'Built to last' Berkshire nears $1 trillion valuation after record profit
economictimes.indiatimes.comput it among a rarefied list of American businesses, after it posted its second straight record annual profit.
The 93-year-old investing legend assured shareholders that the investment conglomerate, which is now the biggest financial firm by market capitalization, was 'built to last'.
Berkshire's Class A shares were trading 1.4% higher, while Class B shares, which carry higher voting rights and whose value is 1/1,500th of Class A shares, gained 1.3%. The conglomerate last had a market cap of over $915 billion.
In his annual letter to shareholders, Buffett, however, toned down expectations for share price, saying it did not have many lucrative investment opportunities left.
He told investors that Berkshire would perform slightly better than the «average American corporation», but anything beyond that is «wishful thinking», even as it had a cash pile of $167.6 billion.
«There remain only a handful of companies in this country capable of truly moving the needle at Berkshire, and they have been endlessly picked over by us and by others… All in all, we have no possibility of eye-popping performance,» Buffett wrote.
Investors closely watch Berkshire as its results are often seen as a bellwether for the U.S. economy.
«While this reads as if Buffett is saying that global equities are fairly valued, the truth is more nuanced than that,» Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, wrote in a note.
«Berkshire is a huge business and needs to take substantial positions in large companies in order to 'move the
