Warren Buffett said Berkshire Hathway earned $100 million every day including weekends (in 2023). He said this while discussing the company’s quarterly earnings at the Annual Shareholder Meeting on May 4.
Berkshire Hathaway in the first quarterly results reported operating earnings of $11.2 billion, up from $8.07 billion in the previous year. The company also reported a record cash holdings of $188.99 billion up from $167.6 billion in the fourth quarter. He reiterated that the company was looking for opportunities to deploy the money and would use it when the opportunity arises.
Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock had closed 0.56 percent down at $ 6,03,000 on May 3 ahead of the company’s earnings report. Berkshire Hathaway’s shares have gained around 11 percent in the year so far, outperforming the Dow Jones index’s 2.55 percent return.
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Stating that Berkshire’s earnings will rise “moderately”, Buffett said “the company’s goal is to increase operating earnings and decrease the shares outstanding.” Berkshire Hathaway has used $2.6 billion to buyback its shares in the first quarter. It had bought back $9.2 billion worth of stock in 2023.
Berkshire’s major investments will be in the United States: Warren Buffett
The company’s shareholder equity increased to $571.49 billion by the end of March 2024. Buffett said they have retained earnings ever since he took over the company except for 1967 when the company announced 10 cents a share dividend. Buffett quipped that he was in the restroom while that decision was made. “If you leave out that period of madness we've been retaining or we've been saving your money, putting it to work and sometimes we've done things that were big mistakes. But we never get close to fatal mistakes.” he added.
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