A number of months ago, I sold half my holdings of Berkshire Hathaway and arbitrarily split it in purchasing shares of thee five Japanese companies (through IB, in Tokyo). To put it mildly, they have all outperformed BRK by a significant amount.

That could have been my post. I bought 3 of the 5 in mid-May, through Interactive Brokers, using Yen I didn't have, so I have an equivalent negative position in JPY, making me ambivalent about currency movements. I bought the 3 that were selling for the lowest multiples (between 8 and 10 at the time). I sold one of them yesterday, and still hold the other two, for an average gain of 28.5%, or 30%, including dividends. I bought them largely because I figured if Buffett was increasing his positions last quarter, with P/E ratios between 10 and 14, he must have felt they were still a good deal. They are up 5-10% since then but they are probably still a pretty good deal, with slowly growing revenue and earnings, and multiples we don't often see on this side of the big pond.

dtb