Warren Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders: Key takeaways

As the Nieman Journalism Lab has pointed out, however, Buffett has barely mentioned his newspaper holdings in his hugely popular annual letter to shareholders for the past several years, except to say last year that “circulation of our print newspapers will continue to fall, a certainty we allowed for when purchasing them”.

Berkshire Hathaway has about 45 different common stocks in its portfolio, but many of them are relatively small investments.

“I’ll repeat what I’ve both said in the past and expect to say in future years: Babies born in America today are the luckiest crop in history”, he said.

The annual missive from the 86-year-old investor – the world’s third-wealthiest person, according to Forbes magazine – is pored over for clues to the thinking of the “Oracle of Omaha”, who lives and works in the Nebraska city.

Buffett also called Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle “a hero” for his early efforts to popularize index funds.

That’s how much billionaire Warren Buffett estimates that investors have wasted on unnecessary fees.

‘Investors, on average and over time, will do better with a low-priced index fund than with a group of funds of funds’.

“The problem simply is that the great majority of managers who attempt to over-perform will fail”.

Net earnings attributable to Berkshire shareholders improved to $6.286 billion from the year-ago quarter’s $5.48 billion.

The investor backed the U.S. economy amid concerns over Donald Trump’s policies.

In it, Buffett celebrated the achievement of the American economy since the nation’s founding, “a span of time less than triple my days on earth”, as he put it.

“Concurrently, Berkshire’s superb corps of operating CEOs will focus on increasing earnings at the individual businesses they manage, sometimes helping them to grow by making bolt-on acquisitions”, he added. Berkshire Hathaway’s stock price was up 23 per cent in 2016, about double the return on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

Mr Buffett’s comments came as his firm Berkshire Hathaway, which owns dozens of United States stocks including Apple, Coca-Cola and the four biggest USA airlines, reported a 15% rise in fourth-quarter profits to $6.3bn (£5bn).

Buffett has often said he believes most stock investors are better off with low-priced index funds than paying higher fees to managers who often underperform.

On being quizzed by CNBC why he chose to invest in a technology firm although he is averse to the idea, Buffet said that it happened because he like Apple.

Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., plays table tennis.