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A Look at Berkshire Hathaway’s Annual Market Returns From 1968 - 2007
By JLP | April 2, 2008
This is pretty incredible to think about. Below is a year-by-year listing of Berkshire Hathaway’s year-end closing prices for their Class A stock.
It’s pretty incredible to think that a $20.50 investment at the end of 1967 would have been worth $141,600 at the end of 2007. That’s an average annual rate of return of 24.73% over each of those forty years! Had you purchased just 100 shares (a $2,050 investment + brokerage fees) of Berkshire at the end of 1967, you would have had over $14.1 MILLION at the end of 2007. That’s a pretty nice retirement!
Sadly, those returns are history now. Recent history (the last 5 years in particular) shows that the returns, although not bad, were nothing like the returns of the past. Here’s a look at how Berkshire performed over the last 5, 10, 15, and 20 years:
I think it’s evident that Buffett is having a harder time finding places to put Berkshire’s money. I wouldn’t expect 24% annual rates of return in the future.
Related:
Berkshire Hathaway 2007 Annual Report (PDF)
Warren Buffett’s 2007 Letter to Shareholders (PDF)
Topics: Investing |
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Wow….just….wow.
If my calculations are right, a $1,000 investment in 1967 would be worth almost $7 million today.
And people “can’t be bothered” with learning to invest on their own.
Bear in mind that when Buffet started out, financial information wasn’t as easily discovered as today. It took work and lots of it.
Still saying, “Wow.”
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:43 am
Early on, Buffett also had the insight to buy up insurance companies and make solid investments on their float–leverage without debt. However, that’s probably a one-time coup, and that’s part of why the returns have been slowing down (to 50% above market returns, of course).