Berkshire Hathaway 2004 Letter to Shareholders

It’s per-share intrinsic value that counts, however, not book value. Here, the news is good: Between 1964 and 2004, Berkshire morphed from a…

Despite their shortcomings, yearly calculations of book value are useful at Berkshire as a slightly understated gauge for measuring the long-term…

However the yearly comparisons work out, Berkshire’s long-term performance versus the S&P remains all-important. Our shareholders can buy the S&P…

Last year, Berkshire’s book-value gain of 10.5% fell short of the index’s 10.9% return. Our lackluster performance was not due to any stumbles by the…