How were the Berkshire Hathaway numbers for the fourth quarter of 2021?

For the fourth quarter, the profits of Berkshire Hathaway were boosted by gains in businesses and stock investments such as its largest holding of Apple. Incidentally, Apple is nearly 45% of its entire investment portfolio (excluding its large business investments like GEICO, BNFS, BHE etc). However, it must be remembered that Berkshire fully marks its investments to market, so notional profits and losses are part of the reported figure.

One thing Berkshire Hathaway has continued to consistently is to repurchase its own stock to the tune of $6.9 billion. Buffett and co. remained unconvinced about fresh investments in the current markets, instead preferring to buy back their own stock to reward shareholders. The cash stash stood at a whopping $147 billion or 20%. Quarterly income was up 45% yoy. Berkshire stock was up 30% in 2021, compared to 29% gains on the Standard & Poor index.