warning: Deceptive “adjustments” to earnings – to use a polite description – have become both more frequent and more fanciful as stocks have risen. Speaking less politely, I would say that bull markets breed bloviated bull )</p><p>BNSF trains traveled 143 million miles last year and carried 535 million tons of cargo. Both accomplishments far exceed those of any other American carrier. You can be proud of your railroad.</p><p>• BHE, our final Giant, earned a record $4 billion in 2021. That’s up more than 30-fold from the $122 million earned in 2000, the year that Berkshire first purchased a BHE stake. Now, Berkshire owns 91.1% of the company.</p><p>BHE’s record of societal accomplishment is as remarkable as its financial performance. The company had no wind or solar generation in 2000. It was then regarded simply as a relatively new and minor participant in the huge electric utility industry. Subsequently, under David Sokol’s and Greg Abel’s leadership, BHE has become a utility powerhouse (no groaning, please) and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.</p><p>Greg’s report on these accomplishments appears on pages A-3 and A-4. The profile you will find there is not in any way one of those currently-fashionable “green-washing” stories. BHE has been faithfully detailing its plans and performance in renewables and transmissions every year since 2007.</p><p>To further review this information, visit BHE’s website at brkenergy.com. There, you will see that the company has long been making climate-conscious moves that soak up all of its earnings. More opportunities lie ahead. BHE has the management, the experience, the capital and the appetite for the huge power projects that our country needs.</p><h2>Investments</h2><p>Now let’s talk about companies we don’t control, a list that again references Apple. Below we list our fifteen largest equity holdings, several of which are selections of Berkshire’s two long-time investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. At yearend, this valued pair had total authority in respect to $34 billion of investments, many of which do not meet the threshold value we use in the table. Also, a significant portion of the dollars that Todd and Ted manage are lodged in various pension plans of Berkshire-owned businesses, with the assets of these plans not included in this table.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d43587e9f59c0ff76e6c04c6bf9af324\" tg-width=\"1047\" tg-height=\"530\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/>* This is our actual purchase price and also our tax basis.</p><p>** Held by BHE; consequently, Berkshire shareholders have only a 91.1% interest in this position.</p><p>*** Includes a $10 billion investment in Occidental Petroleum, consisting of preferred stock and warrants to buy common stock, a combination now being valued at $10.7 billion.</p><p>In addition to the footnoted Occidental holding and our various common-stock positions, Berkshire also owns a 26.6% interest in Kraft Heinz (accounted for on the “equity” method, not market value, and carried at $13.1 billion) and 38.6% of Pilot Corp., a leader in travel centers that had revenues last year of $45 billion.</p><p>Since we purchased our Pilot stake in 2017, this holding has warranted “equity” accounting treatment. Early in 2023, Berkshire will purchase an additional interest in Pilot that will raise our ownership to 80% and lead to our fully consolidating Pilot’s earnings, assets and liabilities in our financial statements.</p><h2>U.S. Treasury Bills</h2><p>Berkshire’s balance sheet includes $144 billion of cash and cash equivalents (excluding the holdings of BNSF and BHE). Of this sum, $120 billion is held in U.S. Treasury bills, all maturing in less than a year. That stake leaves Berkshire financing about 12 of 1% of the publicly-held national debt.</p><p>Charlie and I have pledged that Berkshire (along with our subsidiaries other than BNSF and BHE) will always hold more than $30 billion of cash and equivalents. We want your company to be financially impregnable and never dependent on the kindness of strangers (or even that of friends). Both of us like to sleep soundly, and we want our creditors, insurance claimants and you to do so as well.</p><h2>But $144 billion?</h2><p>That imposing sum, I assure you, is not some deranged expression of patriotism. Nor have Charlie and I lost our overwhelming preference for business ownership. Indeed, I first manifested my enthusiasm for that 80 years ago, on March 11, 1942, when I purchased three shares of Cities Services preferred stock. Their cost was $114.75 and required all of my savings. (The Dow Jones Industrial Average that day closed at 99, a fact that should scream to you: Never bet against America.)</p><p>After my initial plunge, I always kept at least 80% of my net worth in equities. My favored status throughout that period was 100% – and still is. Berkshire’s current 80%-or-so position in businesses is a consequence of my failure to find entire companies or small portions thereof (that is, marketable stocks) which meet our criteria for long- term holding.</p><p>Charlie and I have endured similar cash-heavy positions from time to time in the past. These periods are never pleasant; they are also never permanent. And, fortunately, we have had a mildly attractive alternative during 2020 and 2021 for deploying capital. Read on.</p><h2>Share Repurchases</h2><p>There are three ways that we can increase the value of your investment. The first is always front and center in our minds: Increase the long-term earning power of Berkshire’s controlled businesses through internal growth or by making acquisitions. Today, internal opportunities deliver far better returns than acquisitions. The size of those opportunities, however, is small compared to Berkshire’s resources.</p><p>Our second choice is to buy non-controlling part-interests in the many good or great businesses that are publicly traded. From time to time, such possibilities are both numerous and blatantly attractive. Today, though, we find little that excites us.</p><p>That’s largely because of a truism: Long-term interest rates that are low push the prices of all productive investments upward, whether these are stocks, apartments, farms, oil wells, whatever. Other factors influence valuations as well, but interest rates will always be important.</p><p>Our final path to value creation is to repurchase Berkshire shares. Through that simple act, we increase your share of the many controlled and non-controlled businesses Berkshire owns. When the price/value equation is right, this path is the easiest and most certain way for us to increase your wealth. (Alongside the accretion of value to continuing shareholders, a couple of other parties gain: Repurchases are modestly beneficial to the seller of the repurchased shares and to society as well.)</p><p>Periodically, as alternative paths become unattractive, repurchases make good sense for Berkshire’s owners. During the past two years, we therefore repurchased 9% of the shares that were outstanding at yearend 2019 for a total cost of $51.7 billion. That expenditure left our continuing shareholders owning about 10% more of all Berkshire businesses, whether these are wholly-owned (such as BNSF and GEICO) or partly-owned (such as Coca-Cola and Moody’s).</p><p>I want to underscore that for Berkshire repurchases to make sense, our shares must offer appropriate value. We don’t want to overpay for the shares of other companies, and it would be value-destroying if we were to overpay when we are buying Berkshire. As of February 23, 2022, since yearend we repurchased additional shares at a cost of $1.2 billion. Our appetite remains large but will always remain price-dependent.</p><p>It should be noted that Berkshire’s buyback opportunities are limited because of its high-class investor base. If our shares were heavily held by short-term speculators, both price volatility and transaction volumes would materially increase. That kind of reshaping would offer us far greater opportunities for creating value by making repurchases. Nevertheless, Charlie and I far prefer the owners we have, even though their admirable buy-and-keep attitudes limit the extent to which long-term shareholders can profit from opportunistic repurchases.</p><p>Finally, one easily-overlooked value calculation specific to Berkshire: As we’ve discussed, insurance “float” of the right sort is of great value to us. As it happens, repurchases automatically increase the amount of “float” per share. That figure has increased during the past two years by 25% – going from $79,387 per “A” share to $99,497, a meaningful gain that, as noted, owes some thanks to repurchases.</p><h2>A Wonderful Man and a Wonderful Business</h2><p>Last year, Paul Andrews died. Paul was the founder and CEO of TTI, a Fort Worth-based subsidiary of Berkshire. Throughout his life – in both his business and his personal pursuits – Paul quietly displayed all the qualities that Charlie and I admire. His story should be told.</p><p>In 1971, Paul was working as a purchasing agent for General Dynamics when the roof fell in. After losing a huge defense contract, the company fired thousands of employees, including Paul.</p><p>With his first child due soon, Paul decided to bet on himself, using $500 of his savings to found Tex-Tronics (later renamed TTI). The company set itself up to distribute small electronic components, and first-year sales totaled $112,000. Today, TTI markets more than one million different items with annual volume of $7.7 billion.</p><p>But back to 2006: Paul, at 63, then found himself happy with his family, his job, and his associates. But he had one nagging worry, heightened because he had recently witnessed a friend’s early death and the disastrous results that followed for that man’s family and business. What, Paul asked himself in 2006, would happen to the many people depending on him if he should unexpectedly die?</p><p>For a year, Paul wrestled with his options. Sell to a competitor? From a strictly economic viewpoint, that course made the most sense. After all, competitors could envision lucrative “synergies” – savings that would be achieved as the acquiror slashed duplicated functions at TTI.</p><p>But . . . Such a purchaser would most certainly also retain its CFO, its legal counsel, its HR unit. Their TTI counterparts would therefore be sent packing. And ugh! If a new distribution center were to be needed, the acquirer’s home city would certainly be favored over Fort Worth.</p><p>Whatever the financial benefits, Paul quickly concluded that selling to a competitor was not for him. He next considered seeking a financial buyer, a species once labeled – aptly so – a leveraged buyout firm. Paul knew, however, that such a purchaser would be focused on an “exit strategy.” And who could know what that would be? Brooding over it all, Paul found himself having no interest in handing his 35-year-old creation over to a reseller.</p><p>When Paul met me, he explained why he had eliminated these two alternatives as buyers. He then summed up his dilemma by saying – in far more tactful phrasing than this – “After a year of pondering the alternatives, I want to sell to Berkshire because you are the only guy left.” So, I made an offer and Paul said “Yes.” One meeting; one lunch; one deal.</p><p>To say we both lived happily ever after is an understatement. When Berkshire purchased TTI, the company employed 2,387. Now the number is 8,043. A large percentage of that growth took place in Fort Worth and environs. Earnings have increased 673%.</p><p>Annually, I would call Paul and tell him his salary should be substantially increased. Annually, he would tell me, “We can talk about that next year, Warren; I’m too busy now.”</p><p>When Greg Abel and I attended Paul’s memorial service, we met children, grandchildren, long-time associates (including TTI’s first employee) and John Roach, the former CEO of a Fort Worth company Berkshire had purchased in 2000. John had steered his friend Paul to Omaha, instinctively knowing we would be a match.</p><p>At the service, Greg and I heard about the multitudes of people and organizations that Paul had silently supported. The breadth of his generosity was extraordinary – geared always to improving the lives of others, particularly those in Fort Worth.</p><p>In all ways, Paul was a class act.</p><p>* * * * * * * * * * * *</p><p>Good luck – occasionally extraordinary luck – has played its part at Berkshire. If Paul and I had not enjoyed a mutual friend – John Roach – TTI would not have found its home with us. But that ample serving of luck was only the beginning. TTI was soon to lead Berkshire to its most important acquisition.</p><p>Every fall, Berkshire directors gather for a presentation by a few of our executives. We sometimes choose the site based upon the location of a recent acquisition, by that means allowing directors to meet the new subsidiary’s CEO and learn more about the acquiree’s activities.</p><p>In the fall of 2009, we consequently selected Fort Worth so that we could visit TTI. At that time, BNSF, which also had Fort Worth as its hometown, was the third-largest holding among our marketable equities. Despite that large stake, I had never visited the railroad’s headquarters.</p><p>Deb Bosanek, my assistant, scheduled our board’s opening dinner for October 22. Meanwhile, I arranged to arrive earlier that day to meet with Matt Rose, CEO of BNSF, whose accomplishments I had long admired. When I made the date, I had no idea that our get-together would coincide with BNSF’s third-quarter earnings report, which was released late on the 22nd.</p><p>The market reacted badly to the railroad’s results. The Great Recession was in full force in the third quarter, and BNSF’s earnings reflected that slump. The economic outlook was also bleak, and Wall Street wasn’t feeling friendly to railroads – or much else.</p><p>On the following day, I again got together with Matt and suggested that Berkshire would offer the railroad a better long-term home than it could expect as a public company. I also told him the maximum price that Berkshire would pay.</p><p>Matt relayed the offer to his directors and advisors. Eleven busy days later, Berkshire and BNSF announced a firm deal. And here I’ll venture a rare prediction: BNSF will be a key asset for Berkshire and our country a century from now.</p><p>The BNSF acquisition would never have happened if Paul Andrews hadn’t sized up Berkshire as the right home for TTI.</p><h2>Thanks</h2><p>I taught my first investing class 70 years ago. Since then, I have enjoyed working almost every year with students of all ages, finally “retiring” from that pursuit in 2018.</p><p>Along the way, my toughest audience was my grandson’s fifth-grade class. The 11-year-olds were squirming in their seats and giving me blank stares until I mentioned Coca-Cola and its famous secret formula. Instantly, every hand went up, and I learned that “secrets” are catnip to kids.</p><p>Teaching, like writing, has helped me develop and clarify my own thoughts. Charlie calls this phenomenon the orangutan effect: If you sit down with an orangutan and carefully explain to it one of your cherished ideas, you may leave behind a puzzled primate, but will yourself exit thinking more clearly.</p><p>Talking to university students is far superior. I have urged that they seek employment in (1) the field and (2) with the kind of people they would select, if they had no need for money. Economic realities, I acknowledge, may interfere with that kind of search. Even so, I urge the students never to give up the quest, for when they find that sort of job, they will no longer be “working.”</p><p>Charlie and I, ourselves, followed that liberating course after a few early stumbles. We both started as part- timers at my grandfather’s grocery store, Charlie in 1940 and I in 1942. We were each assigned boring tasks and paid little, definitely not what we had in mind. Charlie later took up law, and I tried selling securities. Job satisfaction continued to elude us.</p><p>Finally, at Berkshire, we found what we love to do. With very few exceptions, we have now “worked” for many decades with people whom we like and trust. It’s a joy in life to join with managers such as Paul Andrews or the Berkshire families I told you about last year. In our home office, we employ decent and talented people – no jerks. Turnover averages, perhaps, one person per year.</p><p>I would like, however, to emphasize a further item that turns our jobs into fun and satisfaction working</p><p>for you. There is nothing more rewarding to Charlie and me than enjoying the trust of individual long-term shareholders who, for many decades, have joined us with the expectation that we would be a reliable custodian of their funds.</p><p>Obviously, we can’t select our owners, as we could do if our form of operation were a partnership. Anyone can buy shares of Berkshire today with the intention of soon reselling them. For sure, we get a few of that type of shareholder, just as we get index funds that own huge amounts of Berkshire simply because they are required to do so.</p><p>To a truly unusual degree, however, Berkshire has as owners a very large corps of individuals and families that have elected to join us with an intent approaching “til death do us part.” Often, they have trusted us with a large – some might say excessive – portion of their savings.</p><p>Berkshire, these shareholders would sometimes acknowledge, might be far from the best selection they could have made. But they would add that Berkshire would rank high among those with which they would be most comfortable. And people who are comfortable with their investments will, on average, achieve better results than those who are motivated by ever-changing headlines, chatter and promises.</p><p>Long-term individual owners are both the “partners” Charlie and I have always sought and the ones we constantly have in mind as we make decisions at Berkshire. To them we say, “It feels good to ‘work’ for you, and you have our thanks for your trust.”</p><h2>The Annual Meeting</h2><p>Clear your calendar! Berkshire will have its annual gathering of capitalists in Omaha on Friday, April 29th through Sunday, May 1st. The details regarding the weekend are laid out on pages A-1 and A-2. Omaha eagerly awaits you, as do I.</p><p>I will end this letter with a sales pitch. “Cousin” Jimmy Buffett has designed a pontoon “party” boat that is now being manufactured by Forest River, a Berkshire subsidiary. The boat will be introduced on April 29 at our Berkshire Bazaar of Bargains. And, for two days only, shareholders will be able to purchase Jimmy’s masterpiece at a 10% discount. Your bargain-hunting chairman will be buying a boat for his family’s use. Join me.</p><p>February 26, 2022</p><p>Warren E. Buffett Chairman of the Board</p></body></html>\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BRK.A":"伯克希尔","BRK.B":"伯克希尔B"},"source_url":"","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1125580913","content_text":"Warren Buffett released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday. The 91-year-old investing legend has been publishing the letter for over six decades and it has become required reading for investors around the world.Warren Buffett said he now considers tech giant Apple as one of the four pillars driving Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate of mostly old-economy businesses he’s assembled over the last five decades.In his annual letter to shareholders released on Saturday, the 91-year-old investing legend listed Apple under the heading “Our Four Giants” and even called the company the second-most important after Berkshire’s cluster of insurers, thanks to its chief executive.“Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well,” the letter stated.Buffett made clear he is a fan of Cook’s stock repurchase strategy, and how it gives the conglomerate increased ownership of each dollar of the iPhone maker’s earnings without the investor having to lift a finger.“Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier,” Buffett said in the letter. “That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.”Berkshire began buying Apple stock in 2016 under the influence of Buffett’s investing deputies Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. By mid-2018, the conglomerate accumulated 5% ownership of the iPhone maker, a stake that cost $36 billion. Today, the Apple investment is now worth more than $160 billion, taking up 40% of Berkshire’s equity portfolio.“It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our ‘share’ of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud,” Buffett said.Berkshire is Apple’s largest shareholder, outside of index and exchange-traded fund providers.Buffett also credited his railroad business BNSF and energy segment BHE as two other giants of the conglomerate, which both registered record earnings in 2021.“BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire,” Buffett said. “BHE has become a utility powerhouse and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.”Read the full letter here：To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:Charlie Munger, my long-time partner, and I have the job of managing a portion of your savings. We are honored by your trust.Our position carries with it the responsibility to report to you what we would like to know if we were the absentee owner and you were the manager. We enjoy communicating directly with you through this annual letter, and through the annual meeting as well.Our policy is to treat all shareholders equally. Therefore, we do not hold discussions with analysts nor large institutions. Whenever possible, also, we release important communications on Saturday mornings in order to maximize the time for shareholders and the media to absorb the news before markets open on Monday.A wealth of Berkshire facts and figures are set forth in the annual 10-K that the company regularly files with the S.E.C. and that we reproduce on pages K-1 – K-119. Some shareholders will find this detail engrossing; others will simply prefer to learn what Charlie and I believe is new or interesting at Berkshire.Alas, there was little action of that sort in 2021. We did, though, make reasonable progress in increasing the intrinsic value of your shares. That task has been my primary duty for 57 years. And it will continue to be.What You OwnBerkshire owns a wide variety of businesses, some in their entirety, some only in part. The second group largely consists of marketable common stocks of major American companies. Additionally, we own a few non-U.S. equities and participate in several joint ventures or other collaborative activities.Whatever our form of ownership, our goal is to have meaningful investments in businesses with both durable economic advantages and a first-class CEO. Please note particularly that we own stocks based upon our expectations about their long-term business performance and not because we view them as vehicles for timely market moves. That point is crucial: Charlie and I are not stock-pickers; we are business-pickers.I make many mistakes. Consequently, our extensive collection of businesses includes some enterprises that have truly extraordinary economics, many others that enjoy good economic characteristics, and a few that are marginal. One advantage of our common-stock segment is that – on occasion – it becomes easy to buy pieces of wonderful businesses at wonderful prices. That shooting-fish-in-a-barrel experience is very rare in negotiated transactions and never occurs en masse. It is also far easier to exit from a mistake when it has been made in the marketable arena.Surprise, SurpriseHere are a few items about your company that often surprise even seasoned investors:• Many people perceive Berkshire as a large and somewhat strange collection of financial assets. In truth, Berkshire owns and operates more U.S.-based “infrastructure” assets – classified on our balance sheet as property, plant and equipment – than are owned and operated by any other American corporation. That supremacy has never been our goal. It has, however, become a fact.At yearend, those domestic infrastructure assets were carried on Berkshire’s balance sheet at $158 billion. That number increased last year and will continue to increase. Berkshire always will be building.• Every year, your company makes substantial federal income tax payments. In 2021, for example, we paid$3.3 billion while the U.S. Treasury reported total corporate income-tax receipts of $402 billion. Additionally, Berkshire pays substantial state and foreign taxes. “I gave at the office” is an unassailable assertion when made by Berkshire shareholders.Berkshire’s history vividly illustrates the invisible and often unrecognized financial partnership between  government and American businesses. Our tale begins early in 1955, when Berkshire Fine Spinning and Hathaway Manufacturing agreed to merge their businesses. In their requests for shareholder approval, these venerable New England textile companies expressed high hopes for the combination.The Hathaway solicitation, for example, assured its shareholders that “The combination of the resources and managements will result in one of the strongest and most efficient organizations in the textile industry.” That upbeat view was endorsed by the company’s advisor, Lehman Brothers (yes, that Lehman Brothers).I’m sure it was a joyous day in both Fall River (Berkshire) and New Bedford (Hathaway) when the union was consummated. After the bands stopped playing and the bankers went home, however, the shareholders reaped a disaster.In the nine years following the merger, Berkshire’s owners watched the company’s net worth crater from$51.4 million to $22.1 million. In part, this decline was caused by stock repurchases, ill-advised dividends and plant shutdowns. But nine years of effort by many thousands of employees delivered an operating loss as well. Berkshire’s struggles were not unusual: The New England textile industry had silently entered an extended and non-reversible death march.During the nine post-merger years, the U.S. Treasury suffered as well from Berkshire’s troubles. All told, the company paid the government only $337,359 in income tax during that period – a pathetic $100 per day.Early in 1965, things changed. Berkshire installed new management that redeployed available cash and steered essentially all earnings into a variety of good businesses, most of which remained good through the years. Coupling reinvestment of earnings with the power of compounding worked its magic, and shareholders prospered.Berkshire’s owners, it should be noted, were not the only beneficiary of that course correction. Their “silent partner,” the U.S. Treasury, proceeded to collect many tens of billions of dollars from the company in income tax payments. Remember the $100 daily? Now, Berkshire pays roughly $9 million daily to the Treasury.In fairness to our governmental partner, our shareholders should acknowledge – indeed trumpet – the fact that Berkshire’s prosperity has been fostered mightily because the company has operated in America. Our country would have done splendidly in the years since 1965 without Berkshire. Absent our American home, however, Berkshire would never have come close to becoming what it is today. When you see the flag, say thanks.• From an $8.6 million purchase of National Indemnity in 1967, Berkshire has become the world leader in insurance “float” – money we hold and can invest but that does not belong to us. Including a relatively small sum derived from life insurance, Berkshire’s total float has grown from $19 million when we entered the insurance business to $147 billion.So far, this float has cost us less than nothing. Though we have experienced a number of years when insurance losses combined with operating expenses exceeded premiums, overall we have earned a modest 55-year profit from the underwriting activities that generated our float.Of equal importance, float is very sticky. Funds attributable to our insurance operations come and go daily, but their aggregate total is immune from precipitous decline. When it comes to investing float, we can therefore think long-term.If you are not already familiar with the concept of float, I refer you to a long explanation on page A-5. To my surprise, our float increased $9 billion last year, a buildup of value that is important to Berkshire owners though is not reflected in our GAAP (“generally-accepted accounting principles”) presentation of earnings and net worth.Much of our huge value creation in insurance is attributable to Berkshire’s good luck in my 1986 hiring of Ajit Jain. We first met on a Saturday morning, and I quickly asked Ajit what his insurance experience had been. He replied, “None.”I said, “Nobody’s perfect,” and hired him. That was my lucky day: Ajit actually was as perfect a choice as could have been made. Better yet, he continues to be – 35 years later.One final thought about insurance: I believe that it is likely – but far from assured – that Berkshire’s float can be maintained without our incurring a long-term underwriting loss. I am certain, however, that there will be some years when we experience such losses, perhaps involving very large sums.Berkshire is constructed to handle catastrophic events as no other insurer – and that priority will remain long after Charlie and I are gone.Our Four GiantsThrough Berkshire, our shareholders own many dozens of businesses. Some of these, in turn, have a collection of subsidiaries of their own. For example, Marmon has more than 100 individual business operations, ranging from the leasing of railroad cars to the manufacture of medical devices.• Nevertheless, operations of our “Big Four” companies account for a very large chunk of Berkshire’s value. Leading this list is our cluster of insurers. Berkshire effectively owns 100% of this group, whose massive float value we earlier described. The invested assets of these insurers are further enlarged by the extraordinary amount of capital we invest to back up their promises.The insurance business is made to order for Berkshire. The product will never be obsolete, and sales volume will generally increase along with both economic growth and inflation. Also, integrity and capital will forever be important. Our company can and will behave well.There are, of course, other insurers with excellent business models and prospects. Replication of Berkshire’s operation, however, would be almost impossible.• Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier. That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job.It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our “share” of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud. Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well.• BNSF, our third Giant, continues to be the number one artery of American commerce, which makes it an indispensable asset for America as well as for Berkshire. If the many essential products BNSF carries were instead hauled by truck, America’s carbon emissions would soar.Your railroad had record earnings of $6 billion in 2021. Here, it should be noted, we are talking about the old-fashioned sort of earnings that we favor: a figure calculated after interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and all forms of compensation. (Our definition suggests a warning: Deceptive “adjustments” to earnings – to use a polite description – have become both more frequent and more fanciful as stocks have risen. Speaking less politely, I would say that bull markets breed bloviated bull )BNSF trains traveled 143 million miles last year and carried 535 million tons of cargo. Both accomplishments far exceed those of any other American carrier. You can be proud of your railroad.• BHE, our final Giant, earned a record $4 billion in 2021. That’s up more than 30-fold from the $122 million earned in 2000, the year that Berkshire first purchased a BHE stake. Now, Berkshire owns 91.1% of the company.BHE’s record of societal accomplishment is as remarkable as its financial performance. The company had no wind or solar generation in 2000. It was then regarded simply as a relatively new and minor participant in the huge electric utility industry. Subsequently, under David Sokol’s and Greg Abel’s leadership, BHE has become a utility powerhouse (no groaning, please) and a leading force in wind, solar and transmission throughout much of the United States.Greg’s report on these accomplishments appears on pages A-3 and A-4. The profile you will find there is not in any way one of those currently-fashionable “green-washing” stories. BHE has been faithfully detailing its plans and performance in renewables and transmissions every year since 2007.To further review this information, visit BHE’s website at brkenergy.com. There, you will see that the company has long been making climate-conscious moves that soak up all of its earnings. More opportunities lie ahead. BHE has the management, the experience, the capital and the appetite for the huge power projects that our country needs.InvestmentsNow let’s talk about companies we don’t control, a list that again references Apple. Below we list our fifteen largest equity holdings, several of which are selections of Berkshire’s two long-time investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. At yearend, this valued pair had total authority in respect to $34 billion of investments, many of which do not meet the threshold value we use in the table. Also, a significant portion of the dollars that Todd and Ted manage are lodged in various pension plans of Berkshire-owned businesses, with the assets of these plans not included in this table.* This is our actual purchase price and also our tax basis.** Held by BHE; consequently, Berkshire shareholders have only a 91.1% interest in this position.*** Includes a $10 billion investment in Occidental Petroleum, consisting of preferred stock and warrants to buy common stock, a combination now being valued at $10.7 billion.In addition to the footnoted Occidental holding and our various common-stock positions, Berkshire also owns a 26.6% interest in Kraft Heinz (accounted for on the “equity” method, not market value, and carried at $13.1 billion) and 38.6% of Pilot Corp., a leader in travel centers that had revenues last year of $45 billion.Since we purchased our Pilot stake in 2017, this holding has warranted “equity” accounting treatment. Early in 2023, Berkshire will purchase an additional interest in Pilot that will raise our ownership to 80% and lead to our fully consolidating Pilot’s earnings, assets and liabilities in our financial statements.U.S. Treasury BillsBerkshire’s balance sheet includes $144 billion of cash and cash equivalents (excluding the holdings of BNSF and BHE). Of this sum, $120 billion is held in U.S. Treasury bills, all maturing in less than a year. That stake leaves Berkshire financing about 12 of 1% of the publicly-held national debt.Charlie and I have pledged that Berkshire (along with our subsidiaries other than BNSF and BHE) will always hold more than $30 billion of cash and equivalents. We want your company to be financially impregnable and never dependent on the kindness of strangers (or even that of friends). Both of us like to sleep soundly, and we want our creditors, insurance claimants and you to do so as well.But $144 billion?That imposing sum, I assure you, is not some deranged expression of patriotism. Nor have Charlie and I lost our overwhelming preference for business ownership. Indeed, I first manifested my enthusiasm for that 80 years ago, on March 11, 1942, when I purchased three shares of Cities Services preferred stock. Their cost was $114.75 and required all of my savings. (The Dow Jones Industrial Average that day closed at 99, a fact that should scream to you: Never bet against America.)After my initial plunge, I always kept at least 80% of my net worth in equities. My favored status throughout that period was 100% – and still is. Berkshire’s current 80%-or-so position in businesses is a consequence of my failure to find entire companies or small portions thereof (that is, marketable stocks) which meet our criteria for long- term holding.Charlie and I have endured similar cash-heavy positions from time to time in the past. These periods are never pleasant; they are also never permanent. And, fortunately, we have had a mildly attractive alternative during 2020 and 2021 for deploying capital. Read on.Share RepurchasesThere are three ways that we can increase the value of your investment. The first is always front and center in our minds: Increase the long-term earning power of Berkshire’s controlled businesses through internal growth or by making acquisitions. Today, internal opportunities deliver far better returns than acquisitions. The size of those opportunities, however, is small compared to Berkshire’s resources.Our second choice is to buy non-controlling part-interests in the many good or great businesses that are publicly traded. From time to time, such possibilities are both numerous and blatantly attractive. Today, though, we find little that excites us.That’s largely because of a truism: Long-term interest rates that are low push the prices of all productive investments upward, whether these are stocks, apartments, farms, oil wells, whatever. Other factors influence valuations as well, but interest rates will always be important.Our final path to value creation is to repurchase Berkshire shares. Through that simple act, we increase your share of the many controlled and non-controlled businesses Berkshire owns. When the price/value equation is right, this path is the easiest and most certain way for us to increase your wealth. (Alongside the accretion of value to continuing shareholders, a couple of other parties gain: Repurchases are modestly beneficial to the seller of the repurchased shares and to society as well.)Periodically, as alternative paths become unattractive, repurchases make good sense for Berkshire’s owners. During the past two years, we therefore repurchased 9% of the shares that were outstanding at yearend 2019 for a total cost of $51.7 billion. That expenditure left our continuing shareholders owning about 10% more of all Berkshire businesses, whether these are wholly-owned (such as BNSF and GEICO) or partly-owned (such as Coca-Cola and Moody’s).I want to underscore that for Berkshire repurchases to make sense, our shares must offer appropriate value. We don’t want to overpay for the shares of other companies, and it would be value-destroying if we were to overpay when we are buying Berkshire. As of February 23, 2022, since yearend we repurchased additional shares at a cost of $1.2 billion. Our appetite remains large but will always remain price-dependent.It should be noted that Berkshire’s buyback opportunities are limited because of its high-class investor base. If our shares were heavily held by short-term speculators, both price volatility and transaction volumes would materially increase. That kind of reshaping would offer us far greater opportunities for creating value by making repurchases. Nevertheless, Charlie and I far prefer the owners we have, even though their admirable buy-and-keep attitudes limit the extent to which long-term shareholders can profit from opportunistic repurchases.Finally, one easily-overlooked value calculation specific to Berkshire: As we’ve discussed, insurance “float” of the right sort is of great value to us. As it happens, repurchases automatically increase the amount of “float” per share. That figure has increased during the past two years by 25% – going from $79,387 per “A” share to $99,497, a meaningful gain that, as noted, owes some thanks to repurchases.A Wonderful Man and a Wonderful BusinessLast year, Paul Andrews died. Paul was the founder and CEO of TTI, a Fort Worth-based subsidiary of Berkshire. Throughout his life – in both his business and his personal pursuits – Paul quietly displayed all the qualities that Charlie and I admire. His story should be told.In 1971, Paul was working as a purchasing agent for General Dynamics when the roof fell in. After losing a huge defense contract, the company fired thousands of employees, including Paul.With his first child due soon, Paul decided to bet on himself, using $500 of his savings to found Tex-Tronics (later renamed TTI). The company set itself up to distribute small electronic components, and first-year sales totaled $112,000. Today, TTI markets more than one million different items with annual volume of $7.7 billion.But back to 2006: Paul, at 63, then found himself happy with his family, his job, and his associates. But he had one nagging worry, heightened because he had recently witnessed a friend’s early death and the disastrous results that followed for that man’s family and business. What, Paul asked himself in 2006, would happen to the many people depending on him if he should unexpectedly die?For a year, Paul wrestled with his options. Sell to a competitor? From a strictly economic viewpoint, that course made the most sense. After all, competitors could envision lucrative “synergies” – savings that would be achieved as the acquiror slashed duplicated functions at TTI.But . . . Such a purchaser would most certainly also retain its CFO, its legal counsel, its HR unit. Their TTI counterparts would therefore be sent packing. And ugh! If a new distribution center were to be needed, the acquirer’s home city would certainly be favored over Fort Worth.Whatever the financial benefits, Paul quickly concluded that selling to a competitor was not for him. He next considered seeking a financial buyer, a species once labeled – aptly so – a leveraged buyout firm. Paul knew, however, that such a purchaser would be focused on an “exit strategy.” And who could know what that would be? Brooding over it all, Paul found himself having no interest in handing his 35-year-old creation over to a reseller.When Paul met me, he explained why he had eliminated these two alternatives as buyers. He then summed up his dilemma by saying – in far more tactful phrasing than this – “After a year of pondering the alternatives, I want to sell to Berkshire because you are the only guy left.” So, I made an offer and Paul said “Yes.” One meeting; one lunch; one deal.To say we both lived happily ever after is an understatement. When Berkshire purchased TTI, the company employed 2,387. Now the number is 8,043. A large percentage of that growth took place in Fort Worth and environs. Earnings have increased 673%.Annually, I would call Paul and tell him his salary should be substantially increased. Annually, he would tell me, “We can talk about that next year, Warren; I’m too busy now.”When Greg Abel and I attended Paul’s memorial service, we met children, grandchildren, long-time associates (including TTI’s first employee) and John Roach, the former CEO of a Fort Worth company Berkshire had purchased in 2000. John had steered his friend Paul to Omaha, instinctively knowing we would be a match.At the service, Greg and I heard about the multitudes of people and organizations that Paul had silently supported. The breadth of his generosity was extraordinary – geared always to improving the lives of others, particularly those in Fort Worth.In all ways, Paul was a class act.* * * * * * * * * * * *Good luck – occasionally extraordinary luck – has played its part at Berkshire. If Paul and I had not enjoyed a mutual friend – John Roach – TTI would not have found its home with us. But that ample serving of luck was only the beginning. TTI was soon to lead Berkshire to its most important acquisition.Every fall, Berkshire directors gather for a presentation by a few of our executives. We sometimes choose the site based upon the location of a recent acquisition, by that means allowing directors to meet the new subsidiary’s CEO and learn more about the acquiree’s activities.In the fall of 2009, we consequently selected Fort Worth so that we could visit TTI. At that time, BNSF, which also had Fort Worth as its hometown, was the third-largest holding among our marketable equities. Despite that large stake, I had never visited the railroad’s headquarters.Deb Bosanek, my assistant, scheduled our board’s opening dinner for October 22. Meanwhile, I arranged to arrive earlier that day to meet with Matt Rose, CEO of BNSF, whose accomplishments I had long admired. When I made the date, I had no idea that our get-together would coincide with BNSF’s third-quarter earnings report, which was released late on the 22nd.The market reacted badly to the railroad’s results. The Great Recession was in full force in the third quarter, and BNSF’s earnings reflected that slump. The economic outlook was also bleak, and Wall Street wasn’t feeling friendly to railroads – or much else.On the following day, I again got together with Matt and suggested that Berkshire would offer the railroad a better long-term home than it could expect as a public company. I also told him the maximum price that Berkshire would pay.Matt relayed the offer to his directors and advisors. Eleven busy days later, Berkshire and BNSF announced a firm deal. And here I’ll venture a rare prediction: BNSF will be a key asset for Berkshire and our country a century from now.The BNSF acquisition would never have happened if Paul Andrews hadn’t sized up Berkshire as the right home for TTI.ThanksI taught my first investing class 70 years ago. Since then, I have enjoyed working almost every year with students of all ages, finally “retiring” from that pursuit in 2018.Along the way, my toughest audience was my grandson’s fifth-grade class. The 11-year-olds were squirming in their seats and giving me blank stares until I mentioned Coca-Cola and its famous secret formula. Instantly, every hand went up, and I learned that “secrets” are catnip to kids.Teaching, like writing, has helped me develop and clarify my own thoughts. Charlie calls this phenomenon the orangutan effect: If you sit down with an orangutan and carefully explain to it one of your cherished ideas, you may leave behind a puzzled primate, but will yourself exit thinking more clearly.Talking to university students is far superior. I have urged that they seek employment in (1) the field and (2) with the kind of people they would select, if they had no need for money. Economic realities, I acknowledge, may interfere with that kind of search. Even so, I urge the students never to give up the quest, for when they find that sort of job, they will no longer be “working.”Charlie and I, ourselves, followed that liberating course after a few early stumbles. We both started as part- timers at my grandfather’s grocery store, Charlie in 1940 and I in 1942. We were each assigned boring tasks and paid little, definitely not what we had in mind. Charlie later took up law, and I tried selling securities. Job satisfaction continued to elude us.Finally, at Berkshire, we found what we love to do. With very few exceptions, we have now “worked” for many decades with people whom we like and trust. It’s a joy in life to join with managers such as Paul Andrews or the Berkshire families I told you about last year. In our home office, we employ decent and talented people – no jerks. Turnover averages, perhaps, one person per year.I would like, however, to emphasize a further item that turns our jobs into fun and satisfaction workingfor you. There is nothing more rewarding to Charlie and me than enjoying the trust of individual long-term shareholders who, for many decades, have joined us with the expectation that we would be a reliable custodian of their funds.Obviously, we can’t select our owners, as we could do if our form of operation were a partnership. Anyone can buy shares of Berkshire today with the intention of soon reselling them. For sure, we get a few of that type of shareholder, just as we get index funds that own huge amounts of Berkshire simply because they are required to do so.To a truly unusual degree, however, Berkshire has as owners a very large corps of individuals and families that have elected to join us with an intent approaching “til death do us part.” Often, they have trusted us with a large – some might say excessive – portion of their savings.Berkshire, these shareholders would sometimes acknowledge, might be far from the best selection they could have made. But they would add that Berkshire would rank high among those with which they would be most comfortable. And people who are comfortable with their investments will, on average, achieve better results than those who are motivated by ever-changing headlines, chatter and promises.Long-term individual owners are both the “partners” Charlie and I have always sought and the ones we constantly have in mind as we make decisions at Berkshire. To them we say, “It feels good to ‘work’ for you, and you have our thanks for your trust.”The Annual MeetingClear your calendar! Berkshire will have its annual gathering of capitalists in Omaha on Friday, April 29th through Sunday, May 1st. The details regarding the weekend are laid out on pages A-1 and A-2. Omaha eagerly awaits you, as do I.I will end this letter with a sales pitch. “Cousin” Jimmy Buffett has designed a pontoon “party” boat that is now being manufactured by Forest River, a Berkshire subsidiary. The boat will be introduced on April 29 at our Berkshire Bazaar of Bargains. And, for two days only, shareholders will be able to purchase Jimmy’s masterpiece at a 10% discount. Your bargain-hunting chairman will be buying a boat for his family’s use. Join me.February 26, 2022Warren E. Buffett Chairman of the Board","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":920,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":9010118110,"gmtCreate":1648281707937,"gmtModify":1676534325380,"author":{"id":"4094035207038280","authorId":"4094035207038280","name":"Jimtrade","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/18b3b901678b1e74f18040911759d917","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"4094035207038280","authorIdStr":"4094035207038280"},"themes":[],"htmlText":".","listText":".","text":".","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9010118110","repostId":"9010031378","repostType":1,"repost":{"id":9010031378,"gmtCreate":1648200421960,"gmtModify":1676534316488,"author":{"id":"3573698655176134","authorId":"3573698655176134","name":"Thomas Chua","avatar":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/ab38b543b0aa3966844ee05dc256e2c6","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"3573698655176134","authorIdStr":"3573698655176134"},"themes":[],"title":"How Warren Buffett Uses Options","htmlText":"“Indeed, at Berkshire, I sometimes engage in large-scale derivatives transactions in order to facilitate certain investment strategies.” Warren Buffett That’s right, Warren Buffett is a big user of these weapons of mass destruction. Jest aside, options can be a great tool to complement investing when used appropriately. Buffett’s Thoughts on Options In Berkshire’s 2008 and 2010 annual letter, after highlighting the dangers of derivatives, Buffett explained in detail why he uses options to generate float for investing: “Both Charlie and I believe that Black-Scholes produces wildly inappropriate values when applied to long-dated options.We put our money where our mouth was by entering into our equity put contracts. By doing so, we implicitly asserted that the Black-Scholes calculations use","listText":"“Indeed, at Berkshire, I sometimes engage in large-scale derivatives transactions in order to facilitate certain investment strategies.” Warren Buffett That’s right, Warren Buffett is a big user of these weapons of mass destruction. Jest aside, options can be a great tool to complement investing when used appropriately. Buffett’s Thoughts on Options In Berkshire’s 2008 and 2010 annual letter, after highlighting the dangers of derivatives, Buffett explained in detail why he uses options to generate float for investing: “Both Charlie and I believe that Black-Scholes produces wildly inappropriate values when applied to long-dated options.We put our money where our mouth was by entering into our equity put contracts. By doing so, we implicitly asserted that the Black-Scholes calculations use","text":"“Indeed, at Berkshire, I sometimes engage in large-scale derivatives transactions in order to facilitate certain investment strategies.” Warren Buffett That’s right, Warren Buffett is a big user of these weapons of mass destruction. Jest aside, options can be a great tool to complement investing when used appropriately. Buffett’s Thoughts on Options In Berkshire’s 2008 and 2010 annual letter, after highlighting the dangers of derivatives, Buffett explained in detail why he uses options to generate float for investing: “Both Charlie and I believe that Black-Scholes produces wildly inappropriate values when applied to long-dated options.We put our money where our mouth was by entering into our equity put contracts. By doing so, we implicitly asserted that the Black-Scholes calculations use","images":[{"img":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/46df49751705e181d2546999ab34657a","width":"-1","height":"-1"}],"top":1,"highlighted":2,"essential":2,"paper":2,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9010031378","isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":0,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":1,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":583,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":9047008083,"gmtCreate":1656822614042,"gmtModify":1676535900410,"author":{"id":"4094035207038280","authorId":"4094035207038280","name":"Jimtrade","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/18b3b901678b1e74f18040911759d917","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"4094035207038280","authorIdStr":"4094035207038280"},"themes":[],"htmlText":".","listText":".","text":".","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":18,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9047008083","repostId":"2248798418","repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"2248798418","pubTimestamp":1656809115,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/2248798418?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2022-07-03 08:45","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Q2 Earnings Season Preview: Key Watchpoints For Markets","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2248798418","media":"Russell Investments","summary":"SummaryMarkets see-saw on inflation reports, economic data releases.Three reasons why Q2 earnings se","content":"<html><head></head><body><p><b>Summary</b></p><ul><li>Markets see-saw on inflation reports, economic data releases.</li><li>Three reasons why Q2 earnings season could be challenging.</li><li>June employment report, CPI reading loom large for U.S. markets.</li></ul><p>On the latest edition of Market Week in Review, Director of Client Investment Strategies, Mark Eibel, and Research Analyst Emily Zhao discussed the ongoing tug-of-war in markets, the outlook for second-quarter earnings season and key investor watchpoints over the next few months.</p><p><b>Inflation Likely To Remain Key Focus For Markets</b></p><p>Zhao noted how U.S. markets have generally been directionless over the past week, alternating between rallies and selloffs—sometimes on a daily basis. Eibel said this could emerge as the theme of the summer as markets struggle to process whether skyrocketing inflation has peaked or not.</p><p>A classic example of this, he said, occurred on June 24 and June 30. On June 24, following the release of several PMI surveys that indicated economic growth may be cooling, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&amp;P 500® Index both climbed roughly 3% on the idea that inflation may have peaked, Eibel noted. “Then, on June 30, the Fed’s preferred gauge for inflation—the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index—showed that inflation isn’t improving much. In response, markets immediately sold off,” he observed.</p><p>In Eibel’s opinion, this back-and-forth in markets between inflation fears, rising interest rates and recession worries will probably persist until a real catalyst—besides prices being cheaper than they were at the start of the year—emerges. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this give-and-take, so to speak, that we’re seeing in U.S. markets on a daily basis continues through much of July and August,” he stated.</p><p><b>What To Expect During Q2 Earnings Season</b></p><p>Zhao and Eibel shifted the conversation to U.S. second-quarter earnings season, with Eibel remarking that the upcoming season is likely to be very interesting now that the period of <i>easy comparables</i>is over. “By this, I mean that the timeframe when corporate earnings in 2021 were compared to corporate earnings in 2020 is now in the past,” he said, explaining that comparisons to 2020, when the economy was largely shut down, helped make 2021 earnings growth phenomenal. Now, S&amp;P 500 companies are entering a period where comparables will be harder, he explained, as corporate earnings from an open economy in 2022 are measured against corporate earnings from an open economy in 2021.</p><p>In addition, Eibel expects that it will be harder for companies to hit their earnings growth targets, as businesses will have greater difficulty passing along price increases to consumers. “Consumers are reaching the point where they can’t take much more in the way of price increases,” he noted. In addition, many businesses improved efficiencies during COVID-19, but are unlikely to become even more efficient moving forward, Eibel added.</p><p>He said that in addition to the earnings themselves, forward guidance and commentary from companies will be a critical watchpoint during second-quarter earnings season. “This could, potentially, be a real mover for markets in the next month or so—as markets have largely gone down so far due to price, and not earnings. But if earnings and guidance really take a hit, we could see U.S. markets decline further,” Eibel stated.</p><p><b>Other Potential Market Drivers: U.S. Employment Report, Q2 GDP And Russia-Ukraine War</b></p><p>Zhao and Eibel wrapped up the segment with a look at other key watchpoints for investors over the next few months. The U.S. consumer price index (CPI) reading for June, due out in mid-July, will be one of them, Eibel said, especially since May’s CPI reading came in unexpectedly higher. In addition, the U.S. June employment report will be closely watched, he noted, as well as the country’s second-quarter GDP (gross domestic product) growth rate. “Remember, first-quarter GDP declined by 1.6%, so if the second-quarter number comes in negative as well, that would mean the U.S. is technically in a recession,” he remarked.</p><p>Investors will also be paying close attention to geopolitical issues, including the Western response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as the status of China’s economic reopening, Eibel said. “A full reopening of China would help ease supply-chain snarls and satisfy global demand for goods,” he noted. Ultimately, with no shortage of hot-button issues for investors to focus on, Eibel expects the summer season in the Northern Hemisphere to be an interesting one for markets.</p></body></html>","source":"lsy1656807479653","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Q2 Earnings Season Preview: Key Watchpoints For Markets</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nQ2 Earnings Season Preview: Key Watchpoints For Markets\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-07-03 08:45 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4521482-q2-earnings-season-preview-key-watchpoints-for-markets><strong>Russell Investments</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryMarkets see-saw on inflation reports, economic data releases.Three reasons why Q2 earnings season could be challenging.June employment report, CPI reading loom large for U.S. markets.On the ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4521482-q2-earnings-season-preview-key-watchpoints-for-markets\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite",".DJI":"道琼斯",".SPX":"S&P 500 Index"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4521482-q2-earnings-season-preview-key-watchpoints-for-markets","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"2248798418","content_text":"SummaryMarkets see-saw on inflation reports, economic data releases.Three reasons why Q2 earnings season could be challenging.June employment report, CPI reading loom large for U.S. markets.On the latest edition of Market Week in Review, Director of Client Investment Strategies, Mark Eibel, and Research Analyst Emily Zhao discussed the ongoing tug-of-war in markets, the outlook for second-quarter earnings season and key investor watchpoints over the next few months.Inflation Likely To Remain Key Focus For MarketsZhao noted how U.S. markets have generally been directionless over the past week, alternating between rallies and selloffs—sometimes on a daily basis. Eibel said this could emerge as the theme of the summer as markets struggle to process whether skyrocketing inflation has peaked or not.A classic example of this, he said, occurred on June 24 and June 30. On June 24, following the release of several PMI surveys that indicated economic growth may be cooling, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500® Index both climbed roughly 3% on the idea that inflation may have peaked, Eibel noted. “Then, on June 30, the Fed’s preferred gauge for inflation—the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index—showed that inflation isn’t improving much. In response, markets immediately sold off,” he observed.In Eibel’s opinion, this back-and-forth in markets between inflation fears, rising interest rates and recession worries will probably persist until a real catalyst—besides prices being cheaper than they were at the start of the year—emerges. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this give-and-take, so to speak, that we’re seeing in U.S. markets on a daily basis continues through much of July and August,” he stated.What To Expect During Q2 Earnings SeasonZhao and Eibel shifted the conversation to U.S. second-quarter earnings season, with Eibel remarking that the upcoming season is likely to be very interesting now that the period of easy comparablesis over. “By this, I mean that the timeframe when corporate earnings in 2021 were compared to corporate earnings in 2020 is now in the past,” he said, explaining that comparisons to 2020, when the economy was largely shut down, helped make 2021 earnings growth phenomenal. Now, S&P 500 companies are entering a period where comparables will be harder, he explained, as corporate earnings from an open economy in 2022 are measured against corporate earnings from an open economy in 2021.In addition, Eibel expects that it will be harder for companies to hit their earnings growth targets, as businesses will have greater difficulty passing along price increases to consumers. “Consumers are reaching the point where they can’t take much more in the way of price increases,” he noted. In addition, many businesses improved efficiencies during COVID-19, but are unlikely to become even more efficient moving forward, Eibel added.He said that in addition to the earnings themselves, forward guidance and commentary from companies will be a critical watchpoint during second-quarter earnings season. “This could, potentially, be a real mover for markets in the next month or so—as markets have largely gone down so far due to price, and not earnings. But if earnings and guidance really take a hit, we could see U.S. markets decline further,” Eibel stated.Other Potential Market Drivers: U.S. Employment Report, Q2 GDP And Russia-Ukraine WarZhao and Eibel wrapped up the segment with a look at other key watchpoints for investors over the next few months. The U.S. consumer price index (CPI) reading for June, due out in mid-July, will be one of them, Eibel said, especially since May’s CPI reading came in unexpectedly higher. In addition, the U.S. June employment report will be closely watched, he noted, as well as the country’s second-quarter GDP (gross domestic product) growth rate. “Remember, first-quarter GDP declined by 1.6%, so if the second-quarter number comes in negative as well, that would mean the U.S. is technically in a recession,” he remarked.Investors will also be paying close attention to geopolitical issues, including the Western response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as the status of China’s economic reopening, Eibel said. “A full reopening of China would help ease supply-chain snarls and satisfy global demand for goods,” he noted. Ultimately, with no shortage of hot-button issues for investors to focus on, Eibel expects the summer season in the Northern Hemisphere to be an interesting one for markets.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":1107,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":9022418080,"gmtCreate":1653567893040,"gmtModify":1676535305061,"author":{"id":"4094035207038280","authorId":"4094035207038280","name":"Jimtrade","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/18b3b901678b1e74f18040911759d917","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"4094035207038280","authorIdStr":"4094035207038280"},"themes":[],"htmlText":"Great&nbsp;","listText":"Great&nbsp;","text":"Great","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":16,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9022418080","repostId":"1120489731","repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1120489731","weMediaInfo":{"introduction":"Dow Jones publishes the world’s most trusted business news and financial information in a variety of media.","home_visible":1,"media_name":"Dow Jones","id":"1012688067","head_image":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/150f88aa4d182df19190059f4a365e99"},"pubTimestamp":1653533681,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1120489731?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2022-05-26 10:54","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Strong Insider Buying Suggests a 15% Rally in the S&P 500 From Here","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1120489731","media":"Dow Jones","summary":"One of the troubling things about this market downturn is that as brutal as it got, corporate inside","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>One of the troubling things about this market downturn is that as brutal as it got, corporate insiders never showed much interest in their discounted stocks.</p><p>That’s changed in a big way. They’re bullish now — signaling the stock market is oversold and due for at least a short-term bounce if not more. Using history as a guide, the S&amp;P 500,the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite stand to advance 15%-20% over the next three months.</p><p>How do we know? I’ve looked at the daily flow of insider buys for over two decades for my stock letter (link in bio below), so I have a good sense of when the volume and importantly <i>the quality</i> of insider buying picks up.</p><p>“Quality” means buying by insiders with strong records, buying by executives over directors who are further from the business, and bullish formations like cluster buys. All of these signals have improved significantly.</p><p>Insider services that track purchasing intensity have noticed the same thing. “We’ve definitely seen the ratio of insiders buying to selling spike,” says Mike Stein, research manager at The Washington Service. “They tend to call the bottom.”</p><p>“I think insiders are the smart money. They understand the companies,” says Nancy Tengler, CEO and chief investment officer at Laffer Tengler Investments.</p><p>Unlike me, Stein and Tengler are reluctant to say the bottom is in.</p><p>But the numbers sure do suggest this. Here are data demonstrating the strength of the spike in insider buying, followed by my take on three large-cap names insiders really like right now. It’s worth noting The Washington Service excludes 10% owners — money managers who often lag the market but have to report as “insiders” because of large positions — to focus on pure insiders. This means employees and directors.</p><p><b>First, the ratio of companies with insiders buying to those selling has doubled to 0.95</b>(chart below). That’s a big deal because it is twice the average of 0.47 since 2016, according to data provided by The Washington Service. The only other time this ratio surpassed 1 since then was during the pandemic panic selling in March 2020. It came close (0.94) in December 2018, the worst month of that year’s selloff. Three months after that buy signal, the S&amp;P 500 was up 16%.</p><p>Todd Lowenstein, an equity strategist at The Private Bank at Union Bank, isn’t surprised insiders are buying hand over fist. “There is some good value emerging right now,” he says. “You can pick up quality businesses at a reasonable price.”</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4f7bc42ba0badc1087872c7196ea5c01\" tg-width=\"700\" tg-height=\"498\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/><b>By dollars amounts, the ratio of buying to selling has tripled to 0.29.</b>This compares to an average of 0.1 since 2016. This ratio also hit 0.29 in the December 2018 selling climax. Three months later, Nasdaq was up over 20%.</p><p><b>The ratio of the number of insiders buying vs. selling has more than doubled to 1.08.</b> That’s a solid buy signal for me because this ratio has averaged 0.39 since 2016. The only other time it pierced 1 since 2016 was during the pandemic panic in March 2020, when it rose to 2.2.</p><p>Over at Vickers Insider Weekly it’s the same story. “Corporate insiders have reacted with increasing optimism, expressing confidence that historically has come in advance of notable rallies,” according to a note published by Vickers Monday.</p><p><b>Vickers’ one-week insider sell/buy ratio recently fell to 0.91.</b>(Lower means more optimism.) This marks “a very rare period with more insider-purchase transactions than sales transactions,” says Vickers. The last time this happened was March 2020. Three months later the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 35% and a year later it was up 70%. This ratio also fell below 1 in December 2018. The Dow then advanced 14% in three months.</p><p><b>Finally, big block sales are down sharply.</b> Leuthold Group Chief Investment Officer Doug Ramsey prefers to gauge insiders by measuring big transactions of either 100,000 shares or $1 million. He subtracts buys from sells to find “net sells” as a percentage of issues traded on the NYSE. This fell below 1% May 20, boosting this measure to “maximum bullish,” he says.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a09f5de85044e6699c9633c3a6eb38a7\" tg-width=\"700\" tg-height=\"428\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/>Three stocks insiders love</p><p>There are literally dozens of attractive stocks to consider, based on bullish insider buying. Here are three from the large cap world.</p><p><b>Home Depot</b></p><p><b>The insider buying</b>: A director recently purchased $431,000 worth of stock at $288 per share.</p><p>Shares of Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, are down over 31% this year. This doesn’t really make sense because performance is great, especially for a retailer. First-quarter results confirmed this.</p><p>“The company beat on revenue. It beat on earnings and it raised guidance. But they still got punished by the market,” says Tengler, which owns the retailer on behalf of her clients at Laffer Tengler Investment. “The first quarter is usually slow, and this was their highest quarterly sales ever.”</p><p>Morgan Stanley analyst Simeon Gutman thinks the guidance raise was conservative.</p><p>One fear is the housing market slows down as home mortgages rise. But Tengler contends this isn’t really a negative, since people are more apt to do home improvements when they stay put.</p><p>“Given pent-up demand for home-improvement jobs and labor scarcity, the backlog of projects should persist throughout 2022,” says Gutman.</p><p>Home Depot also has pricing power, a plus in the inflation era. We know this because while the number of customer transactions slipped by 8% in the first quarter, the average ticket rose by 11.4% to $91.72. This helps support the company’s 15.5% operating margins which is high for the sector, says Lowenstein. He also likes the 2.7% dividend yield, and the fact that Home Depot can continue to boost the dividend since it produces so much free cash flow – an expected $15 billion this year.</p><p>J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Horvers has an overweight rating on the company in part because he thinks it is resistant to Amazon.comAMZN,+2.57%.With home improvement projects, people prefer to touch and see products before they buy, and ask for advice. Morningstar Direct analyst Jaime Katz cites Home Depot’s size and brand strength to support a coveted wide moat rating on the name.</p><p><b>Morgan Stanley</b></p><p><b>The insider buying</b>: A director just bought $2 million worth of stock at $ 79.30.</p><p>As an investment bank, Morgan Stanley’s performance is directly linked to the stock market and the economy. This makes it a cyclical name with volatile results. Revenue slipped 5.7% in the first quarter to $14.8 billion. The stock is down 25% from highs earlier this year.</p><p>Look under the hood, and you’ll find some business diversification which offsets the cyclicality and volatility, contends Sonny Lin, a senior portfolio manager at Wealth Enhancement Group which has a position in this name. Last quarter, for example, market volatility helped create strong revenue gains in its trading arm, which offset weakness in investment banking and wealth management.</p><p>Tengler, whose Laffer Tengler Investments also owns the name, says the wealth management business is attractive because of the relatively predictability of fee income. “It looks like an annuity,” she says.</p><p>This business also has high profit margins, supporting an overall 20% return on tangible equity. Tengler also likes the strong free cash flow, backing the 3.4% dividend yield.</p><p><b>Coinbase</b></p><p><b>The insider buying</b>: A director recently bought $75 million worth at $63.92 to $72.85.</p><p>As goes crypto, so goes Coinbase.That’s because this company is the leading U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange. As bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies tanked 50% or more since November, transaction fees plummeted. First-quarter revenue fell 53.2% from the prior quarter to $1.16 billion.</p><p>On top of that operating costs rose sharply, by 111%. This pushed net income deep into the red. The upshot: Coinbase stock has fallen 83% since November to trade recently under $62. Down here, a director has said enough is enough, purchasing a sizable $75 million worth of stock.</p><p>What’s there to be bullish about? Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are here to stay despite regulatory challenges. Coinbase has built a reputation and track record that support its staying power and higher transaction fees, says Morningstar Direct analyst Michael Miller. He has a $131 fair value estimate on the stock, and a four-star rating out of a possible five.</p><p>Unlike other platforms, Coinbase has multiple revenue streams. It acts as an asset custodian and broker, and it offers collateralized loans, a crypto debit card, blockchain infrastructure support, and data analytics. Expansion into new product lines will now be easier because of the crypto downturn, says CEO Brian Armstrong. “We see the down period as a big opportunity because we’re able to acquire great talent as others pivot, get distracted, and get discouraged. We tend to do our best work in a down period.”</p><p>J.P. Morgan analyst Kenneth Worthington maintains his “overweight” rating, despite cutting his price target to $171 from $258, citing Armstrong’s strategy of continuing to invest in the business even though the tide has turned. Worthington also likes the company’s strong balance sheet.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Strong Insider Buying Suggests a 15% Rally in the S&P 500 From Here</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nStrong Insider Buying Suggests a 15% Rally in the S&P 500 From Here\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n<a class=\"head\" href=\"https://laohu8.com/wemedia/1012688067\">\n\n\n<div class=\"h-thumb\" style=\"background-image:url(https://static.tigerbbs.com/150f88aa4d182df19190059f4a365e99);background-size:cover;\"></div>\n\n<div class=\"h-content\">\n<p class=\"h-name\">Dow Jones </p>\n<p class=\"h-time\">2022-05-26 10:54</p>\n</div>\n\n</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<html><head></head><body><p>One of the troubling things about this market downturn is that as brutal as it got, corporate insiders never showed much interest in their discounted stocks.</p><p>That’s changed in a big way. They’re bullish now — signaling the stock market is oversold and due for at least a short-term bounce if not more. Using history as a guide, the S&amp;P 500,the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite stand to advance 15%-20% over the next three months.</p><p>How do we know? I’ve looked at the daily flow of insider buys for over two decades for my stock letter (link in bio below), so I have a good sense of when the volume and importantly <i>the quality</i> of insider buying picks up.</p><p>“Quality” means buying by insiders with strong records, buying by executives over directors who are further from the business, and bullish formations like cluster buys. All of these signals have improved significantly.</p><p>Insider services that track purchasing intensity have noticed the same thing. “We’ve definitely seen the ratio of insiders buying to selling spike,” says Mike Stein, research manager at The Washington Service. “They tend to call the bottom.”</p><p>“I think insiders are the smart money. They understand the companies,” says Nancy Tengler, CEO and chief investment officer at Laffer Tengler Investments.</p><p>Unlike me, Stein and Tengler are reluctant to say the bottom is in.</p><p>But the numbers sure do suggest this. Here are data demonstrating the strength of the spike in insider buying, followed by my take on three large-cap names insiders really like right now. It’s worth noting The Washington Service excludes 10% owners — money managers who often lag the market but have to report as “insiders” because of large positions — to focus on pure insiders. This means employees and directors.</p><p><b>First, the ratio of companies with insiders buying to those selling has doubled to 0.95</b>(chart below). That’s a big deal because it is twice the average of 0.47 since 2016, according to data provided by The Washington Service. The only other time this ratio surpassed 1 since then was during the pandemic panic selling in March 2020. It came close (0.94) in December 2018, the worst month of that year’s selloff. Three months after that buy signal, the S&amp;P 500 was up 16%.</p><p>Todd Lowenstein, an equity strategist at The Private Bank at Union Bank, isn’t surprised insiders are buying hand over fist. “There is some good value emerging right now,” he says. “You can pick up quality businesses at a reasonable price.”</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4f7bc42ba0badc1087872c7196ea5c01\" tg-width=\"700\" tg-height=\"498\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/><b>By dollars amounts, the ratio of buying to selling has tripled to 0.29.</b>This compares to an average of 0.1 since 2016. This ratio also hit 0.29 in the December 2018 selling climax. Three months later, Nasdaq was up over 20%.</p><p><b>The ratio of the number of insiders buying vs. selling has more than doubled to 1.08.</b> That’s a solid buy signal for me because this ratio has averaged 0.39 since 2016. The only other time it pierced 1 since 2016 was during the pandemic panic in March 2020, when it rose to 2.2.</p><p>Over at Vickers Insider Weekly it’s the same story. “Corporate insiders have reacted with increasing optimism, expressing confidence that historically has come in advance of notable rallies,” according to a note published by Vickers Monday.</p><p><b>Vickers’ one-week insider sell/buy ratio recently fell to 0.91.</b>(Lower means more optimism.) This marks “a very rare period with more insider-purchase transactions than sales transactions,” says Vickers. The last time this happened was March 2020. Three months later the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 35% and a year later it was up 70%. This ratio also fell below 1 in December 2018. The Dow then advanced 14% in three months.</p><p><b>Finally, big block sales are down sharply.</b> Leuthold Group Chief Investment Officer Doug Ramsey prefers to gauge insiders by measuring big transactions of either 100,000 shares or $1 million. He subtracts buys from sells to find “net sells” as a percentage of issues traded on the NYSE. This fell below 1% May 20, boosting this measure to “maximum bullish,” he says.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a09f5de85044e6699c9633c3a6eb38a7\" tg-width=\"700\" tg-height=\"428\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/>Three stocks insiders love</p><p>There are literally dozens of attractive stocks to consider, based on bullish insider buying. Here are three from the large cap world.</p><p><b>Home Depot</b></p><p><b>The insider buying</b>: A director recently purchased $431,000 worth of stock at $288 per share.</p><p>Shares of Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, are down over 31% this year. This doesn’t really make sense because performance is great, especially for a retailer. First-quarter results confirmed this.</p><p>“The company beat on revenue. It beat on earnings and it raised guidance. But they still got punished by the market,” says Tengler, which owns the retailer on behalf of her clients at Laffer Tengler Investment. “The first quarter is usually slow, and this was their highest quarterly sales ever.”</p><p>Morgan Stanley analyst Simeon Gutman thinks the guidance raise was conservative.</p><p>One fear is the housing market slows down as home mortgages rise. But Tengler contends this isn’t really a negative, since people are more apt to do home improvements when they stay put.</p><p>“Given pent-up demand for home-improvement jobs and labor scarcity, the backlog of projects should persist throughout 2022,” says Gutman.</p><p>Home Depot also has pricing power, a plus in the inflation era. We know this because while the number of customer transactions slipped by 8% in the first quarter, the average ticket rose by 11.4% to $91.72. This helps support the company’s 15.5% operating margins which is high for the sector, says Lowenstein. He also likes the 2.7% dividend yield, and the fact that Home Depot can continue to boost the dividend since it produces so much free cash flow – an expected $15 billion this year.</p><p>J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Horvers has an overweight rating on the company in part because he thinks it is resistant to Amazon.comAMZN,+2.57%.With home improvement projects, people prefer to touch and see products before they buy, and ask for advice. Morningstar Direct analyst Jaime Katz cites Home Depot’s size and brand strength to support a coveted wide moat rating on the name.</p><p><b>Morgan Stanley</b></p><p><b>The insider buying</b>: A director just bought $2 million worth of stock at $ 79.30.</p><p>As an investment bank, Morgan Stanley’s performance is directly linked to the stock market and the economy. This makes it a cyclical name with volatile results. Revenue slipped 5.7% in the first quarter to $14.8 billion. The stock is down 25% from highs earlier this year.</p><p>Look under the hood, and you’ll find some business diversification which offsets the cyclicality and volatility, contends Sonny Lin, a senior portfolio manager at Wealth Enhancement Group which has a position in this name. Last quarter, for example, market volatility helped create strong revenue gains in its trading arm, which offset weakness in investment banking and wealth management.</p><p>Tengler, whose Laffer Tengler Investments also owns the name, says the wealth management business is attractive because of the relatively predictability of fee income. “It looks like an annuity,” she says.</p><p>This business also has high profit margins, supporting an overall 20% return on tangible equity. Tengler also likes the strong free cash flow, backing the 3.4% dividend yield.</p><p><b>Coinbase</b></p><p><b>The insider buying</b>: A director recently bought $75 million worth at $63.92 to $72.85.</p><p>As goes crypto, so goes Coinbase.That’s because this company is the leading U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange. As bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies tanked 50% or more since November, transaction fees plummeted. First-quarter revenue fell 53.2% from the prior quarter to $1.16 billion.</p><p>On top of that operating costs rose sharply, by 111%. This pushed net income deep into the red. The upshot: Coinbase stock has fallen 83% since November to trade recently under $62. Down here, a director has said enough is enough, purchasing a sizable $75 million worth of stock.</p><p>What’s there to be bullish about? Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are here to stay despite regulatory challenges. Coinbase has built a reputation and track record that support its staying power and higher transaction fees, says Morningstar Direct analyst Michael Miller. He has a $131 fair value estimate on the stock, and a four-star rating out of a possible five.</p><p>Unlike other platforms, Coinbase has multiple revenue streams. It acts as an asset custodian and broker, and it offers collateralized loans, a crypto debit card, blockchain infrastructure support, and data analytics. Expansion into new product lines will now be easier because of the crypto downturn, says CEO Brian Armstrong. “We see the down period as a big opportunity because we’re able to acquire great talent as others pivot, get distracted, and get discouraged. We tend to do our best work in a down period.”</p><p>J.P. Morgan analyst Kenneth Worthington maintains his “overweight” rating, despite cutting his price target to $171 from $258, citing Armstrong’s strategy of continuing to invest in the business even though the tide has turned. Worthington also likes the company’s strong balance sheet.</p></body></html>\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite"},"source_url":"","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1120489731","content_text":"One of the troubling things about this market downturn is that as brutal as it got, corporate insiders never showed much interest in their discounted stocks.That’s changed in a big way. They’re bullish now — signaling the stock market is oversold and due for at least a short-term bounce if not more. Using history as a guide, the S&P 500,the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite stand to advance 15%-20% over the next three months.How do we know? I’ve looked at the daily flow of insider buys for over two decades for my stock letter (link in bio below), so I have a good sense of when the volume and importantly the quality of insider buying picks up.“Quality” means buying by insiders with strong records, buying by executives over directors who are further from the business, and bullish formations like cluster buys. All of these signals have improved significantly.Insider services that track purchasing intensity have noticed the same thing. “We’ve definitely seen the ratio of insiders buying to selling spike,” says Mike Stein, research manager at The Washington Service. “They tend to call the bottom.”“I think insiders are the smart money. They understand the companies,” says Nancy Tengler, CEO and chief investment officer at Laffer Tengler Investments.Unlike me, Stein and Tengler are reluctant to say the bottom is in.But the numbers sure do suggest this. Here are data demonstrating the strength of the spike in insider buying, followed by my take on three large-cap names insiders really like right now. It’s worth noting The Washington Service excludes 10% owners — money managers who often lag the market but have to report as “insiders” because of large positions — to focus on pure insiders. This means employees and directors.First, the ratio of companies with insiders buying to those selling has doubled to 0.95(chart below). That’s a big deal because it is twice the average of 0.47 since 2016, according to data provided by The Washington Service. The only other time this ratio surpassed 1 since then was during the pandemic panic selling in March 2020. It came close (0.94) in December 2018, the worst month of that year’s selloff. Three months after that buy signal, the S&P 500 was up 16%.Todd Lowenstein, an equity strategist at The Private Bank at Union Bank, isn’t surprised insiders are buying hand over fist. “There is some good value emerging right now,” he says. “You can pick up quality businesses at a reasonable price.”By dollars amounts, the ratio of buying to selling has tripled to 0.29.This compares to an average of 0.1 since 2016. This ratio also hit 0.29 in the December 2018 selling climax. Three months later, Nasdaq was up over 20%.The ratio of the number of insiders buying vs. selling has more than doubled to 1.08. That’s a solid buy signal for me because this ratio has averaged 0.39 since 2016. The only other time it pierced 1 since 2016 was during the pandemic panic in March 2020, when it rose to 2.2.Over at Vickers Insider Weekly it’s the same story. “Corporate insiders have reacted with increasing optimism, expressing confidence that historically has come in advance of notable rallies,” according to a note published by Vickers Monday.Vickers’ one-week insider sell/buy ratio recently fell to 0.91.(Lower means more optimism.) This marks “a very rare period with more insider-purchase transactions than sales transactions,” says Vickers. The last time this happened was March 2020. Three months later the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 35% and a year later it was up 70%. This ratio also fell below 1 in December 2018. The Dow then advanced 14% in three months.Finally, big block sales are down sharply. Leuthold Group Chief Investment Officer Doug Ramsey prefers to gauge insiders by measuring big transactions of either 100,000 shares or $1 million. He subtracts buys from sells to find “net sells” as a percentage of issues traded on the NYSE. This fell below 1% May 20, boosting this measure to “maximum bullish,” he says.Three stocks insiders loveThere are literally dozens of attractive stocks to consider, based on bullish insider buying. Here are three from the large cap world.Home DepotThe insider buying: A director recently purchased $431,000 worth of stock at $288 per share.Shares of Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, are down over 31% this year. This doesn’t really make sense because performance is great, especially for a retailer. First-quarter results confirmed this.“The company beat on revenue. It beat on earnings and it raised guidance. But they still got punished by the market,” says Tengler, which owns the retailer on behalf of her clients at Laffer Tengler Investment. “The first quarter is usually slow, and this was their highest quarterly sales ever.”Morgan Stanley analyst Simeon Gutman thinks the guidance raise was conservative.One fear is the housing market slows down as home mortgages rise. But Tengler contends this isn’t really a negative, since people are more apt to do home improvements when they stay put.“Given pent-up demand for home-improvement jobs and labor scarcity, the backlog of projects should persist throughout 2022,” says Gutman.Home Depot also has pricing power, a plus in the inflation era. We know this because while the number of customer transactions slipped by 8% in the first quarter, the average ticket rose by 11.4% to $91.72. This helps support the company’s 15.5% operating margins which is high for the sector, says Lowenstein. He also likes the 2.7% dividend yield, and the fact that Home Depot can continue to boost the dividend since it produces so much free cash flow – an expected $15 billion this year.J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Horvers has an overweight rating on the company in part because he thinks it is resistant to Amazon.comAMZN,+2.57%.With home improvement projects, people prefer to touch and see products before they buy, and ask for advice. Morningstar Direct analyst Jaime Katz cites Home Depot’s size and brand strength to support a coveted wide moat rating on the name.Morgan StanleyThe insider buying: A director just bought $2 million worth of stock at $ 79.30.As an investment bank, Morgan Stanley’s performance is directly linked to the stock market and the economy. This makes it a cyclical name with volatile results. Revenue slipped 5.7% in the first quarter to $14.8 billion. The stock is down 25% from highs earlier this year.Look under the hood, and you’ll find some business diversification which offsets the cyclicality and volatility, contends Sonny Lin, a senior portfolio manager at Wealth Enhancement Group which has a position in this name. Last quarter, for example, market volatility helped create strong revenue gains in its trading arm, which offset weakness in investment banking and wealth management.Tengler, whose Laffer Tengler Investments also owns the name, says the wealth management business is attractive because of the relatively predictability of fee income. “It looks like an annuity,” she says.This business also has high profit margins, supporting an overall 20% return on tangible equity. Tengler also likes the strong free cash flow, backing the 3.4% dividend yield.CoinbaseThe insider buying: A director recently bought $75 million worth at $63.92 to $72.85.As goes crypto, so goes Coinbase.That’s because this company is the leading U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange. As bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies tanked 50% or more since November, transaction fees plummeted. First-quarter revenue fell 53.2% from the prior quarter to $1.16 billion.On top of that operating costs rose sharply, by 111%. This pushed net income deep into the red. The upshot: Coinbase stock has fallen 83% since November to trade recently under $62. Down here, a director has said enough is enough, purchasing a sizable $75 million worth of stock.What’s there to be bullish about? Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are here to stay despite regulatory challenges. Coinbase has built a reputation and track record that support its staying power and higher transaction fees, says Morningstar Direct analyst Michael Miller. He has a $131 fair value estimate on the stock, and a four-star rating out of a possible five.Unlike other platforms, Coinbase has multiple revenue streams. It acts as an asset custodian and broker, and it offers collateralized loans, a crypto debit card, blockchain infrastructure support, and data analytics. Expansion into new product lines will now be easier because of the crypto downturn, says CEO Brian Armstrong. “We see the down period as a big opportunity because we’re able to acquire great talent as others pivot, get distracted, and get discouraged. We tend to do our best work in a down period.”J.P. Morgan analyst Kenneth Worthington maintains his “overweight” rating, despite cutting his price target to $171 from $258, citing Armstrong’s strategy of continuing to invest in the business even though the tide has turned. Worthington also likes the company’s strong balance sheet.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":907,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":9061346344,"gmtCreate":1651576347328,"gmtModify":1676534929530,"author":{"id":"4094035207038280","authorId":"4094035207038280","name":"Jimtrade","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/18b3b901678b1e74f18040911759d917","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"4094035207038280","authorIdStr":"4094035207038280"},"themes":[],"htmlText":"Great article","listText":"Great article","text":"Great article","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9061346344","repostId":"2232411187","repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"2232411187","pubTimestamp":1651545571,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/2232411187?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2022-05-03 10:39","market":"us","language":"en","title":"3 Reasons Not to Worry About a Stock Market Crash","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2232411187","media":"Motley Fool","summary":"Crashes are inevitable and shouldn't be cause for concern.","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>The stock market could very well crash in the coming months. This might sound like bad news if you have a lot of your hard-earned money invested and you&#39;re afraid to see your portfolio balance fall.</p><p>But a market crash isn&#39;t something to fear. In fact, there are three big reasons you shouldn&#39;t be concerned as long as you&#39;ve got investments you believe in.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/86929e3eb9927232bd70cbf94f3000e3\" tg-width=\"700\" tg-height=\"466\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Image source: Getty Images.</span></p><h2>1. Market crashes are inevitable</h2><p>Worrying about a stock market crash is like worrying about a rainstorm. It&#39;s not worth it because a crash is as inevitable as a rainy day. Crashes have always been part of the natural economic cycle and if you are prepared, you can easily weather the storm.</p><p>But just because you don&#39;t need to worry about rain doesn&#39;t mean you shouldn&#39;t have an umbrella. In this case, your umbrella is a portfolio strong enough to make it through unscathed. Doing this involves smart strategies including investing for the long term and building a portfolio made up of a diverse mix of assets.</p><h2>2. Recoveries always follow crashes</h2><p>A market crash can send your investments plummeting, but just as there have always been crashes, recoveries have always inevitably followed like a rainbow after a storm.</p><p>The recovery may take months, or even years. But over time, the market has consistently gone up and never experienced a downturn that didn&#39;t eventually reverse itself.</p><p>If you have investments you believe in, just hold them through the crash and wait for the price of your shares to bounce back. Any losses will be temporary and only on paper, and you should end up earning positive returns over the long haul if you&#39;ve invested wisely.</p><h2>3. Crashes present buying opportunities</h2><p>Lasty, rather than worrying about a market crash, you should view it as an opportunity. Contrary to what your instincts may tell you, it&#39;s a good idea to invest <i>more</i> when a crash has occurred. You can buy shares of good companies when they are on sale and benefit from the discount.</p><p>You don&#39;t necessarily want to try to time the market to buy at rock-bottom prices since you can&#39;t always tell exactly when the crash will end and recovery will begin. So if you consistently buy stock as prices fall, it&#39;s inevitable that you&#39;ll buy some shares at an opportune time and see more profit because of it.</p><h2>What should you do instead of worrying?</h2><p>If you want to make it through a crash unscathed, there are a few key things you need to do.</p><p>First and foremost, don&#39;t invest in anything that you wouldn&#39;t be prepared to hold through a downturn. If you&#39;re trying to make a quick buck with a short-term investment and you don&#39;t trust that the company can survive tough economic times, you could suffer permanent losses if you have bad timing and buy before a crash occurs.</p><p>Second, aim to have some cash available to invest when a crash happens so you have the opportunity to take advantage of discounts in companies you believe in.</p><p>And third, never panic-sell because doing so just locks in losses. Avoid checking your portfolio obsessively when times are tough and have enough confidence in your investment thesis to sit back and wait for the turnaround to come and your investments to rebound.</p><p>If you do these three things, a market crash shouldn&#39;t be cause for any concern.</p></body></html>","source":"fool_stock","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>3 Reasons Not to Worry About a Stock Market Crash</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\n3 Reasons Not to Worry About a Stock Market Crash\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-05-03 10:39 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/05/02/3-reasons-not-to-worry-about-a-stock-market-crash/><strong>Motley Fool</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>The stock market could very well crash in the coming months. This might sound like bad news if you have a lot of your hard-earned money invested and you're afraid to see your portfolio balance fall....</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/05/02/3-reasons-not-to-worry-about-a-stock-market-crash/\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".DJI":"道琼斯",".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite"},"source_url":"https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/05/02/3-reasons-not-to-worry-about-a-stock-market-crash/","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"2232411187","content_text":"The stock market could very well crash in the coming months. This might sound like bad news if you have a lot of your hard-earned money invested and you're afraid to see your portfolio balance fall.But a market crash isn't something to fear. In fact, there are three big reasons you shouldn't be concerned as long as you've got investments you believe in.Image source: Getty Images.1. Market crashes are inevitableWorrying about a stock market crash is like worrying about a rainstorm. It's not worth it because a crash is as inevitable as a rainy day. Crashes have always been part of the natural economic cycle and if you are prepared, you can easily weather the storm.But just because you don't need to worry about rain doesn't mean you shouldn't have an umbrella. In this case, your umbrella is a portfolio strong enough to make it through unscathed. Doing this involves smart strategies including investing for the long term and building a portfolio made up of a diverse mix of assets.2. Recoveries always follow crashesA market crash can send your investments plummeting, but just as there have always been crashes, recoveries have always inevitably followed like a rainbow after a storm.The recovery may take months, or even years. But over time, the market has consistently gone up and never experienced a downturn that didn't eventually reverse itself.If you have investments you believe in, just hold them through the crash and wait for the price of your shares to bounce back. Any losses will be temporary and only on paper, and you should end up earning positive returns over the long haul if you've invested wisely.3. Crashes present buying opportunitiesLasty, rather than worrying about a market crash, you should view it as an opportunity. Contrary to what your instincts may tell you, it's a good idea to invest more when a crash has occurred. You can buy shares of good companies when they are on sale and benefit from the discount.You don't necessarily want to try to time the market to buy at rock-bottom prices since you can't always tell exactly when the crash will end and recovery will begin. So if you consistently buy stock as prices fall, it's inevitable that you'll buy some shares at an opportune time and see more profit because of it.What should you do instead of worrying?If you want to make it through a crash unscathed, there are a few key things you need to do.First and foremost, don't invest in anything that you wouldn't be prepared to hold through a downturn. If you're trying to make a quick buck with a short-term investment and you don't trust that the company can survive tough economic times, you could suffer permanent losses if you have bad timing and buy before a crash occurs.Second, aim to have some cash available to invest when a crash happens so you have the opportunity to take advantage of discounts in companies you believe in.And third, never panic-sell because doing so just locks in losses. Avoid checking your portfolio obsessively when times are tough and have enough confidence in your investment thesis to sit back and wait for the turnaround to come and your investments to rebound.If you do these three things, a market crash shouldn't be cause for any concern.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":713,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":9083565787,"gmtCreate":1650149763289,"gmtModify":1676534654625,"author":{"id":"4094035207038280","authorId":"4094035207038280","name":"Jimtrade","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/18b3b901678b1e74f18040911759d917","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"4094035207038280","authorIdStr":"4094035207038280"},"themes":[],"htmlText":".","listText":".","text":".","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9083565787","repostId":"1142029213","repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1142029213","pubTimestamp":1650032497,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1142029213?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2022-04-15 22:21","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Apple Stock: Is It Cheap? Here's a Valuation Analysis.","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1142029213","media":"TheStreet","summary":"Apple stock has dipped once again, but is it cheap at its current price? The Apple Maven uses valuat","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Apple stock has dipped once again, but is it cheap at its current price? The Apple Maven uses valuation analysis to reach a conclusion.</p><p>Apple stock price continues to bounce around. As soon as the $3 trillion market cap got within reach, AAPL U-turned and dipped below $170 per share again.</p><p>Does this mean that Apple is a good stock to own on weakness? There are certainly a few different ways to approach this question. Today, I will do so from the perspective of valuations: think price-to-earnings and EV-to-EBITDA, for example.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/8fd387e2ff36c054975b6635b30bb509\" tg-width=\"1240\" tg-height=\"827\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/><span>Figure 1: Is Apple Stock Cheap Today? A Valuation Analysis</span></p><p><b>Apple’s valuations vs. peer group</b></p><p>Perhaps the most commonly used valuation multiple is the price-to-earnings ratio, or P/E. It measures the price that investors pay for a stock relative to the company’s earnings per share — either historical (known as trailing P/E) or projected (forward P/E).</p><p>According to Stock Rover, Apple stock currently trades at a forward P/E of 25.6 times. This is a rich valuation multiple that sits closer to the higher end of Apple’s historical P/E range, although not at the very peak.</p><p>But should 25.6x be considered a high number in today’s market environment? Let’s compare the figure to the forward P/E of Apple’s key competitors and tech giant peers. See chart below.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/1072f5b0f3b9b28542ca67c6a3a6fc2d\" tg-width=\"816\" tg-height=\"487\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/><span>Figure 2: Apple&#39;s forward P/E vs. peer group.</span></p><p>Notice that, compared to the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia, Apple stock looks cheap. But compared to the internet giants Alphabet and Meta Platforms, Apple is richly valued. The average P/E for the group ex-Apple is 28.6x.</p><p>Of course, merely looking at P/E does not paint a full picture. For example, why might the earnings ratio be inflated or discounted?</p><p>One of the reasons could be growth expectations. The more robust a company’s long-term earnings growth potential is, the richer its P/E tends or deserves to be.</p><p>So, in order to do a better “apples-to-apples” comparison (pun definitely intended) between the Cupertino company and its peer, I suggest the following approach to normalize for growth expectations: divide each stock’s P/E by the estimate for five-year earnings increase.</p><p>The resulting metric is what we call the PEG ratio, which stands for P/E-to-growth. Below is a chart that shows PEG for each mega cap tech stock.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/37f0a7613c17d056e6545e83f56543e8\" tg-width=\"818\" tg-height=\"488\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/><span>Figure 3: Apple&#39;s forward PEG vs. peer group.</span></p><p>Here is the bad news for those who have just bought Apple stock: on a PEG basis, AAPL shares are the most expensive of the bunch. The 2.5x ratio is quite a bit above MSFT’s 1.9x, the second richest; and three times higher than FB’s 0.8x.</p><p>Clearly, Apple stock is expensive relative to its earnings and growth potential. But there are other reasons why a stock may be richly valued. Think of balance sheet solidity, for example, which is not reflected in earnings or earnings growth.</p><p>A good metric to use here is enterprise value-to-earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation — or EV/EBITDA. The numerator in this equation adjusts for net cash on hand, and rewards companies that have better liquidity.</p><p>Using this valuation metric (see chart below), notice how NVIDIA sticks out as an absurdly pricey stock. Apple is on par with Amazon and Microsoft, and more expensive (once again) then Alphabet and Meta.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e3c246cc206f51fe6101f999ef8fc890\" tg-width=\"817\" tg-height=\"481\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/><span>Figure 4: Apple&#39;s EV/EBITDA vs. peer group.</span></p><p><b>The verdict: is AAPL cheap?</b></p><p>Based on the traditional valuation metrics discussed above, it is hard to argue that AAPL is a cheap stock. At most, one could say that shares are worth their price, but they are probably not quite a bargain — even after the most recent stock price pullback.</p><p>But one must consider that calculating a stock’s worth through quantitative methods alone is not always easy. For example, investors may perceive Apple to be a safer stock to own — maybe due to the brand appeal, maybe because it could be a good inflation play.</p><p>After taking the more qualitative factors into account, an investor might feel quite comfortable owning Apple stock at its current share price of nearly $170.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Apple Stock: Is It Cheap? Here's a Valuation Analysis.</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nApple Stock: Is It Cheap? Here's a Valuation Analysis.\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-15 22:21 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://www.thestreet.com/apple/stock/is-apple-stock-cheap-today-a-valuation-analysis><strong>TheStreet</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Apple stock has dipped once again, but is it cheap at its current price? The Apple Maven uses valuation analysis to reach a conclusion.Apple stock price continues to bounce around. As soon as the $3 ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.thestreet.com/apple/stock/is-apple-stock-cheap-today-a-valuation-analysis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"AAPL":"苹果"},"source_url":"https://www.thestreet.com/apple/stock/is-apple-stock-cheap-today-a-valuation-analysis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1142029213","content_text":"Apple stock has dipped once again, but is it cheap at its current price? The Apple Maven uses valuation analysis to reach a conclusion.Apple stock price continues to bounce around. As soon as the $3 trillion market cap got within reach, AAPL U-turned and dipped below $170 per share again.Does this mean that Apple is a good stock to own on weakness? There are certainly a few different ways to approach this question. Today, I will do so from the perspective of valuations: think price-to-earnings and EV-to-EBITDA, for example.Figure 1: Is Apple Stock Cheap Today? A Valuation AnalysisApple’s valuations vs. peer groupPerhaps the most commonly used valuation multiple is the price-to-earnings ratio, or P/E. It measures the price that investors pay for a stock relative to the company’s earnings per share — either historical (known as trailing P/E) or projected (forward P/E).According to Stock Rover, Apple stock currently trades at a forward P/E of 25.6 times. This is a rich valuation multiple that sits closer to the higher end of Apple’s historical P/E range, although not at the very peak.But should 25.6x be considered a high number in today’s market environment? Let’s compare the figure to the forward P/E of Apple’s key competitors and tech giant peers. See chart below.Figure 2: Apple's forward P/E vs. peer group.Notice that, compared to the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia, Apple stock looks cheap. But compared to the internet giants Alphabet and Meta Platforms, Apple is richly valued. The average P/E for the group ex-Apple is 28.6x.Of course, merely looking at P/E does not paint a full picture. For example, why might the earnings ratio be inflated or discounted?One of the reasons could be growth expectations. The more robust a company’s long-term earnings growth potential is, the richer its P/E tends or deserves to be.So, in order to do a better “apples-to-apples” comparison (pun definitely intended) between the Cupertino company and its peer, I suggest the following approach to normalize for growth expectations: divide each stock’s P/E by the estimate for five-year earnings increase.The resulting metric is what we call the PEG ratio, which stands for P/E-to-growth. Below is a chart that shows PEG for each mega cap tech stock.Figure 3: Apple's forward PEG vs. peer group.Here is the bad news for those who have just bought Apple stock: on a PEG basis, AAPL shares are the most expensive of the bunch. The 2.5x ratio is quite a bit above MSFT’s 1.9x, the second richest; and three times higher than FB’s 0.8x.Clearly, Apple stock is expensive relative to its earnings and growth potential. But there are other reasons why a stock may be richly valued. Think of balance sheet solidity, for example, which is not reflected in earnings or earnings growth.A good metric to use here is enterprise value-to-earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation — or EV/EBITDA. The numerator in this equation adjusts for net cash on hand, and rewards companies that have better liquidity.Using this valuation metric (see chart below), notice how NVIDIA sticks out as an absurdly pricey stock. Apple is on par with Amazon and Microsoft, and more expensive (once again) then Alphabet and Meta.Figure 4: Apple's EV/EBITDA vs. peer group.The verdict: is AAPL cheap?Based on the traditional valuation metrics discussed above, it is hard to argue that AAPL is a cheap stock. At most, one could say that shares are worth their price, but they are probably not quite a bargain — even after the most recent stock price pullback.But one must consider that calculating a stock’s worth through quantitative methods alone is not always easy. For example, investors may perceive Apple to be a safer stock to own — maybe due to the brand appeal, maybe because it could be a good inflation play.After taking the more qualitative factors into account, an investor might feel quite comfortable owning Apple stock at its current share price of nearly $170.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":581,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0},{"id":9059624746,"gmtCreate":1654359707885,"gmtModify":1676535436148,"author":{"id":"4094035207038280","authorId":"4094035207038280","name":"Jimtrade","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/18b3b901678b1e74f18040911759d917","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"followedFlag":false,"idStr":"4094035207038280","authorIdStr":"4094035207038280"},"themes":[],"htmlText":".","listText":".","text":".","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9059624746","repostId":"1182955908","repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1182955908","pubTimestamp":1654341888,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1182955908?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2022-06-04 19:24","market":"us","language":"en","title":"6 Undervalued Tech Stocks That Pay Dividends and Buy Back Their Stock","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1182955908","media":"InvestorPlace","summary":"These 6 undervalued tech stocks are too cheap based on their valuations now and their dividend yield","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>These 6 undervalued tech stocks are too cheap based on their valuations now and their dividend yields and buybacks.</p><ul><li><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/ORCL\">Oracle Corp</a> - Software and cloud company with 10% EPS growth, 13.7x P/E, a 1.78% dividend yield and spends a similar amount on its share buyback program.</li><li><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/QCOM\">Qualcomm</a> - Telecom chip developer trading on a forward P/E of just 10.9x for 2023, with a 2.09% dividend yield, and spends almost half its free cash flow on share buybacks.</li><li><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/AVT\">Avnet</a> - Electronics distributor with moderate earnings growth but trades at 7 times, with a 2.15% dividend yield and an ongoing buyback program.</li><li><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/HPQ\">HP Inc</a> - PC maker just released better than expected earnings, trades on a forward 8.8x P/E, with a 2.58% dividend yield, and spends twice its cash flow on share buybacks.</li><li><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/CSCO\">Cisco Systems</a>: This software/cloud co. trades for just 12.6x forward earnings has a 3.37% yield and uses FCF to buy back its shares.</li><li><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/KBH\">KB Home</a> - KBH trades for just 3 times forward earnings and recently announced a $300 million buyback program in April or 10% of its market value. It also has a 1.74% dividend yield.</li></ul><p>These six undervalued tech stocks have cheap valuations and good growth prospects despite the increasing likelihood of a recession on the horizon. Moreover, these companies not only pay significant dividend yields but also have large share buyback programs.</p><p>The share repurchase programs return capital to existing shareholders through higher dividend per share and earnings per share growth rates. That tends to increase the stock price. It also increases the remaining shareholders’ stakes in the company.</p><p>The concept here is that the combination of a low valuation with the company’s dividends and buybacks will push up the price over time. This is a sort of statistical, yet proven strategy that works with value investors who are willing to be patient with the company.</p><p>Let’s dive in and look at these undervalued tech stocks.</p><h3><b><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/ORCL\">Oracle Corp</a></b><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/74b71fceb16c9b197cf4eadb1d0b5049\" tg-width=\"300\" tg-height=\"169\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/></h3><p><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/ORCL\">Oracle Corp</a> is a very cheap tech stock for its size ($194 billion market value). It trades for just 15 times this year’s forecast earnings and13.7 times next year(2023). Analysts forecast a 10% earnings growth rate to$5.24 earnings per share(EPS) next year.</p><p>This is more than enough to cover its annual $1.28 dividend per share, which provides a dividend yield of 1.78% at $71.43 per share as of June 2. Moreover, Oracle produces a large amount of free cash flow (FCF). Last quarter it generated $2.744 billion in FCF, representing a margin of 26.1% on its $10.51 billion in revenue.</p><p>This high FCF margin is also sufficient for Oracle to buy back $774 million of its shares in the past quarter. At that rate, it will repurchase $3.1 billion in shares annually, or about 1.6% of it market capitalization. This buyback yield will help the stock move higher over time.</p><h3><b><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/QCOM\">Qualcomm</a></b><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d5d6dfd3761c75bc47531987fb1308f2\" tg-width=\"300\" tg-height=\"169\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/></h3><p><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/QCOM\">Qualcomm</a> is a telecom chip designer that has good earnings growth, including 46.8% this year and 4.2% next year. At $143.22 as of June 2, the stock trades on a forward P/E of just 10.7x given its earnings of $12.54 EPS forecast for next year.</p><p>Moreover, this is plenty of earnings for the company to pay a $3 dividend. It also gives the stock a dividend yield of 2.14%. The company also produces enough FCF to cover the dividend as well as a large buyback program. It spends almost half of its FCF on buybacks. For example, last quarter, the company bought back over $1 billion of its shares compared to FCF of over $2.2 billion.</p><p>That gives the stock an annualized buyback yield of 2.56% based on its market capitalization of $156 billion. This should help investors to know that its total yield, including dividends and buybacks, is over 4.6%.</p><h3><b><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/AVT\">Avnet</a></b><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/fc1d878e0a2b71c7c2d330c7506afa27\" tg-width=\"300\" tg-height=\"169\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/></h3><p><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/AVT\">Avnet</a> is an electronics distributor that is very undervalued. Analysts forecast that earnings will rise modestly from$6.85 to $6.95 by 2023. That puts AVT stock on a cheap forward multiple of just 7 times.</p><p>Moreover, with its $1.04 dividend, AVT stock has a yield of 2.15%. Moreover, Avnet has an ongoing share buyback program. Last quarter it repurchased $43.4 million of its shares.</p><p>That works out to an annual buyback yield of 3.68%. So its total yield including dividends and buybacks is over 5.8%.</p><h3><b><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/HPQ\">HP Inc</a></b><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a608450f31aa03b404f0d38788a86ac8\" tg-width=\"300\" tg-height=\"169\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/></h3><p><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/HPQ\">HP Inc</a> is a PC maker that just released better than expected earnings. Analysts now project earnings of $4.29 for next year. Therefore, it trades on a forward 8.4x P/E.</p><p>HPQ stock pays an annual dividend of $1 per share, giving it a 2.57% dividend yield. Moreover, the company spends more than its free cash flow on share buybacks.</p><p>For example, last quarter HP generated $1.384 billion in FCF but spent $1.508 billion during the quarter on buybacks. At that rate, it will buy back $6 billion of its shares annually. That represents almost 15% (14.7%) of its market capitalization. This gives the stock a total yield of almost 18%.</p><h3><b><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/CSCO\">Cisco Systems</a></b><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c5ca529522d3d267817ca8632c183571\" tg-width=\"300\" tg-height=\"169\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/></h3><p><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/CSCO\">Cisco Systems</a> software/cloud co. trades for just 11.27x forward earnings. For example, analysts forecast EPS of $3.36 for 2022 and$3.56 for 2023. So, at $45.49 per share as of June 02, the stock trades for just 11.27x.</p><p>Cisco pays an annual dividend of $1.52 per share. At today’s price, this gives the stock a 3.37% yield. Moreover, Cisco spent $377  million on buybacks this past quarter. That was only about 10.6% of its FCF generated during the quarter.</p><p>So it still has plenty of more room to buy back shares. This makes it one of the best undervalued tech stocks on this list.</p><p><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/KBH\">KB Home</a><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c41347908cb01200c82cde009c5e2ead\" tg-width=\"300\" tg-height=\"169\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\"/></p><p><a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/KBH\">KB Home</a> is a major homebuilder in four regions of the US: West Coast, Southwest, Central, and Southeast. This is not a tech stock, but it is simply so cheap I had to include it in this list.</p><p>For example, KBH stock trades for just 3 times the earnings forecasts of analysts. They expect the company will produce EPS of $10.19 in 2022 and $11.31 in 2023. So, at today’s price of $34.22 on June 2, KBH stock is at just 3.05 times 2023 earnings forecasts.</p><p>Moreover, given its dividend rate of 60 cents, which is well covered by the homebuilder’s earnings, the stock has an ample yield of 1.76%. In addition, KH Homes just announced a$300 million share repurchaseprogram on April 11.</p><p>That represents almost 10% of its $3.08 billion market capitalization. Assuming it takes two years to do this, that gives the stock a 5% buyback yield. Combined with the 1.76% dividend yield, its total yield for shareholders is almost 6.75%. That will act as a huge catalyst for the stock, pushing it higher over the next year.</p></body></html>","source":"lsy1606302653667","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>6 Undervalued Tech Stocks That Pay Dividends and Buy Back Their Stock</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; 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}\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\n6 Undervalued Tech Stocks That Pay Dividends and Buy Back Their Stock\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-06-04 19:24 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://investorplace.com/2022/06/6-undervalued-tech-stocks-that-pay-dividends-and-buyback-their-stock/><strong>InvestorPlace</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>These 6 undervalued tech stocks are too cheap based on their valuations now and their dividend yields and buybacks.Oracle Corp - Software and cloud company with 10% EPS growth, 13.7x P/E, a 1.78% ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://investorplace.com/2022/06/6-undervalued-tech-stocks-that-pay-dividends-and-buyback-their-stock/\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"CSCO":"思科","QCOM":"高通","HPQ":"惠普","AVT":"安富利电子","KBH":"KB Home","ORCL":"甲骨文"},"source_url":"https://investorplace.com/2022/06/6-undervalued-tech-stocks-that-pay-dividends-and-buyback-their-stock/","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1182955908","content_text":"These 6 undervalued tech stocks are too cheap based on their valuations now and their dividend yields and buybacks.Oracle Corp - Software and cloud company with 10% EPS growth, 13.7x P/E, a 1.78% dividend yield and spends a similar amount on its share buyback program.Qualcomm - Telecom chip developer trading on a forward P/E of just 10.9x for 2023, with a 2.09% dividend yield, and spends almost half its free cash flow on share buybacks.Avnet - Electronics distributor with moderate earnings growth but trades at 7 times, with a 2.15% dividend yield and an ongoing buyback program.HP Inc - PC maker just released better than expected earnings, trades on a forward 8.8x P/E, with a 2.58% dividend yield, and spends twice its cash flow on share buybacks.Cisco Systems: This software/cloud co. trades for just 12.6x forward earnings has a 3.37% yield and uses FCF to buy back its shares.KB Home - KBH trades for just 3 times forward earnings and recently announced a $300 million buyback program in April or 10% of its market value. It also has a 1.74% dividend yield.These six undervalued tech stocks have cheap valuations and good growth prospects despite the increasing likelihood of a recession on the horizon. Moreover, these companies not only pay significant dividend yields but also have large share buyback programs.The share repurchase programs return capital to existing shareholders through higher dividend per share and earnings per share growth rates. That tends to increase the stock price. It also increases the remaining shareholders’ stakes in the company.The concept here is that the combination of a low valuation with the company’s dividends and buybacks will push up the price over time. This is a sort of statistical, yet proven strategy that works with value investors who are willing to be patient with the company.Let’s dive in and look at these undervalued tech stocks.Oracle CorpOracle Corp is a very cheap tech stock for its size ($194 billion market value). It trades for just 15 times this year’s forecast earnings and13.7 times next year(2023). Analysts forecast a 10% earnings growth rate to$5.24 earnings per share(EPS) next year.This is more than enough to cover its annual $1.28 dividend per share, which provides a dividend yield of 1.78% at $71.43 per share as of June 2. Moreover, Oracle produces a large amount of free cash flow (FCF). Last quarter it generated $2.744 billion in FCF, representing a margin of 26.1% on its $10.51 billion in revenue.This high FCF margin is also sufficient for Oracle to buy back $774 million of its shares in the past quarter. At that rate, it will repurchase $3.1 billion in shares annually, or about 1.6% of it market capitalization. This buyback yield will help the stock move higher over time.QualcommQualcomm is a telecom chip designer that has good earnings growth, including 46.8% this year and 4.2% next year. At $143.22 as of June 2, the stock trades on a forward P/E of just 10.7x given its earnings of $12.54 EPS forecast for next year.Moreover, this is plenty of earnings for the company to pay a $3 dividend. It also gives the stock a dividend yield of 2.14%. The company also produces enough FCF to cover the dividend as well as a large buyback program. It spends almost half of its FCF on buybacks. For example, last quarter, the company bought back over $1 billion of its shares compared to FCF of over $2.2 billion.That gives the stock an annualized buyback yield of 2.56% based on its market capitalization of $156 billion. This should help investors to know that its total yield, including dividends and buybacks, is over 4.6%.AvnetAvnet is an electronics distributor that is very undervalued. Analysts forecast that earnings will rise modestly from$6.85 to $6.95 by 2023. That puts AVT stock on a cheap forward multiple of just 7 times.Moreover, with its $1.04 dividend, AVT stock has a yield of 2.15%. Moreover, Avnet has an ongoing share buyback program. Last quarter it repurchased $43.4 million of its shares.That works out to an annual buyback yield of 3.68%. So its total yield including dividends and buybacks is over 5.8%.HP IncHP Inc is a PC maker that just released better than expected earnings. Analysts now project earnings of $4.29 for next year. Therefore, it trades on a forward 8.4x P/E.HPQ stock pays an annual dividend of $1 per share, giving it a 2.57% dividend yield. Moreover, the company spends more than its free cash flow on share buybacks.For example, last quarter HP generated $1.384 billion in FCF but spent $1.508 billion during the quarter on buybacks. At that rate, it will buy back $6 billion of its shares annually. That represents almost 15% (14.7%) of its market capitalization. This gives the stock a total yield of almost 18%.Cisco SystemsCisco Systems software/cloud co. trades for just 11.27x forward earnings. For example, analysts forecast EPS of $3.36 for 2022 and$3.56 for 2023. So, at $45.49 per share as of June 02, the stock trades for just 11.27x.Cisco pays an annual dividend of $1.52 per share. At today’s price, this gives the stock a 3.37% yield. Moreover, Cisco spent $377  million on buybacks this past quarter. That was only about 10.6% of its FCF generated during the quarter.So it still has plenty of more room to buy back shares. This makes it one of the best undervalued tech stocks on this list.KB HomeKB Home is a major homebuilder in four regions of the US: West Coast, Southwest, Central, and Southeast. This is not a tech stock, but it is simply so cheap I had to include it in this list.For example, KBH stock trades for just 3 times the earnings forecasts of analysts. They expect the company will produce EPS of $10.19 in 2022 and $11.31 in 2023. So, at today’s price of $34.22 on June 2, KBH stock is at just 3.05 times 2023 earnings forecasts.Moreover, given its dividend rate of 60 cents, which is well covered by the homebuilder’s earnings, the stock has an ample yield of 1.76%. In addition, KH Homes just announced a$300 million share repurchaseprogram on April 11.That represents almost 10% of its $3.08 billion market capitalization. Assuming it takes two years to do this, that gives the stock a 5% buyback yield. Combined with the 1.76% dividend yield, its total yield for shareholders is almost 6.75%. That will act as a huge catalyst for the stock, pushing it higher over the next year.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":617,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0}],"lives":[]}