What Buffett looks for in annual reports · Transcript · BuffettMungerGPT

WarrenI know that you read lots and lots of annual reports, and I'm curious what you are reading for, if you would share that with us. I like to know as much as I can about the person that's running it and how they think about the business and what's really going on the business. And I would like to have a report that would be identical to what if I owned half of a company but was away for a year and I had a partner who owned the other half. When I came back, that he would tell me about what had taken place during the past year and what he foresaw coming up and all of that. If we own stock in a company in an industry and there are eight other companies that are in the same industry, I want to own or be on the mailing list for the reports for the other eight because I can't understand how my company is doing unless I understand what the other eight are doing. I can't be an intelligent owner of a business unless I know what all the other businesses in that business. in that industry are doing. And so I try to get that information out of a report. If I'm thinking about investing in the specific company, I try to size up their business and the people that are running it. And over the years, I have found reading a lot of reports to be quite useful in terms of making business decisions at Berkshire.