The billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett disclosed Friday that he had earned profits for shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway by speculating in the Brazilian currency, the real, and by buying a large stake in a French pharmaceutical company, Sanofi-Aventis.
He also complained that many other companies were overstating earnings, and he expressed puzzlement that their auditors let them get away with it reports the New York Times.
Mr. Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders, which was released Friday, has become something of a business institution, with the certainty that he will offer caustic comments and the hope that he will shed light on his investments.
This year, his scorn was aimed at the “financial folly” of lenders who financed the housing boom, since vanished, and at companies that use rosy assumptions of investment success to raise reported profits.
Read it here: Buffett’s State of the World: There’s Folly in Wonderland