The good part: Berkshire swung to a big first-quarter profit -- over $20 billion -- thanks in part to higher insurance investment income.
But there is a bad part. Or at least a question part. Berkshire's earnings excluded its share of earnings from its 27% stake in Kraft Heinz Inc., because Kraft Heinz hasn't yet filed its earnings with the SEC. Keep in mind, write downs at Kraft Heinz weighed on Berkshire's performance in the fourth quarter last year.TwitterHello from Omaha! It's been a busy few days as shareholders arrived from around the world to attend Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting.
A lot of topics are likely to come up. Just this week, Berkshire invested $10 billion in Occidental Petroleum, and Mr. Buffett told CNBC that one of Berkshire's portfolio managers invested in Amazon.com Inc. Berkshire hasn't done a lot of big deals in recent years and its cash pile keeps growing, so there will likely be questions about whether Berkshire should spend more of its cash buying back shares or doing a dividend.