4 Warren Buffett Lessons From His Latest Shareholder Letter

Warren Buffett is the world's most famous investor, and he's arguably the most quotable, too. His letters to Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A)(NYSE: BRK.B) shareholders are poured over by investors and repeated for decades. Here are four essential lessons from Buffett's 2020 letter, released Feb. 27, to hold onto whether you're a beginning investor or a pro.

In 2008's shareholder letter, Buffett described his $433 million purchase of Dexter Shoe using Berkshire stock as his worst deal ever. But he promised: "I'll make more mistakes in the future. You can bet on that."

This year, Buffett confessed to another mistake: Paying too much for Precision Castparts Corp., an industrial and aircraft parts maker, in 2016. With the airline industry still severely bruised from the pandemic, Precision laid off about 40% of its workers last year. Buffett said the nearly $11 billion writedown Berkshire took in 2020 was the result of misjudging the average future earnings of the business and overpaying for it as a result.

Source Fool.com