No. of Recommendations: 1
It's good to remember that essentially all their period of fund management at Berkshire has been a single bull market. During such times, beating the index is very difficult and (more to the point) nearly impossible without taking large positions on the most fashionable things.
Though I have no data one way or the other, it's quite possible they are getting returns similar to an index without taking nearly as much risk of permanent capital loss. That would show up only a year after a big bear market, when good stuff comes all the way back but bad stuff doesn't.
Yes, good points.
There was a short bear market. We know what Buffett did. Did Todd and Ted did similar, or did they do what many of us did, and bought with both hands?
Is the Berkshire portfolio too big for mere stock-picking mortals to manage effectively? $600 billion and growing is *a lot* of money to slosh around.
Or is it? Blackrock manage $10 trillion, as do Vanguard and Schwab. Fidelity has a paltry $5T.