The company is pretty much, to misappropriate Paul Krugman’s remark about the US, an insurance company with an energy and railroad on the side. Oh, and a pile of cash and stuff. It will be interesting to see what it looks like 10 years from now, eh?

In short, I’m hoping for positive movement forward, but not the kinds of terrific performance (laces with periods of blah) we’ve come to expect.


I agree with this. I have no great expectations of high growth rates from Berkshire, but I think the selling point is that stocks in general are at nosebleed prices, and Berkshire has a lot less downside than most. If there's a big dip, then there are about 350 billion reasons for thinking Berkshire will be well positioned to take advantage.

So if the market goes up another 50% in the next 5 years, Berkshire may do about as well, or maybe even a little less well (stodgy businesses, lots of cash, too concentrated in the USA.) But if the market goes down 50%, maybe Berkshire will only go down 30%, and will improve its prospects going forward. Losing less money is not as exciting as making more money, but I'm ok with that for a small position.

dtb