Warren Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), is the most successful investor of our time. His daughter, Susan, worked as my assistant when I was the publisher of a magazine 40 years ago. Just before she got married, Susie told me she worried that her fiancé’s parents had bought a couple of shares of Berkshire stock — and what if it tanked? At the time, the price was about $1,000 a share. Today, it’s $507,000 a share. I hope the in-laws hung on.<br /><br />In his latest annual report, Warren Buffett calculates that the average yearly gain in market value from his acquisition of Berkshire in 1965 through the end of 2022 was 19.8%, compared with 9.9% for the S&P 500 — an astounding difference, matched by no one of whom I’m aware. And Berkshire beat the market in two-thirds of the years.
