Berkshire’s letters remain the preeminent way to educate stock pickers on business analysis, what’s important in markets, and folksiness. It’s fun re-reading them once in a while, as WEB calls out nonsense that eventually manifests itself years later on. The misfortunes associated with OTC derivatives + discontinuous trading, housing/internet bubbles, Fannie and Freddie et al. were all prophesized!
Of late, probably the last 8 years or so, the letters have been tamer. The rise of private equity and ZIRP have bullied Buffett out of major acquisitions, the last of which was Precision Castparts in 2015. The funny thing is, Buffett’s found some avenues to deploy capital regardless of this. His AAPL trade might be the most profitable trade in the history of markets, and his Japan trade with the sogo shosha and corresponding JPY bond issuances have been home runs (Buffett casually mentions making $8B) . It’s harder to tease out some of the things that he gets at in the newer letters, simply because he’s stopped really caring about sermonizing. The 2023 letter had some nuggets that were worth talking about.