Here are my notes on the 2022 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting. This year, CNBC has the rights to record and host the full video and transcripts (morning session, afternoon session) and they did a nice job with syncing the text and sound. I enjoyed listening to it like a podcast first and then reading through the text a second time around. There are many financial media articles with highlights, but here are my personal takeaways and notes.

Berkshire Hathaway is their life’s work and legacy. It’s fascinating to see how they have tried their best to build it to last forever. I recently listened to an outdoor podcast called Dirtbag Diaries where a 78-year-old man suffering from late-stage Parkinson’s disease still completed a 10-day whitewater rafting trip in the Canadian wilderness. Some folks just have more life energy than life time left, and wring out every last bit. Inspiring.

Warren Buffett is 91 and Charlie Munger is 98. These guys could be relaxing. They know the end is near, but they still have energy and are doing what they love. They built Berkshire bit by bit and the shareholders that they will leave behind are close family and friends that trust them. BRK is their legacy, and they have carefully crafted it to keep growing for those shareholders long past their lifetimes.

But most — a great many of them just say, you know, “We’ve saved this money. And we trust you and Charlie.” And that’s a great motivator, this trust.

“And, you know, take care of it and I’m not going to learn accounting and try to read all those statements or anything of the sort.”

You know, if I went broke, it wouldn’t really make any difference. It’d keep doing what I do. I’d figure out a way to read a paper and watch a little TV (Laughter) and think about things and talk to Charlie.

But the idea of losing, permanently, other people’s money — people who trust us — really, really — that’s just a future I don’t want to have.

So, the one thing I can tell you about Berkshire — although I can’t predict what our earnings will be, and I can’t predict what the stock will do, and I can’t — we don’t know. We don’t know what the economy will do and all of that sort of thing.

But we do know that we wake up every morning and we want to be safer, in terms of your eventual investment.

Now, whether you make the most money or anything, we do not want you to get a terrible result because you’ve decided to become our partner. And that’s a pledge you can live by.

They aren’t done yet, either. As long as they are able, they will keep adding pieces. They spent $40 billion is just three weeks, and are probably still buying stuff as I type this. The media usually only focuses their attention on certain purchases, but you can track their 13F filings to see exactly they bought and sold. Sites like Dataroma parse them for you, but if you plan on copycat investing be warned that the data is delayed and also Buffett is not always buy and hold forever. He’s not always right, and when Buffett realizes this, he can also sell quickly. Being late after he buys and late after he sells can be a very bad combo.

Berkshire Hathaway share repurchase timing gives some hints. They also bought back a few more BRK shares in January to March 2022 ($3 billion), but none in April 2022 once the price rose. This should give you a hint as to what Buffett thinks is a “good deal” on BRK shares. He wouldn’t buy back shares unless they were safely below his estimate of intrinsic value. You may see those 2021 and early 2022 prices again…

Cash is like oxygen. We should all keep adequate cash reserves in 100% liquid and safe places. Home equity lines of credit can (and have been) frozen quickly. Credit card limits can be reduced. We should know by now that crazy stuff happens quickly.

When 2008 and 2009 — the national panic came along — we didn’t own anybody’s commercial paper. You know, we didn’t have money market funds. We have Treasury bills. And, as I may get into it a little later, I’ll explain to you why.

We would — we believe in having cash.

And there have been a few times in history, and there will be more times in history, where if you don’t have it, you know, you don’t get to play the next day. I mean, it’s just —

It’s like oxygen, you know? It’s there all the time. But if it disappears for a few minutes, it’s all over.

Gambling and investing are getting mixed up yet again. Sports gambling is growing. Short-dated options trading is growing. Crypto has many shady pockets. Remember that casino owners make reliable profits while feeding the gamblers with hope. Which side do you want to be on? Buffett noticed this as a 21-year-old newlywed visitor to Las Vegas:

They’d gone to great lengths to come out to do something that was mathematically unintelligent, and they knew it was unintelligent.

And, I mean, they couldn’t do it fast enough, in terms of rolling the dice, you know, and trying to determine whether they were hot or whatever they may be.

And I looked around at that group. And everybody there knew that they were doing something that was mathematically dumb, and they’d come thousands of miles to do it, and they were —

And I said to my wife, I said, you know, I’m going to get rich.

How to beat inflation? Invest in your own human capital.

But the best thing you can do is to be exceptionally good at something. If you’re the best doctor in town, if you’re the best lawyer in town, if you’re the best whatever it may be, no matter whether people are paying you with a zillion dollars or paying with — they’re going to give you some of what they produce in exchange for what you deliver.

And if you’re the one they pick out to do any particular activity, sing, or play baseball, or be their lawyer, whatever it may be, whatever abilities you have can’t be taken away from you, they can’t actually be inflated away from you.

Somebody else will give you some of the wheat they produce, or the cotton, or whatever it may be, and they will trade you for the skill you have.

So, the best investment by far is anything that develops yourself. And, again, it’s not taxed. (Applause) So that’s what I would do.

Find the intersection of something that interests you, something you have a talent for, and something that pays the bills.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well — if you stop to think about it, there are two things that neither one of us has ever succeeded at: One, we’ve never succeeded at anything that didn’t interest us, right?

WARREN BUFFETT: Right.

CHARLIE MUNGER: And we’ve never succeeded at anything that was really hard where we didn’t have much aptitude for it.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And we’ve been doing whatever we pleased for 60 years.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, we did.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) released its 2021 Letter to Shareholders over the weekend, which is how Warren Buffett updates his fellow shareholders annually on the status of the business. Direct ownership of Berkshire Hathaway shares (above my passive index fund allotment) was one of my first “explore” investments where I set aside a percentage of my portfolio to buy something that wasn’t an index fund for both educational and profit purposes. The education has been very valuable, possibly worth more than the investment gains. This year’s letter is only 10 pages long. Here are my personal highlights.

Investing is not always about pure optimization. It is better to have a reasonable plan that you understand and can keep the faith in times of stress. I think about my index fund portfolio and BRK shares the same way: The price may fluctuate in the short-term, but earnings power will continue to increase in the long-term and there will be as close to 0% chance of permanent loss as possible.

To a truly unusual degree, however, Berkshire has as owners a very large corps of individuals and families that have elected to join us with an intent approaching “til death do us part.” Often, they have trusted us with a large – some might say excessive – portion of their savings.

Berkshire, these shareholders would sometimes acknowledge, might be far from the best selection they could have made. But they would add that Berkshire would rank high among those with which they would be most comfortable. And people who are comfortable with their investments will, on average, achieve better results than those who are motivated by ever-changing headlines, chatter and promises.

Owning quality businesses, either wholly or partially. BRK seeks to own only quality businesses. They find the needles in the haystack. Index funds own the whole haystack.

Whatever our form of ownership, our goal is to have meaningful investments in businesses with both durable economic advantages and a first-class CEO. Please note particularly that we own stocks based upon our expectations about their long-term business performance and not because we view them as vehicles for timely market moves. That point is crucial: Charlie and I are not stock-pickers; we are business-pickers.

Easier to find mis-pricing amongst common stocks.

One advantage of our common-stock segment is that – on occasion – it becomes easy to buy pieces of wonderful businesses at wonderful prices. That shooting-fish-in-a-barrel experience is very rare in negotiated transactions and never occurs en masse. It is also far easier to exit from a mistake when it has been made in the marketable arena.

Personal asset allocation varies between 80% and 100% stocks. Here was an interesting peek about his personal stock allocation over the last 80 years. Buffett has never been shy about owning stocks where he believes that there is a good margin of safety because he paid a a price below intrinsic value.

Nor have Charlie and I lost our overwhelming preference for business ownership. Indeed, I first manifested my enthusiasm for that 80 years ago, on March 11, 1942, when I purchased three shares of Cities Services preferred stock. Their cost was $114.75 and required all of my savings. (The Dow Jones Industrial Average that day closed at 99, a fact that should scream to you: Never bet against America.)

After my initial plunge, I always kept at least 80% of my net worth in equities. My favored status throughout that period was 100% – and still is. Berkshire’s current 80%-or-so position in businesses is a consequence of my failure to find entire companies or small portions thereof (that is, marketable stocks) which meet our criteria for long- term holding.

Most stocks are too expensive right now. That will eventually change.

Charlie and I have endured similar cash-heavy positions from time to time in the past. These periods are never pleasant; they are also never permanent. And, fortunately, we have had a mildly attractive alternative during 2020 and 2021 for deploying capital. Read on.

The only thing attractive was Berkshire stock itself. So they bought that. Existing shareholders own ~10% more of Berkshire than they did a couple years ago. Side note: You know when I buy some more BRK shares? When WEB does.

Periodically, as alternative paths become unattractive, repurchases make good sense for Berkshire’s owners. During the past two years, we therefore repurchased 9% of the shares that were outstanding at yearend 2019 for a total cost of $51.7 billion. That expenditure left our continuing shareholders owning about 10% more of all Berkshire businesses, whether these are wholly-owned (such as BNSF and GEICO) or partly-owned (such as Coca-Cola and Moody’s).

The orangutan effect. I found this quote very true, as writing on this blog helps me develop and clarify my thoughts. But did I just get called an orangutan?

Teaching, like writing, has helped me develop and clarify my own thoughts. Charlie calls this phenomenon the orangutan effect: If you sit down with an orangutan and carefully explain to it one of your cherished ideas, you may leave behind a puzzled primate, but will yourself exit thinking more clearly.

Past shareholder letters.

• 1977-2021 are free on the Berkshire Hathaway website (PDF). 1965-2020 are $2.99 at Amazon (Kindle). Three bucks seems pretty reasonable for a permanent digital copy with the ability to search text and maintain highlights.
• 2020 Letter notes
• 2019 Letter discussed why BRK will continue to do fine without Warren Buffett around.
• 2018 Letter discussed using debt very sparingly and the importance of holding productive assets over a long time.
• 2017 Letter discussed patience, risk, and why they have so much cash.
• 2016 Letter touched on the rarity of skilled-stock pickers and some insight on his own stock-picking practices.
• 2015 Letter discussed his optimism in America and his “Big 4” stock holdings.
• 2014 Letter discussed the power of owning shares of productive businesses (and not just bonds).
• 2013 Letter included Buffett’s Simple Investment Advice to Wife After His Death.

The annual shareholder meeting will be in-person this year. Unfortunately, this will not be the year I finally get to go. CNBC will livestream it on Saturday, April 30th. I’ll try to watch it while eating some See’s peanut brittle and bridge mix.

Charlie Munger is now 98 years old and still answering questions at the 2022 Daily Journal Annual Shareholder Meeting. Yahoo Finance livestreamed the event again, and you can view the full two-hour recording on YouTube (embedded below, starts at 24:47). You’ll miss out on his snarky tone, but you may prefer to read the entire transcript, kindly provided in PDF form via @DividendGrowth and via Junto Investments.

You don’t have to agree with everything he says, but some of it is just refreshing in that it’s not the same stuff you hear elsewhere. He has a clear opinion. I’ve included a few of my personal highlights below.

One philosophy that I appreciate (but don’t necessarily follow) is to simply stay completely clear of bad things that can destroy either your financial stability or your general happiness. If you don’t own crypto, you can still live a rich and happy life.

• Avoid treating the stock market like a casino.
• Avoid speculating in cryptocurrencies.
• Avoid doing something because you see someone else get rich doing it.
• Avoid anything so addictive to you that you give up everything else. For some, it could be alcohol. Others, it could be video games.
• Avoid “pretentious expenditure”.

On the best way to invest:

Well, it may be that you have to choose the least bad of your options. That frequently happens in human decision making. The Mungers have Berkshire stock, Costco stock, Chinese stocks through Li Lu, a little bit of Daily Journal stock, and a bunch of apartment houses. Do I think that’s perfect? No. Do I think it’s okay? Yes. I think the great lesson from the Mungers is that you don’t need all this damn diversification. You’re lucky if you got four good assets. If you’re trying to do better than average, you’re lucky if you have four things to buy. To ask for 20 is really asking for egg in your beer. Very few people have enough brains to get 20 good investments.

On making macro-economic predictions and dealing with the boom and bust cycle:

I figure that I want to swim as well as I can against the tides. I’m not trying to predict the tides.

If you’re gonna invest in stocks for the long term, or real estate, of course there are going to be periods when there’s a lot of agony and other periods when there’s a boom. I think you just have to learn to live through them.

Should we go to cash and wait for better opportunities in the future?

In my whole adult life, I’ve never hoarded cash, waiting for better conditions. I’ve just invested in the best thing I could find. I don’t think I’m going to change now. The Daily Journal has used up its cash.

On living a happy life:

You want to have reasonable expectations and take life’s results good and bad as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism. There’ll never be any shortage of good people in the world. All you got to do is seek them out and get as many of them as possible into your life. Keep the rest the hell out.

Past years:

• 2021 Daily Journal Shareholder meeting notes
• 2020 Daily Journal Shareholder meeting notes
• 2019 Daily Journal Shareholder meeting notes