During the long, tech-driven bull market, you may have seen more than one article suggesting Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett’s investing style was no longer valid.
With Buffett leading the conglomerate’s annual meeting on April 30, this is a good time to take a fresh look at Berkshire’s performance. The notion that Buffett is outdated may itself be outdated. Berkshire’s returns have beaten those of the Dow and the S&P 500 for all the periods shown above, strikingly so for the longer periods.
But Buffett explains the company’s advantages in his annual letters to shareholders, including the “float” from its core insurance businesses and the high levels of free cash flow he and his colleagues have emphasized when making acquisitions over the decades. Berkshire’s investment portfolio Publicly traded corporations that invest in other companies’ common shares, but haven’t incorporated those businesses into their own financial statements, are required by the Securities and Exchange Commission to report their stock holdings within 45 days of the end of each fiscal quarter. These are known as 13F filings. Berkshire’s most recent 13F was filed on Feb. 14 and listed holdings as of Dec. 31.
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