Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) reported a profit of $96.2 billion last year. The result reflected an impressive improvement over the net loss of nearly $22.8 billion in 2022. Or did it?

Warren Buffett doesn't think highly of his company's bottom line. In his latest letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Buffett wrote that the conglomerate's earnings figures are "worse than useless." Why is he so negative about earnings? And what should investors focus on instead?

It didn't take long for Buffett to bring up Berkshire's financial results for 2023 in his recent shareholder letter. He acknowledged that many people gravitate to the bottom-line numbers on the company's income statement. The legendary investor specifically called attention to the big swings from 2021 (with net earnings of nearly $90 billion) to the loss posted in 2022 to the huge aforementioned profit in 2023.

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Source Fool.com