Berkshire Hathaway: Breaking Into The Stock Market

Breaking into the stock market may seem intimidating, and can even seem difficult at first. It is helpful to know what companies to start investing in, and which ones to avoid. Try considering Berkshire Hathaway as an investment that is worth both the time and money. The company has been through many recessions, to include the Great Depression, and has not only endured, but has come out all the stronger. Read further to find out how this once small company has grown to be one of the largest conglomerates with one of the highest yielding returns on investments in the stock industry and maybe even the world can do to increase wealth and build a solid portfolio.

To illustrate Berkshire’s strength in the market, one would need to look no further

With numbers such as those, it’s hard to imagine that anything could ever bring it down. Every year, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger’s annual letter to their shareholders lists the 15 stocks with the largest market values along with their year-end values (berkshirehathaway.com). As of December 31, 2016, Berkshire holds a significant number of shares in American Express, Apple, Charter Communications, Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo, to name a few of their top 15 holdings (not to include Bank of America, a stock that Buffett just bought 700 million shares in this past September) (schwab.com). The total returns on their investments are 9.4% for just their B shares which doesn’t sound too impressive, unless the investor takes into consideration the drop in the oil industry, and how poorly everyone else’s portfolios did. However, looking at their A shares, they beat the S&P 500 with a 23.4% return in 2016 compared to the S&P’s 9.5%. The reason for the difference in price is that A shares are worth approximately $280,000 a share versus B shares which are approximately 1/1500 the amount of an A share which equates to about