Key Takeaways From Warren Buffett's 2024 Letter to Berkshire Shareholders

Summary

• Berkshire’s Equity Stance: Buffett reiterates a long-term preference for equities—especially US equities—over cash or fixed coupons, emphasizing operating earnings over GAAP volatility.
• Key Holdings Spotlight: Household-name core positions—AAPL, AXP, KO, and MCO—are highlighted for high returns on equity and long-term compounding potential.
• Bank Exposure: Discussion suggests BAC is being reduced relative to other financials, with big banks framed as more utility-like versus higher-ROE franchises such as American Express and Moody’s.
• Insurance Cycle: Property & casualty insurance remains central, with GEICO’s turnaround and higher T-bill yields lifting investment income, underscoring the power of float and disciplined underwriting.
• Railroads and Utilities: Berkshire’s Railroads and Electric Utilities are capital-intensive with regulatory and liability risks; returns are viewed as more modest versus top holdings.
• Japan Equities: Berkshire expanded stakes in five Japanese trading houses, financed in yen to be currency-neutral, with dividends exceeding borrowing costs and a stated multi-decade holding horizon.
• Cash vs. Equities: Despite headlines on Berkshire’s cash, the majority of capital remains in equities, balancing controlled businesses with large, marketable stakes.
• Succession and Governance: Buffett flags near-term CEO succession to Greg Abel and continuity in candid communication and capital allocation, with Omaha meeting format tweaks to streamline Q&A.

Transcript

welcome welcome welcome how's everybody doing hope you are doing well my name is Andrew [ __ ] with Focus compounding on air live with Jeff gon Jeff how's it going today it's going very well Andrew how's it going with you it's going great we hope it's going great with everybody else as well if this is the first time you tuning in with us thank you so much for joining us be sure to check out all of our content that we push out into the investing Universe the best way to do that is to follow me on X at Focus compound if you want to get access to investment write ups from Jeff going all the way back to 2005 go to focus compound.com click that blog section and you'll get access to all of that if you're interested in learning about our Money Management Services you can reach out to me at Andrew Focus compounding tocom so today's date February 26 and around this time every year we record the same podcast and that podcast is going over Warren Buffett's annual letter to shareholders so I'm going to pull it up right now on the screen can you see that Jeff yep perfect and we can go through it uh give our thoughts talk about it and go from there so I guess what was your initial reaction or your first pass what was your uh original thoughts or just thoughts in general about this letter well have I haven't seen any um reactions online or anything like that um I read this I guess when it came out so Saturday morning yep um and I probably saw something right before then you know uh things about what might be in it you know so whether it's CNBC Bloomberg uh whatever things you know like to cover that stuff of what might be in it and of course most of that stuff probably isn't really going to be in it um right why they think he's going to explain why he's selling things down and his opinions on the market and things like that yeah um I thought it was good I thought it was interesting which things were chosen to be put in there and then I thought there were a few interesting uh sentences or things that are big you know new sorts of things I guess um yeah that are um but they weren't like highlighted out as big sections for that um there were a couple of them that was my thought process to I'm like wait this is he he's kind of making a big statement but saying it in a few words and it would just be at like the end of a paragraph where he didn't spend a lot of time talking about it it was just like a single sentence I would assume that things that might have gotten attention from people or at least for people interested more in Berkshire than just you know uh Market things would be he talked about how it won't be long before he's replaced as CEO and will and Greg will be writing the letters he mentioned uh his Cane I believe and you know balance type issues basically with that you know getting old and um he also uh mentioned changes to the format of the annual meeting in terms of time and things like that I would think those three would be kind of you know they're all in separate parts of it but those are kind of transition type talk yeah no that that caught my eye too obviously when he was talking about how uh Greg will be writing these soon and so I didn't know if he was just saying like yeah I mean factually I'm 94 years old he is going to be writing these soon or was it more literally like no he's going to be writing these much sooner than people think yeah I mean he's about 30 years Beyond normal retirement age at this point so yeah what about uh markets I guess just what were your one sentence big takeaways or big hits that you think he threw in there and I'll give you what I had jotted down uh well so this isn't necessarily about markets he has the the big section which is mistakes you know but normally when he's talked about those he's talked more about what happens at birkshire and doesn't make a lot of commentary about the fact that other companies don't talk about that but he specifically called out during the 2019 2023 period and made it sound more like companies not saying anything negative for you know the last five plus years years or something um and let's see he has a sentence during the 2019 to 2023 period have used the words mistake or error 16 times in my letters to you many other huge companies have never used either word over that span and then he calls out that Amazon did have very candid observations in its 2021 letter um I think that that you know um he made he connected that idea more to the time period that we're in I think more so then um just saying this is something that we do at Burkshire and other companies don't and you know what shouldn't a letter be and all that he talks about that in the beginning with the responsibility you know the report part of it um and then I also thought I mean that's the big one there was also some commentary that you could take more as like the future bash the government was one that I took that was a big one when he was talking about like um he's talking about like maintaining a stable currency and then something about spending the tax money wisely because B obviously paid a huge chunk that was an interesting one because I saw um something where someone said he was critical of trump or something by saying that but actually he's critical he's equal opportunity critical even in that one sentence and it's not even clear that he's not critical of the um not critical but reminding Republicans Democrats and the Federal Reserve all at the same time if you read that entire thing together he puts together a few things let's see um yeah that's where he talks about bonds that you have highlighted there but where he talks about the responsibility for spending the money um uh let's see yeah so he says those last three sentences spend it wisely take care of the many who for no fault of their own get the short straws in life they deserve better and never forget that you need to maintain a stable currency and that result requires both wisdom and vigilance on your part that's not criticism of one particular party it's not a criticism of Congress or the Federal Reserve of the president alone it's it's he put all those things together there's no there's no party that has as a platform all of those things yeah uhhuh I mean that's that's I literally copy and pasted that last uh this whole section for my notes because that was I was like huh he's kind of you know bashing the US government a little bit I don't know bashing but just like calling them out like hey spend it wisely stop being I mean he's talked about I mean last year he talked about deficits and I do think that is something that he's been more vocal about in his own way uh the past few years which everybody has but for somebody that doesn't typically criticize or you know he did say you know criticize uh by category by group not by any individual I think yeah he is kind of worried about those issues MH and the stable currency part especially that is something that he was more critical in some ways you could say or more talking about um issues that had a political aspect to them economic issues if you read the 1970s things and um for the most part he talked about you know uh 1980s through 2000 or so he talked about maybe trade deficit widening and you know things like that and he always talked about that the trade deficit was more an issue than the fiscal deficit but he talked about those to because they did have some of that over that time period but there was certainly everyone was focused on having a stable currency in the 80s 90s and 2000 um it's really since just the financial crisis that that's become not a concern really um or I guess you could say since the.com bust I mean it's it's hard to say but um so I mean but even now I think I'd have to see but I think fed funds and stuff is lower now than it was when they were trying to slow down the housing bubble so um and I don't know that inflation is a lot different so um things have gotten a lot looser in terms of government spending big time since covid especially um to some extent even just from after the um Great Recession and then the Federal Reserve stuff too I think um you know so those those have been not so good numbers lately and everything so mhm I just controlled F because I did notice that he he spoke about Charlie a lot so nine times he wrote his name in the letter which I thought was great uh so still carrying obviously Charlie had a huge influence on not only Buffett but B Burkshire and kind of carrying those principles forward was nice to see and he did address the issue um of people thinking that he's selling all his stocks to get into bonds kind of thing by both saying you know they that's not where they primarily want to be because of the the risks of inflation over time you don't want to fix coupon um but he also did it by kind of confusing the issue that gets covered in the Press which is look we own businesses and we own stocks and they're both equities and so our actual allocation to equities is really big um and if we own uh railroad uh uh electric utility uh Geico you know that's the same thing as if we own stocks um you know like like apple and and um Bank of America which they've been selling down so I wanted to kind of go Section by section and get your thoughts I mean you you had spoken about uh the error uh part where he had talked about basically people they try to hide from their mistakes and Buffett I mean he says it best elsewhere it has generally been happy talking pictures when he talks about these letters and just annual reports in general just communication General why is that do you think like what is that from like a psychological perspective why do you think buffit is so open about mistakes whereas others just aren't because I feel like if you're really open about mistakes people probably are more forgiving of them over time you know what I'm saying yeah um I think there's well maybe like four reasons but um one is that he's an investor you know that's always his background even when looking at as a business owner everything and so he's always come affirmed from that perspective and most CEOs and everything have no background on that side of it so they're not going to care as much about that and not going to understand things the same way they're going to think about the short term and the the the way that it looks right now um he has effective control of the company for a long time you know from the beginning certainly and then over time he had built up a reputation so even as he had less shares and everything um you know he was associated with so strongly uh that he could treat it that way and then also Focus much he's more psychologically oriented um in understanding his own thinking and everything which I think is also an investor thing where most CEOs aren't so CEOs generally don't understand the investor side of things so they think that by maximizing your kind of short-term image that's the best way to go but he knows in the long run that's not so good because eventually you'll disappoint people you'll you know it just won't work you can do it for a few years but it'll you know make it worse in the long run he lived through the conglomerate era and all those things and doom was similar too um and then also I think that related to that is he's much more worried about how things affect his own thinking that way and that talking about mistakes is the best way to deal with that on your own thinking because you can't go and talk to the public about something without eventually starting to believe some of those things yourself and so that's his last sentence there and that's a Charlie Munger and him sort of thing that they both agree on they're much more um they have a much better understanding they they had a much better understanding of themselves and analyzing themselves like being able to stand apart from themselves and rationally analyzing their own behavior than CEOs do CEOs are generally not real good at understanding themselves as a group they're probably worse than than most um human beings uh the people who get to that position and everything so you know that's the looking from the inside out that way at yourself almost as if how am I making decisions what affects me and trying to not do those things so saying certain things in public all the time is a issue I even think that's some of the things about stocks it's not just that he's afraid of people copying what Burkshire does or something it's also that if you say too much about stocks um it'll affect how you behave later you know if you never said a word about Coca-Cola might he have sold it in uh 2000 or something yeah maybe but if you talk about it for a decade or something talking about how great it is it's always hard to reverse that when it gets out of control in price you know yeah he writes and he he was talking about Greg uh but he also understands that if you start fooling your shareholders you will soon believe your own baloney be fooling yourself as well yeah and that's a really big issue and that's also one that maybe there's a few different reasons why he might focus on that it's something he says all the time but I also think one the transition to reinforce for people what things will stay the same with Greg the reporting and all of that the attitude about it and about shareholders and their ownership of the business and what you do and talking to them but the other part is also we are are living in a time right now as we did like I said in the 60s and the uh late 90s today where there's not you don't hear a lot of people talking about risk you don't hear a lot of companies talking about mistakes uh you know it's just it's that phase of things you know or has been for the last few years where it's all um Rosy projections and and talking about things that way so it's a little even more extreme than normal yeah about Greg he said was talking about myself at 94 it won't be long before Greg replaces me as CEO and will'll be writing the annual letters yeah so uh what' you think about this uh Pete story did you know of this gentleman not really no so this is Forest River um I know the other one better that he talks about later was there associated cotton shops yeah but he really did not talk much about the manager of Forest River ever and I don't know how much attention forer ever even got as a company inside Berkshire why do you think he shot him out in this letter um I mean well he died you know so within the year so it would be an obvious one to talk about but he doesn't talk about every manager who dies um by giving them more than a sentence um I mean it's it's a great story right he decided I didn't want to make more than my boss I mean Buffett iCal fashion he didn't check his valuation work they just kind of sounds like made a deal over a handshake and had a great working relationship and then also Pete did phenomenal yep and he does also talk about you know we get some insight into how compensation probably works at Burkshire because he says okay but if this is Burkshire this is Buffett talking to Pete um okay but if for Server makes any significant Acquisitions we'll make an appropriate adjustment for the additional Capital but what he says is that they didn't decide on what that would mean appropriate or significant you know the vague terms um so he's talked a lot about how they don't get into a complex contract things that way but basically saying that you know he'd be paid based on a percentage of earnings which has been employed by lots of different companies at times um pretty effectively sometimes um but with that um you know he it was always the kind of return on Capital sort of thing um that if they put you know they acquired other things that he he wouldn't keep making more money just because of that or have to be adjusted for that fact so you know the part that's interesting I feel like there's a good amount of stories similar to this where there was no contracts two people that trust each other done over a handshake and you just don't ever hear a story about Buffett having uh like a contractual dispute with one of his managers or anything like that you know what I'm saying and and why do you think that is I mean to me it speaks to Buffett's ability to size people up and get into business with the right people and avoid getting into business with the wrong people but you know I mean I'm sure you hear all the time of oh maybe in your I don't know your personal life but more so just like in passing or people hearing about it like oh they they jipped me out on my bonus and I'm upset or oh I think I should have got X and I didn't get X and it seems like you know Buffett with the managers that work for birkshire the companies that they acquire it's almost like it's just they're both like rowing the boat in the same direction and there's a lot of trust there and they just it's just way different than Corporate America you know yeah I think I mean they did have a big dispute with what was it um Pilot Flying Jay um it was the yeah and that was because the could that been a fraud thing is that little different story you think I'm talking like person to person or I think that it also had to do with the transition between two generations in that case but I don't you know that we didn't that court case that never it got settled right before the trial was supposed to start so it was never all revealed what was in there but basically the accusation was that they employed certain things to um pump up what the payment would be and I know that there was a case in the reverse case where soal um was the the people said that you know he was doing the reverse thing trying to push down the price cuz was like in both cases kind of an earnout type thing those are always dangerous that way unless you do like an average of a few years or whatever things you know and that's actually the kind of the danger of it being too decided by contract that way because you write something in that way into a formula that you're locked into and you could imagine the problems that causes what if you had an earnout that it happened to expire in uh 2020 when Co happens um someone's going to say we have to revise this contract or Sue or something right so so you can never put in a contract everything that could happen right um the other thing is they're selling to him right so that is definitely part of it he has to valuate the person but it's also effectively he's getting control and everything which is a lot easier right if someone like sells and then you have control in some way and then you can be trustworthy in that respect and um the other one is they tend to buy from individuals or people who can make the deal some sort of control thing that way and the ones where they've had the most problems are like public companies or things whether the deal would actually close and you know so there's committees involved in that there's all sorts of things and like that can complicate it there was even one where you know they wanted him to bump up the price the investment bankers were pushing it to bump up a price and you know he said I gave him 25 cents more per share than I would have normally um you know where if they might have asked for too much and then the deal wouldn't have happened right and that's less likely in the case of personto person you know cuz the board or something might say well what's the harm in asking for the 25 cents or something you know or for a dollar or whatever but he might say okay well then you'll come back asking for this and that I'm not doing it and go away whereas a person can kind of gauge what will make this deal happen or not and be like no we're we're not risking a whole deal over this small amount of money um he's pretty good usually at knowing the motives I think for someone selling you know like in the case of Illinois National the bank um it was basically that they could get a better offer but the guy running it would have walked because he would have been annoyed by other people um and so he said basically I'll keep running it and you can sell it to him for not quite as good a price and of course they didn't have someone else to come in and run the bank that they thought would be as good and everything and so you know that made sense to him that he understood that kind of was key to the deal right um but even these if the the person dies or something I mean he's talked a lot about how he needs to find people continue to run it in this case he had someone with Forest River who was what probably 60-ish at the time he sold and kept working until he was 80 yeah so he 19 years yeah and so there were several deals where they told him I'm leaving in six months or something and then they stayed on for a long time if someone leaves immediately that would be tricky right and if you have he also just knows that if there's too much stuff in the contracts it makes it potentially a lot worse and he said about the due diligence things which I think is absolutely true um there's lots of problems with companies that quote unquote didn't do sufficient due diligence that is they made a bad deal because they didn't understand some things but it's never been I mean not never but in the experience of looking at all companies that Acquire other companies it really isn't oh here was the problem with this lease or that thing or this um you know the things that they go through with the properties each of them and this and that about and everything it's that they made a business misjudgment or it could be a person one but that's fixable once you buy the company but a business misjudgment that goes way beyond that right so like when he didn't ask for an inventory um thing when buying um a Nebraska Furniture Mart he's just judging that there's nothing way out of line that he doesn't you know think and he can see the store he can walk around he can talk with her you know all of that so yeah I mean I mean it's not going to matter if it's off by a small amount what matters is if there's some big surprises that you don't know going into it um but there have been some disputes like I said with the public company thing right Clayton Holmes other the shareholders there who weren't the family didn't want to sell out they felt he was getting the bottom of the cycle um and then like I said Pilot Flying J they had issues there too so it can happen and there's been some Jud of people issues I guess sometimes um you know you could say with due diligence and all that stuff Jen re he probably relied too much on their long-term past record and not enough on like how much things had changed right so that's something when you're familiar with a long time but he has a really really good record on those things um and even when there's been big mistakes it's not from usually misjudging the person not from anything that could have been protecting a contractor due diligence it's more like a overall assessment of the business when he talks about railroads and you utilities you know utilities especially with the fires and all that that's about the liability risks in society from that you know and and regulation risks well that's public knowledge that anyone could have made a judgment on that those are the things that really mattered in those um you know and then like uh you know he said Precision cast Parts was a problem and that was his he said there's they haven't done anything wrong it was just his Mis assessment of the of their position and everything basically another example of Buffett and how he thinks which is truly long-term um he says our experience is that a single winning decision can make a breathtaking difference over time think Geico is a business decision a g Jane as a managerial decision and my luck in finding Charlie Munger as a one-of-a-kind partner personal advisor and steadfast friend and I like this line mistakes Fade Away winners can forever blossom just just the thing of compounding right and that's the best description of what's happened at Berkshire because I you know he's talked a little bit about he doesn't want to call it out but it's not like their batting average is tremendous in terms of um Acquisitions either in stocks or in um wholly owned businesses it's good it's really good uh there's not a lot of big mistakes where you lose money those are incredibly rare but it's not that he's been able to find um dozens of businesses or dozens of stock over the whole career it's that he's you know had a good batting average with the occasional home run that gets held forever and so that compounds in a really nice way and that's T you know the mistakes are tended to be smaller deals and then he starves them of capital and everything so they don't become worse you know it doesn't dig into a worse hole that way and that's been the Burkshire secret that it is carrying this weight of some not so great businesses over time but it doesn't matter because they become a smaller and smaller percentage they're in like the other C category you know um over time that becomes a footnote because of the success of the big businesses like Geico um you know and then he talks about CEO selection and how he never looks at where a candidate went to school and he says Never explanation point he talked about basically like the spectrum of it uh Bill Gates who dropped out of Harvard obviously one of the best schools in the country and then Ben Rosner um who he says was a retailing genius and never went past sixth grade yep yeah and he says I was luck enough to get an education at three fine universities and and I avidly believe in lifelong learning I've observed however that a very large portion of business Talent is innate with nature swamping nurture yeah that's interesting that he says that I think that's 100% true and I've noticed the same thing but I think people went like to say that um it's something you can't change most of the skills that are necessary are you know very early personality skills drives things like that you know um you read the Les Schwab book right um you know or Sam Walton or any of those things and those are not unusual and the thing even with the really good schools sure a bunch of people went to a bunch of CEOs went to excellent schools although in the United States I mean outside of tech things and stuff there's probably as many Big Time CEOs that want to like you know University of Texas or some big state school or something as went to any Ivy League school um which is not true in other countries I mean if you look at most other countries they all all the CEOs went to the same school basically um you know smaller countries in Europe and everything um but it's also that which I think he would know and Charlie would know if they're amazing genius individuals at an early age in the United States they could probably end up getting into good schools and the school didn't provide anything that helped out that way um so you know if Bill Gates could go to Harvard graduate from Harvard and um found Microsoft he could drop out of Harvard or he could just not go to Harvard and probably the reason he was at Harvard is because of things that already existed in him before he got there right and probably that's more important to his success later on than his time at the school so it's kind of it can be a a stamp of approval but it's just approving what you already have as an individual before then you know he goes on to talk about last year's performance and again bringing it back to what did he say about this quote uh mistakes Fade Away winners can forever blossom so this idea of like compounding and how over time um the winners really make up for the losers he says in 2024 Burkshire did better than I expected though 53% of our 189 operating businesses reported a decline in earnings I thought that was a really good line that's a very great line talk about it and I was like is this more of a barometer on the overall economy yes because obviously Insurance did great right like knew everyone knew insurance was gonna do good um and that's such that's I mean one of the main businesses at Berkshire but when I read that I'm like oh I think that's more of a a pulse on the US economy more so than anything yeah and I think so this gets into like the reporting and stuff because if you just read this letter there wouldn't be a ton of things saying that um Berkshire had a really good year in terms of operating earnings right um which is the metric that they want people to focus on or their reported earnings basically which other news sources will talk about and say how great it was so you would expect a letter that's really optimistic and talking about how great the performance was and everything and he doesn't go into that at all which is also helpful if you have bad years in other periods that he doesn't make a big thing like we were the ones responsible for why things got so much better and we can continue to do this you know um because a lot of it is you know some of it cyclical things for instance Geico's improved um in terms of its relative performance but it also is just that insurance has gone through a better period and insurance is Big to Burkshire and then the other Factor that's really big for Burkshire is um short-term interest rates increased and they hold a lot of short-term um uh treasuries yeah he says we are aided by a predictable large gain and investment income as treasury bill yields improved and we substantially increased our Holdings of these highly liquid short-term Securities but then it's good that he goes on to talk about like so last year's performance you know so for instance Geico I mean he doesn't break out Geico's there's the full annual report and there's other reporting that you could figure out Geico's things but they have insurance underwriting Insurance investment income a lot of companies that are just Geico and if if Geico was a standalone company it would look most like Progressive would be talking about how great the results were and all these things and you know he says basically uh in was a leld gem that needed major repolishing that Todd's worked tirelessly in getting the job done but it's not complete so the Improvement was spectacular but he doesn't talk about it in much more than that and a lot of people would say a lot more than that when talking about it because if you just look at the percentages you know the I mean I don't know I'd have to check but underwriting and insurance investment income probably went up I mean it could it wasn't 50% but it could have been 30 40% um results from those which are huge increases so most businesses that have their earnings jump 30% to more would be talking about how great they are and that's not exactly what he did yeah I was glad that he wrote about Todd combes and Geico in this I wonder if he would because I knew insurance is obviously it was a great year for insurance but we would always talk about in the podcast how Todd Colmes was sort of like it was like almost like I don't want to say a secret but it was just kind of like oh yeah Todd Colmes is running Geico and then you just like never heard anything else about that um so that's nice to hear that that uh Geico is doing great what do you think about this one berkshire's Railroad and utility operations are two largest businesses outside of insurance improve their aggregate earnings both however have much left to accomplish is that just Buffet just saying you know we got to always look to improve what do you think I mean what does that look like you just continue to grow I mean what is it I don't think they're great businesses I think they'd have been better off if they never got involved in Utilities in railroads probably I mean railroad was a really good deal deal and and it's done well for them but it takes up a lot of capital it's a huge portion of Berkshire overall now and it's going to be under new ownership the same thing just because the deals were so big so I can't think of any other areas of Berkshire that are so big and that have you know I I think modest type return prob possible for the long term in the future you know um so they're some of the least good really really big deals um you know they're not as good business is Geico or something really probably for the long run but we'll see I mean railroads were for a time and and BNSF was and everything but uh I don't know if that'll always be the case in the future they're they're highly regulated and take up a lot of capital so um they were getting a lot of improvements but you know the period of the golden age of investing in them had really low inflation not a lot of concerns about the regulation of them um like that they were over you know that we should regulate their earnings more basically and um then they were having all these actual improvements in terms of physical efficiency and everything like they were just becoming more efficient you know take the railroad for instance so you know in the two let's say from 2000 to preo or something um that period would have been really good for railroads versus trucks and all that but since then I I don't see the future necessarily looking as good as the past um it'll be not as great if there's a lot more if there's a lot more oversight from society government Etc and if there's a lot more inflation and just if Capital costs are a lot higher too to some extent because that's actually the only ones um well no there might be some mortgage thing or something but that's one of the few areas of Berkshire that would actually be borrowing on their own borrowing ability those are not General Obligations of Berkshire BNSF issues its own debt so it talks about 47.4 billion in operating earnings in 2024 that's the measure that they constantly write about on how they Benchmark themselves and how shareholders should think about it our Horizon for such commitments is almost always far longer than a single year and many our thinking involves decades um so again hitting on that uh thinking about Berkshire from an operating earnings perspective because of how Gap accounts for swings in the portfolio MH yeah and as you can see there where they break out the big businesses they they all mostly look better and then the smaller ones the other controlled non-controlled don't look as good and so that's why he was able to say that most businesses didn't have a game um in earnings from year to year but their big ones did and insurance was huge and then Railroad and energy were fine uh energy was good um so you know if the really big units do well then obviously their operating earnings do well and the focus has shifted to that as opposed to remember years ago where was Book value and all that so this particular measure makes it look even better for Berkshire this year than it what if they use the old Book value measure from years ago you know but they all work out in the long run pretty much the same stock price book value operating earnings probably won't be wildly different over time so taking a Victory lap as he should on how much uh they paid in in taxes um he said berer last year made four payments to the IRS that total 26.8 billion that's about 5% of what all of corporate America paid in addition we paid size amounts for income taxes to foreign governments into 44 States um so and he talked a little bit about where they came from and how we um shouldn't have got involved in Berkshire and uh it was a mistake but that's where they're at now yeah he's talked about these the size of their tax payments and things basically since they got involved in the regulated businesses um you'd think it would be something that like all companies who pay a material amount in taxes would talk about a lot I mean I mean it seems like the best thing to do to say that the way that you support uh Society government Etc is through um all of this funding you know because it helps make it sound like you are giving a lot of money to it you're important that way and then not uh talking instead about all the different initiatives you have you know the different things that you do um Berkshire can't talk a lot about that because it at the corporate level doesn't do those things like it used to have a charity program but then it didn't so um but you know when you read most companies an report s they don't talk about paying taxes as a good thing to do but they do talk about charitable things uh ESG initiatives whatever things is being what they're doing for society so they have a whole sections about what we're doing for you know uh the planet people around us whatever and it usually doesn't include we pay a lot in taxes now a couple giant companies can't do that because they don't pay a lot in taxes but you know says Burkshire shareholders during the same 1965 to 2024 received only one cash dividend on January 3rd 1967 we dispersed our sole payment 1,755 or 10 cents per a share and he says I can't remember why I suggested this action to berkshire's board of directors now it seems like a bad dream he's always joked about that like oh I think I went to the bathroom when they voted on that or something like that but what do you think like why do you think they did pay a dividend then like what what happened there was he just not thinking or what was that all about or could it have been just too many I don't know what do you think I've never heard um he had only been in effective control of the company for a little while at that point what is that two years year and a half something like that um you know I haven't heard commentary that I can remember my guess is that someone mentioned that with that much retained earnings and things that they back then in the 60s um they shareholders could sue or something over the fact that you were hoarding um money or that you should pay a dividend or something there were I don't know if there were any successful lawsuits with that but there were companies that paid dividends sometimes out of an expectation that if you have a lot of retained earnings um a lot of earnings that you can't just not pay anything dividends were much more normal then than later on um so I think if it was 1997 instead of 1967 that we were talking about then there wouldn't have been anyone on the board or something that said we have to pay some kind of dividend my guess is it was just that someone was like we got to pay some kind of dividend so okay fine um and then regretted it but it was so rare for a company like burshire not to pay a dividend that that's not as weird as it sounds like the it would have been a really really weird thing to not pay a dividend so that's always been my guess is that for some reason it happened because of just we need to do a token dividend for some reason but there's they've never talked about it he's just always joked about it I have no idea I don't think he just out of the blue suggested or something I don't know why that happened uhhuh uhhuh uh he talks about where bur's money is um um and uh the Common Stocks that they own says our partial ownership Holdings were valued at 272 billion um and there is one interesting line there really interesting um household names do you see that part where he says we own some household names um yeah it's like the second sentence okay so do you see the four that he said said Apple American Express cocacola and Moody mood interesting about that when he says household names is it's natural to say apple and Coca-Cola for a general audience whatever if you're saying household names you have to do that but he includes two companies American Express and Moody's and he doesn't say Bank of America so yeah which what's funny about that is Bank of America would be more of a household name than Moody oh way bigger so the inclusion of American Express and movies without Bank of America definitely makes it sound like we're going to sell our Bank of America down I don't know if they are they AR or whatever but he definitely thinks it's in a totally separate category he's not saying it but I think he's thinking Apple American Express Coca-Cola and Moody correctly sized could be permanent positions is my guess is what he really means by that why do you think like what what's his gripe with Bank of America well it's not as good of business as American expressor Moody's um definitely uh and uh I don't know that any of the giant banks are great businesses since uh since the Great Recession you know um and then there's a question of price he got a really good price on that I'm not saying they're bad businesses but it's the same issue that we talked about with like the utilities or something you got to think of them somewhat like utilities those big giant Banks um so I mean a lot of people are more concerned about something like American Express in its future um than Bank of America because of all the payment things now right with all the different um online payment uh things uh new bank things whatever things that are focused a lot on that I mean I I think what was it last year zel processed like a trillion dollars of uh um payments or something yeah yeah um now that's what you know three 4% or something of GDP or whatever so it's not shocking a lot of money gets transferred but um but that gives you an idea and zel is kind of like the way that um you know the the card um things that competed with American Express being formed from the banks themselves um kind of happened you know um same sort of thing so I could see where people look at that and go oh um American Express has less of a clear future than Bank of America but I think that he expects um well I mean look those three companies those four companies sorry should have very high Returns on equity in the future and stuff I can I'll actually just check because I think for a portfolio these are extremely high quality companies and are expected to be that way if we just look at like how quick iest reports return on in equity yeah so so Moody's is in the 50% range last few years um let's see American Express has been over 30% for the last few years um and these aren't uh tangible you know uh 40% for Coke and then everyone knows apple and you know Apple has been in the triple digits so how would you like that as a long-term portfolio something where I think I said the lowest has been that it's been averaging a 30% return and the highest is over 100 and that's pretty each of them is pretty conservative you know like like I said that includes Goodwill on those and all those companies are as conservative or more conservative than their peers probably I mean even like American Express if you look what they're in and everything he says we are impartial in our choice of equity Vehicles investing in either variety based B upon where we can best deploy your and my family savings often nothing looks compelling very frequently we find ourselves kneep in Opportunities Greg has vividly shown his ability to act at such times as did Charlie so again talking about Greg again I really getting the impression Greg is is really the Deo CEO at this point and Buffett's more so uh like the chair chairman of the board you know um let's see he did talk so this is interesting about uh well there's one thing before we leave that is the partial owned business ownership was interesting because of how big the number is I think he said it's valued at 272 billion and I don't know exactly all the ones that are partially owned excludes because he's doing it from a reporting basis so like I don't 100% know if that includes accidental and it probably doesn't it might include Devita which is not a big position but it definitely would include craft hindes right because they don't those have to be carried differently they're not Mark to Market those are the three I mentioned are they hold more than 20% but less than 50% but they don't control the business um so I don't know if the treatment of all three of them is the same I really don't know about Dita especially but um that's basically their you know their stock portfolio is what he's saying and so um that's that's a huge number because if you try to add up well what's you know what do we say were the biggest businesses for them Geico um BNSF and Berkshire pathway energy are the subsidiaries that are the biggest well look at what their earnings were it's shown there on that table multiply that by whatever you think is the right multiple for them and try to add that up you know the stock portfolio really is worth as much or more than their biggest subsidiaries so even though they get a lot more attention things like apple um are right up there in terms of importance to the company as BNSF and Berkshire hathway energy probably unless it's a crazy multiple you put on those things you know he used to do look through earnings which made that more obvious you know to compare the two sets um because I think that's what he was trying to do in the letter somewhat is to say like um look we own a ton of comp I'm not selling any of our wholly owned businesses I'm just selling some of our marketable Securities and you should marketable equities and you should take the two together as our investment in business basically talks about selling how they R rarely sell uh control businesses he says unless we face what we believe to be unending problems um even with equities he said it's easier to change course when I make a mistake Burg Burger's present size it should be underscored diminishes this valuable option we can't come and go on a dime sometimes a year or more is required to establish or divest an investment I mean he's been buying Ox downal for like over a year right um selling off Bank of America for a very long time yeah it's interesting because those paragraphs is the most evenhanded or neutral I've seen him be about saying like you know what owning giant marketable Securities positions has as much advantages as owning controlled businesses you know years ago two two decades ago for instance he'd almost talk about it like well if we had the same business we'd really prefer to own it outright and now he doesn't really say that he said compares the two possibilities you know because he can sell Bank of America but he can't sell the utility for instance if he's worried about things that way you know so you can exit some things and he was able to trim apple when it was at a crazy high valuation so um but they've usually used selling a giant position as they don't like the CEO or the direction they're going or something I think more and it's easier to do that than to deal with it yourself inside a business that you have you know um like Net Jets he probably would have just sold if it was a stock right I'm sure he would have MH he says uh taking a shot at the commentators despite what some commentators currently view is an extraordinary cash position at Berkshire because you know it's like apple well I guess Apple's different but Burk every time oh burk's at 300 you know every quarter it's 200 250 whatever in cash uh he says the great majority of your money remains in equities that preference won't change yeah and so it depends um how you look at Burkshire but it is holding a lot of cash and he did actively sell and not buy so much in the last year so I mean as far as what Behavior we've seen Burkshire do in the past and what they're doing now it's you know as beish a sort of actions if you're not listening to what off is saying but just what he's doing in the stock portfolio you know it's as bearish as ever right like that that he doesn't normally take that kind of action of that size in actual selling and not replacing with buying that's rare they did do it at times to fund other things early in their history they did it um but but he doesn't make the argument here but insurance is a really big part of the business and if you analyze Burkshire either in its long-term history of its balance sheet or really even better like against other insurance companies he could make the argument that they don't have an extraordin as extraordinary cash position as people think versus what insurance companies do uh of the giant insurance companies I think Berkshire is the only one that I can think of that like retains like truly 100% of their business they don't see it any other business to others so they the size in terms of like their premiums and everything they're holding more risk basically like themselves than other insurance companies do um although there are others that are close in percentages to that so you would expect to hold a lot and then generally what berkshire's kind of done is that cash is sort of like taking up a lot of your float your liabilities from your insurance that you haven't paid out yet and um it's really like your Equity your retained earnings over time that gets invested in the stock portfolio stuff it's not like he's always done where the moment money comes in from insurance things they just buy stocks with it they still have a very high allocation to stocks if you think of their portfolio no one none of the websites do this you know that track berkshire's portfolio but if you said okay take all the own businesses aside and put them aside and look at Berkshire as if it's two companies one is a conglomerate that owns non-insurance businesses and has no invest M um Holdings so you know it's BNSF and it's uh Berkshire hathway energy and it's all the small companies there and all that the other one is an insurance company that owns a ton of cash and also has stakes in American Express and this and that and the other thing that insurance company would look like it's holds a lot of stock right so it's they're still very heavy into equities compared to other kinds of companies so it is totally true that Berkshire is more of an insurance company than people think but most insurance companies are not very exposed to real business performance the way that Burkshire is they own businesses entirely and they they have an allocation to to stocks um but there's no way that he sold those things because he wanted to have more cash because of the risks that insurance was taking or something he sold it because he rather have t bills and those stocks for some reason like some investment reason he decided on that he says bur shareholders can rest assured they will we will forever deploy a substantial majority of their money and equities mostly American equities although many of these will have international operations of significance Berkshire will never prefer ownership of cash equivalent assets over the ownership of good businesses whether controlled or only partially owned and then he kind of gives a statement here says paper money can see its value evaporate if fiscal Folly prevails in some countries this Reckless practice has become habitual and in our country's Short History the US has come close to the edge fixed coupon bonds provide no protection against runaway currency yeah absolutely true and as a that's the one thing and he talked about this even going back to the 70s and everything but that is the one thing that's really strange about insurance companies they will not write coverage for 30 years at some fixed rate or something um they're very aware that once in a 50-year type events happens that you can't see in the recent past but then when it comes to their portfolio they'll fill them up with long-term bonds and they'll do that without thinking that oh what's the risk of of you know runaway inflation you know if you analyze it like a um catastrophic risk that's caused by a hurricane or something or an earthquake then you go oh this is pretty common and all the country you know we put together a database of all the countries that have issued these kinds of bonds and uh have had paper money and how long they've operated and how often does it happen it isn't a once in every 500 years event that your currency depreciates by you know astronomical amounts it's actually a lot more frequent than that in a lot of countries and even like you said the United States I mean he lived through a period where it got very high in the 70s he talks about capitalism he acknowledges its faults and abuses and he said in certain respects more egregious now than ever uh but it can also work wonders unmatched by other economic systems America is exhibit a our country's progress over its mere 235 years of existence could not have been imagined by even the most optimistic colonists in 1789 when the Constitution was adopted and the country's energies were Unleashed yeah I thought it was really this is a common thing for him to say and people always forget that with his politics and everything but he is very Pro capitalism um the thing that's interesting is I do not remember and I'd have to go through every letter to figure it out but I do not remember him in the moment of actually living through the time adding the part about more egregious than ever you know right now um that part was interesting um because that's not normally how he talks how he talks normally about it is you know yes there are lots of things that are wrong with it but we've made progress over time we'll continue to make progress um that sort of thing and it's a long time uh for the people who suffer from those things but you know things are better now than they were um 50 years ago 100 years ago you know and all of that kind of stuff even when when he talks about um slavery the uh he's mentioned that sometimes he's certainly mentioned women's position in society at times you know talking about that when he talks about the very long-term past sometimes I can't remember a time where he said you know that they're you know as obvious are more now than these what did he say he said abuses and faults and abuses what was the term that he used about um let's see yeah faults and abuses yeah he said this system is called capitalism it has its faults and abuses in certain respects more egregious now than ever but it can also work wonders I don't remember him using that in certain respects more egregious now than ever that's really unusual yeah so talks more about America um savings and he says uh in a very minor way bir sholders have participated in the American Miracle by foregoing dividends thereby liking to reinvest rather than consume originally this reinvestment was Tiny almost meaningless but over time it mushroomed reflecting the mixture of a sustained culture of savings combined with the magic of long-term compounding what's really interesting about that and you know he breaks it down by section with those uh page break things you know that little Aster type things that you see there um so it can make we don't know how the letters put together and maybe there isn't a natural thing about the flow but if you think about it that he laid it out to have that flow intentionally and that these sections weren't just created separately and stuff which is what I think is most likely it's very interesting that they go from that talk about don't consume save Etc to immediately talking about uh the um government basically and the you know receiving tax payments from them and everything so it's just interesting that he's connecting that idea of what made Burkshire great over time was that they didn't consume more than they um then saved and over time they were able to snowball you know that way he doesn't ever use that term but but here we're giving you these tax payments and you know if you look at what things are doing right now they're getting large tax payments from Berkshire and everything but you know as far as we can see right now in projections the expectation is for the government to spend the federal government in the United States to spend quite a bit more than it takes in so so it's the position of those uh sections is kind of an indirect criticism if if it was laid out that way because so that MH any thoughts on the PNC business uh yes let's see so this is one that's really really important to birkshire and um he used to I mean most of Buffett's talks about insurance are either from the annual meeting or from back in like the 70s to the 80s when it was a really important part of the business and and the investment side was going well but the uh the underwriting side was not going well at all and so it was a lot of you know down things that he would say that way now it's going well but he does include this and I think that um the it's always good to remind Burkshire shareholders and the press and everything how big a part of the business it is um to to be involved in that that you know that to be involved how involved Berkshire is in Insurance things and so how much that affects their results especially since they moved to the operating um earnings reporting of it um you know uh I think most all of it is things that he said before um and so it's just a good summary of what makes Insurance a different business that's basically what that section is it's how is Insurance not like other businesses if that's kind of was the title to it that would be a good way of thinking about it how they take the money in upfront you don't know your cost the risks of all of that stuff and um and then of course he talks about a Jeet because that a je is the most important hire that Berkshire had you could argue that Buffett and you could argue that Munger was as important I know people do argue that Munger was as important um you know as uh or more important um but a je would be right up there I don't know how much more important Munger was than a je in terms of what really happened in the business and he's much less well known uh to the record of birkshire um [Music] burshire increased its Japanese Investments so what's funny is I mean before uh Japan was I guess became more people were looking at it obviously Buffett was like the first mover there right I mean back in what was that 2020 when they bought into those companies and he says that they've just bought more over time yeah Brer made its first purchase involving the five in July 2019 yeah so as we simply looked at their financial records and we're amazed at the low price prices of their stocks it's the years have P our our admiration for these companies has consistently grown Greg has met many times with them and I regularly follow their progress both of us like their Capital deployment their managements and their attitude and respect to their investors yeah I think it's a good basket of stocks and they were lucky to be able to put that in what do you say that the the AG cost was almost 14 billion 13.8 so and they hope to increase that a bit so that's actually it's spread out across those companies and everything but if you had found one thing to buy that was that amount you know people would have made a big deal about it it's because it's in Japan it's not included in the um stock portfolios you know that get pulled from the SEC reports so it gets overlooked a little bit what they're doing every year with that and then I think just because it wasn't one big private purchase you know but if he went out and said I'm buying a 14 billion doll Japanese company that would have really gotten a lot of attention whereas now I think he got attention when he did it but since then it's kind of like yeah he keeps holding them okay I think it's it's really interesting that every time he he does actually go into more detail on this sort of um in that he makes kind of three points about it first he said the stocks were cheap when they bought them okay um but the other points he makes is that they're kind of a little like Burkshire um you know in terms of their business model yeah it says Opera in a manner somewhat similar to Berkshire itself yep two which I've always found really interesting is he basically says the five companies have better Capital allocation and payment for themselves and everything than big American public companies now so it's a section where he says each of the five companies increase dividends that's a really important paragraph I think each of the five companies increase dividends when appropriate they repurchase their shares when it is sensible to do so and their top managers are far less aggressive in their compensation programs than their us counterparts yep and then the last one that he said and this is where he's given a little more detail I think than we've normally heard he's he may have touched on a little bit but it's always been a really big part of people's commentary on it which is that they fund it through borrowings in Yen and so he's he's currency neutral that that paragraph is kind of I was impressed that they have that or actually it's a cou it's a couple paragraphs but um I was really impressed that he has that because you know over the years I think if you read the really early letters to today um I think he's tried he has an awareness that a wide audience reads this and so he does avoid getting overly technical I don't think that Buffett today would include the like was it Scott Fetzer they bought I forget which acquisition it was but he did a comparison of the of different of what uh the purchase looks like under um the business you know beforehand and after the adjustments are made to because of the acquisition accounting for it so it adjusts things like Goodwill and there's lifeo and whatever things it was but he like went and actually put it in appendix there uh whatever that acquisition was you know kind of like uh Ben Graham would company a company B well they're the exact same company um so it's kind restated you know for that so he I just don't think he would do that kind of technicality thing today so to hear him saying approximating currency neutral and no floaters and all this this is like unlikely to get picked up by the press and be riveting to non Burkshire shareholders or non-financial people right but it's kind of the things that I imagine Buffett actually is thinking in his head and worrying about and stuff in his actual investment decision and like how he comes to it he's like okay so I don't have to take currency risk I can borrow at low rates there I actually get a dividend he mentions that which people have always talked about the dividends that are paid on this the yield is significantly higher than the um interest charges on the debt so um they're basically able to borrow money to finance these Japanese purchases and the actual cash flows off of these are higher than the um interest on the debt and then you also have the Capital the principal you could think of it as which is that they're you know invested this 13 billion or whatever which is now carried at you know 24 billion or whatever um so yeah you can go over that part I just meant so people know like this is really interesting but I'm surprised that he would include this um technical thing about talking about the the fixed rates and everything um let's see where is it um all our fixed rates no floaters Greg and I had no view on future foreign exchange rates and therefore see seek a position approximating currency neutrality but then he talks about Gap rules which is true so that is the weird very weird part about it that I've talked many times with people um you know Berkshire never really goes up against this but because they report in dollars and they're an American company they have to restate all these things for um the currency things all the time so it's much more normal to see this with other companies that are big multinationals and Berkshire has almost no outside the US Holdings that really matter in that way so um it was just very technical I think it meets completely with what people have said of why he made these purchases but it's a really good insight into like a decision that he made recently and it may have been one of his smarter decisions more interesting ones like apple is another one you know of the last few years it was a really one that stood out I love this little section right here I expect that Greg and his eventual successors I thought that was interesting will be holding this Japanese position for many decades and that burshire will find other to work productively with the five companies in the future that was an interesting one like he's really thinking about it like a permanent position basically saying to Greg and future CEOs do not sell this yes I think that that is probably aimed at knowing that the Japanese CEOs will read this letter and it's aimed at Japan so you talk about him and his successors that they're going to hold it for many decades and that they will find ways to work productively that means they're not going to criticize the Japanese companies or tell them what they should be doing but they'll work out of cooperation for a long term that goes through multiple people that's very something that the Japanese companies would probably like to hear and would let him buy more of their stocks it's probably a plea to like keep raising my limit I think uh then he goes on to talk about the annual meeting so Omaha May 3d um talks about the book that will uh be there this year we will offer 60 years of berer hathway um talks a little bit about the person that uh wrote the book and put it together how she did it for free um and then I think he Don she he donated that amount to a charity um let's see what else we got here Becky quick we'll cover our somewhat re-engineered gathering on Saturday gives praise to her um here's something interesting we will not have a movie this year but rather we convene a bit earlier at 8:00 a.m. I'll make a few introductory remarks and we will properly get to the Q&A alternating questions between Becky and the audience sounds good um you know having one person controlling it that way I thought the Becky ones um always worked well actually yeah she's really good at doing that yeah so pre- sorting it to make it make sense not repeating the same things all the time and that's a good you know in between thing to do and it's not someone who's a Burkshire person or whatever so people believe oh a real uh news reporter from a real Outlet will you know take the job seriously in terms of asking even the questions that they don't want asked and everything it's not like here's our uh U PR person or something will be you know asking the questions um I let's see um yeah I I don't know about the movie thing other than that might be the time change remember they got special permission for the movie to be able to show it um you know on TV and stuff but when Charlie died uh you know so that was big I don't about aunti but that to let it be seen outside of I shouldn't say that to let it be seen again when it was intended to be seen you know whatever the rights were one time and all that so that was a special thing for it so I don't know if you know what the deal is with that but he makes a few jokes he talks about the Brooks run on Sunday morning he says I will be sleeping uh talks about his sister's good looks and how they flow down only to the female side of the family he says Saab um talks about his sister who is 91 years old now um and then that's when he had wrote about the fact that he has a cane um to help him from uh falling on his face this is I believe how he wrote about it and it's been pictured I mean you know I think I think there's been pictures of the fact that there's a cane that people have seen a cane when he's next to him and things like that before you know that's basically it so I thought it was a a great letter biggest takeaway is just again how Buffett is just trying to teach the art of thinking long term or encourage I should say the art of thinking long term both about America both about investing both about learning um you know all sort of stuff like that that's really the the key takeaway uh that I have from this LGH but it was definitely a great LGH I would say yeah so have they gotten shorter recently I'm trying to think I believe the last few have been shorter than they were running into the 20 Page range at one point right I'm not crazy that was happening like before Co or something I feel like they've slowed down since around the co timesh and and I mean he did say when he was talking about um disasters that happened in insurance and he was said like think wild uh fires so I'm like oh so maybe he was writing this letter you know like what a month ago now or something like that a couple weeks ago but that's true yeah and he could add things like that of course with the utility business he's had to deal with fires from that stuff for a long time um they mentioned the uh meeting in Omaha do you want to say that we will be there to meet with people like we won't say anything about where we'll be in all that but just that we will be in Omaha for a few days before the annual meeting and on that day we will be so if anyone listening uh reach out to me Andre Focus compounding tocom we will both be there y any other thoughts or any big takeaways from the letter Jeff uh I'm curious what what have you heard about other people's reactions to it um both you know the people who really follow Buffett and the um news things it's kind of I don't want to say it's been more silent but I do think it's kind of been more silent than past ones I mean um yeah I mean it's I don't really have anything to report on that honestly what about you yeah well I don't feel like we're um I don't remember the Barons was it Barons one of them did a what's wrong Warren or do you know what I'm talking about like you know at the doc one I forget the headline but um I don't feel like it's like that right now you know that he's just respected as being someone who's has such a good long-term record and not that he's out of touch or whatever but I do feel like uh Burkshire is not the kind of I mean if you look at the portfolio berer has like nothing in it that people want to talk about you know the I mean do people want to talk about insurance utilities and railroads because that's the the private business you know the holy own businesses they have um and then uh I feel like and then the even the um their Holdings in their portfolio you know they've owned Apple for a long time and the other ones that he mentions um you know with the Moody and American Express and Coca-Cola are just not the things that people want to talk about right now so I do think that it's kind that the Burkshire letter is kind of a little out of step with um uh the things that the conversations that people are having about stocks and everything I do feel like they're more on the speculative and macro side right now I feel like probably the peak for people being really interested in Buffett stuff was right around covid basically you remember the annual meeting time that they had you know not long after that right because they had to have the one where there was no one there and all that I feel like that kind of thing was when people really wanted to hear from him and in the 2000s it was really right after um you know in the Great Recession and Co were probably the two big times so maybe they only really get interested in in Burkshire when some terrible thing is you know happening in the world or something but even like the Japan stocks I mean he basically said the Cub veston are very much like Berkshire but yeah I mean it's not really in Vogue you know that's just not that interesting to people it's interesting to birkshire shareholders of course but yeah and we'll see over time if the people who are there um who succeed him will have some differences that way I know people commented on oh there's a few like you know small positions little grow more growthy whatever positions higher multiples and stuff on some of the others um but those are probably just smaller Ted and Todd positions and might even be because they maybe are trying to be more fully investing their um portfolios you know we we don't know exactly but if they are pretty fully invested those are not very large positions even within their own portfolio probably so I don't see anything in the top positions of Berkshire that are that are very new age um of this time period that we're living inh got it cool well I want to thank everybody so much for tuning in with the both of us on the focus compound podcast if you are going to be in Omaha that weekend um you are interested in meeting up if you are u a potential investor and want to learn more about our Money Management Services uh reach out to me at Andrew at Focus compound.com we could set something up and get that on the calendar uh wherever you are watching or listening to this podcast be sure to hit the Subscribe button uh to be notified every time that we upload a podcast and follow me on X if you are not at Focus compound that is the best place to go to get access to everything that we push out into the investing Universe I thank you every so much for all the support we will see you in the next podcast take care