Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders: 1965-2024

by Warren Buffett

As usual the list reflects our Rip Van Winkle approach to investing. Guinness is a new position. But we held the other seven stocks a year ago (making allowance for the conversion of our Gillette position from preferred to common) and in six of those we hold an unchanged number of shares. The exception is Federal Home Loan Mortgage (“Freddie Mac”), in which our shareholdings increased slightly. Our stay-put behavior reflects our view that the stock market serves as a relocation center at which money is moved from the active to the patient. (With tongue only partly in check, I suggest that recent events indicate that the much-maligned “idle rich” have received a bad rap: They have maintained or increased their wealth while many of the “energetic rich”—aggressive real estate operators, corporate acquirers, oil drillers, etc.—have seen their fortunes disappear.) Our Guinness holding represents Berkshire’s first significant investment in a company domiciled outside the United States. Guinness, however, earns its money in much the same fashion as Coca-Cola and Gillette,