“I felt like there was an opportunity here for Buffett to do something more formal and make comments about Abel’s qualifications or why shareholders and investors should trust he was the right candidate. There could have been more commentary around that,” Edward Jones analyst Jim Shanahan said.

Investor Bill Smead said Buffett also didn’t devote much space in his letter to warning people about foolish behavior as he has often done in the past.

“It just seems like the last two or three years of letters and annual meetings, there has just been way more that he didn’t say than what he did,” Smead said.

But Buffett did warn investors to be careful when reading other companies’ financial reports to make sure they are accounting for all their costs when they report their earnings.

“Deceptive ‘adjustments’ to earnings – to use a polite description – have become both more frequent and more fanciful as stocks have risen. Speaking less politely, I would say that bull markets breed bloviated bull ...,” Buffett wrote.

Despite the dearth of acquisitions and new investments Berkshire has continued to profit as the economy rebounded from the depths of the pandemic. The company reported making $US39.6 billion, or $US26,690 per Class A share, during the fourth quarter. That’s up from $US35.8 billion, or $US25,015 per Class A share, a year ago.

“In 2021, the majority of the operating companies benefited from the tailwind of an economic recovery,” CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert said.

Berkshire was a net seller of stocks again last year, unloading $US7.4 billion more shares than it bought.

But those bottom line figures were inflated by paper gains on Berkshire’s investments, which is why Buffett maintains that operating earnings are a better measure of the company’s performance because they exclude investments and derivatives. By that measure, Berkshire’s operating earnings jumped from $US5.02 billion, or $US3,224.74 per Class A share, to $US7.3 billion, or $US4,904.23 per Class A share, during the fourth quarter.

The four analysts surveyed by FactSet expected Berkshire to report operating earnings per Class A share of $US4,197.84 in the quarter.

Buffett said the four biggest pillars of Berkshire’s business — its insurance companies, its $US161 billion investment in Apple stock, BNSF railroad and its collection of utilities — all helped it succeed last year. The railroad alone contributed a record $US6 billion in profit last year while the utilities set a record of their own with a $US3.5 billion profit. And Buffett praised Apple’s CEO Tim Cook as a brilliant executive.

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Buffett said that this year Berkshire will bring back the full slate of events surrounding the company’s annual meeting that used to routinely attract more than 40,000 people before the pandemic forced it to go virtual for the past two years. But anyone who wants to attend the April 30 meeting in Omaha to hear Buffett spend hours answering questions will have to prove they have been vaccinated for COVID-19.

Berkshire owns an eclectic variety of companies, including BNSF, a number of large electric utilities, Geico insurance and an assortment of manufacturing and retail companies. The conglomerate also holds large stock investments in Apple, Coca-Cola, Bank of America and other companies.