Yahoo Finance

• Warren Buffett's letter to shareholders on Saturday included plenty of tasty tidbits.

• It pegged Berkshire Hathaway's return under Buffett at 4,400,000% versus the S&P 500's 31,000%.

• It's making bank on bonds, and its $168 billion cash pile is more than Uber's or Nike's worth.

Warren Buffett published his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday, a tradition that stretches back nearly six decades.

The famed investor's latest missive and full-year report were full of juicy nuggets for close readers. Here are six of the best.

1. Crushing the market

As of December 31, Berkshire stock was up nearly 4,400,000% since Buffett took control in 1965. That's about 140 times the S&P 500's 31,000% gain over the same period and represents a compounded gain of 19.8% a year versus the index's 10.2% annual gain.

Berkshire has jumped a further 16% this year, surpassing the S&P's 7% advance and extending its lead over the index. If you'd invested $100 with Buffett at the start of his Berkshire tenure, you'd now be worth well over $4 million.

2. Assets aplenty

Berkshire held $561 billion of net assets at the end of December, a 19% increase from a year earlier.

Buffett said that was the largest net-asset figure recorded for any American business, and it was equivalent to 6% of the total worth of the S&P 500 in 2022, $9.5 trillion.

Berkshire's $1 trillion-plus of assets included $354 billion in stocks, $178 billion in property and equipment, $130 billion in Treasury bills, and $24 billion in inventories.

The company's nearly $500 billion in liabilities included unpaid losses, unearned premiums, and healthcare benefits in its insurance and other businesses.

3. Money to burn

Berkshire's mountain of cash and short-term investments swelled to a record $168 billion by December 31, about a $60 billion increase in only 15 months.

That figure is larger than the value of General Electric ($167 billion), Comcast ($166 billion), Uber ($162 billion), Nike ($160 billion), Walmart ($159 billion), American Express ($156 billion), or Pfizer ($155 billion).

4. Cash-positive

Buffett and his colleagues have struggled to find bargains in recent years as stocks have marched to record highs, fierce competition from private-equity firms has made acquisitions more costly, and Berkshire's rising stock price has made buybacks less attractive.

The upshot is that on December 31, Berkshire held $354 billion in stocks, and $168 billion in cash and other short-term investments — a ratio of nearly 2-to-1.