Thu, Jun 4 2009, 14:33 GMT
by Mark O'Byrne
Gold and Silver Investments Limited
Bloomberg have covered our recent research concerning Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway poor performance versus gold in recent years. Buffett is the most successful investor in the world but his lack of diversification and almost exclusive focus on equities may bring further pain to his shareholders in the coming years.
Our research shows that not only has gold vastly outperformed the revered Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway shares but investors were also rewarded with considerably less volatility (gold at 16% and Berkshire H shares at 23%) than Berkshire shares and most national indices.
And this is even with Berkshire Hathaway shares having outperformed benchmark indices such as the Nikkei, FTSE and S&P500.
Buffet himself emphasised the non-productive aspects of gold in a speech in 1998: "It gets dug out of the ground in Africa or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it."
As Marc points out and financial advisers in the UK and internationally are belatedly discovering - "Perhaps gold's utility is in balancing a porfolio?"
This is why high net worth individuals, institutions and central banks including the People's Bank of China are becoming net buyers of gold again.
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