The Oracle's Annual Letter To Shareholders

Warren Buffett's annual letter to shareholders was released early yesterday morning. The annual letters are Buffett's way of communicating with his shareholders. Buffett has been writing these letters to shareholders for over fifty years. The letters dating back to 1977 can be found here at Berkshire Hathaway. If you have never read any of them, I highly recommend doing so. Buffett speaks in a simple mans English and not the typical wall street analytic jargon that one needs to decipher. Buffett used the past year or so to put more dollars to work, and that he did. Berkshire invested in Goldman Sachs preferred shares and General Electric preferred shares both netting a 10% yield. He recently consummated the deal to buy the rest of Burlington Northern Santa Fe shares that he didn't own. He further increased his stakes in the largest retailer WalMart ($WMT), the number two waste company Republic Waste ($RSG) along with his good buddy Bill Gates who happens to be the largest shareholder of Republic Waste. Buffett has been a busy man over the last year and a half and certainly in the media more.

Here are some recent articles on the Oracle of Omaha...

Berkshire reports higher Sanofi, Tesco stakes

Excerpts from Warren Buffett's annual letter

Berkshire Hathaway fine-tunes its holdings

Whitney Tilson: Berkshire Hathaway Is Bargain Of 80 Cents On A Dollar

Author currently long $BRKB and $RSG

KISS?

I am not talking about the kiss you got from your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend last night. Nope, I'm not talking about the rock band named KISS either. I'm talking about the acronym KISS(Keep It Simple Stupid). But for most of us we can't. We want to make investing difficult. At least this is what most of us as humans do. We think there is some secret formula to investing. Maybe if we stare at enough charts or pay our brokers enough we will find the next super stock like Dell Computer(DELL) , Apple Computer(AAPL) or Walmart(WMT). The bold truth, is that their is no secret! If their was a secret it would be "buy low and sell high", now isn't that simple. Investing is all about keeping it simple. Most all of us, have the knowledge already. All you really need is a little common sense and some patience. I'm not saying everyone can be the next Warren Buffet, however one can expect to make a return as good or a little bit better than the averages. Most investors get into trouble over analysing the market, and then there are others who simply get frightened out of the market. So the next time you ponder on what stock or mutual fund to buy, think of KISS and I'm sure with some patience and some common sense you can pave the way to a brighter financial future.