Thousands Line Up for Buffett's So-So News

(AP) - Warren Buffett said today the US government is taking the correct actions to help the economy recover. "The government is doing the right things," Buffett said before the opening of Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting. "They're acting in a countercyclical manner." But he said he can't predict how quickly the economy and the markets will improve. More»

Oracle confident as he prepares to be buffeted by shareholders

(NEWSER) - The Oracle of Omaha still sees tough times ahead for the US economy, but he says he thinks the worst is in the past, CNCBC reports. “We’re at a war now to some degree, but Pearl Harbor was September,” Warren Buffett says. “There was a strike at the heart of the American system, the financial system. And we got past that.” But “the war isn’t over,” particularly for Buffett, who will face antsy shareholders tomorrow. More»

(NEWSER) - Not even legendary investors can escape this mess. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway posted its worst year ever in 2008, the Wall Street Journal reports. A key indicator, book value per share, fell 9.6%, only the second loss since Buffett took control of the company in 1965. Berkshire reported fourth-quarter income of $117 million, 96% less than the $2.9 billion it made in the same period in 2007. More»

Insurance-industry woes mean 'that party is over,' Buffett says

(NEWSER) - Citing a decline in gains from insurance underwriting and sluggish investment returns, holding company Berkshire Hathaway said today that fourth-quarter income was off 18%—to $2.95 billion, from $3.58 billion—from a year earlier, the Wall Street Journal reports. Billionaire chairman Warren Buffett snuck in digs at Wall Street and the federal government while effectively promising declining profit margins for years to come. More»

At $200M, purchase not about investing

(NEWSER) - Warren Buffett makes news for his multi-billion-dollar investments, not a piddly $200 million—but Buffett surprised many people when he announced yesterday he was spending that to buy his hometown newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald, reports Bloomberg . The billionaire slammed the newspaper industry two years ago, saying it had the "potential for unending losses," and that he would never buy one "at any price." But now Buffett seems to have changed his tune: “I wouldn't do this if I thought this was doomed to some sort of extinction,” he said, according to the Omaha World-Herald . More»