WHAT TO MAKE OF BUFFETT'S ‘THANK YOU’ LETTER

It is usually a February phenomenon. Warren Buffett writes the letter to shareholders in the last week of February each year. This year, he chose a ‘Thanksgiving’ letter and announced that he would not be writing the usual ‘letter to shareholders’ going forward. However, he will continue to send a ‘thanksgiving’ message.

- RAJAS KELKAR

Over the years, Buffett has produced arguments that are lessons in investing. It is clear from his letters that he does not think much about gold as an investment. He believes in getting rich ‘slow ‘and refused to participate in the dotcom boom of the 2000s. Till the middle of the 2010s, he did not own a single technology share. Last quarter, Berkshire Hathaway, the firm he had managed for decades, invested in Alphabet, the parent company of Google. It is only the second technology company after Apple that the firm has invested in over the past decades. When everyone was petrified about buying equities, Buffett and Berkshire made the most of those stock market panics to build a fortune. He participated in the bailout of central US banks along with the US government during the 2008 global financial crisis. When share prices are at a record high, Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on a cash pile of nearly $400 billion, just under 10% of India’s GDP. This column