2004 was a bad year for Berkshire Hathaway. The company's book value growth underperformed the S&P 500 by 0.4%, the second year in a row it lagged the index.
Q4 hedge fund letters, conference, scoops etc
However, Warren Buffett and his right-hand man Charlie Munger were unperturbed by this performance. 2003 and 2004 were exceptional years for the S&P 500 as it recovered from the dot-com crash, and during the crash, Berkshire substantially outperformed the index.
It outperformed by 15.6% in 2000, 5.7% in 2001 and 32.1% in 2002. In fact, between 1980 and 2002, Berkshire's book value growth only underperformed the S&P 500 in two out of...
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