Berkshire annual report

Berkshire Hathaway's 2008 annual report is out:
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2008ar/2008ar.pdf

Warren Buffet is his usual candid self about mistakes he's made in 2008, and as usual his annual letter to shareholders is worth a read.

Berkshire's shareholder equity in 2008 fell by a substantial amount - over $11bn, or 9%. But by my reckoning it's fallen by at least the same again in the first 2 months of 2009:

• $5.3bn off Wells Fargo.
• $1.3bn off Conoco Phillips.
• $1.3bn off Proctor & Gamble.
• $1bn off American Express.
• $800m off US Bancorp.
• $500m off Kraft Foods.
• $400m off POSCO.
• $400m off Swiss Re.
• $300m off Johnson & Johnson.
• $300m off Sanofi Aventis.
• $100m off Wal-Mart.

Offset by:

• $200m gain on Tesco.

The derivate put liabilities are bound to have substantially increased due to the fall in world stock exchanges.

BRK-B shares are currently trading around $2500. I think fair value is around $3500, possibly more if Berkshire is now holding a substantial number of undervalued securities. I think its prospects in the current market are excellent - the yield it is getting from Wrigley, GE, Goldman Sachs, Swiss Re, etc... is superb.

Update 2/3/09
I bought some Berkshire B shares today at about $2380. It is now my largest shareholding, forming 19.5% of my portfolio. My python script required some work to incorporate a US-listed share, but it's all up to date now. Here's my portfolio breakdown:
BRK-B: 19.6%
NXT: 10.4%
TSCO: 10.0%
GNK: 10.0%
IEEM: 8.6%
IAPD: 7.0%
IDVY: 7.0%
RBS: 6.0%
BDI: 4.2%
QDG: 3.4%
ZRX: 3.2%
MXM: 2.8%
BARC: 2.3%
HSBA: 2.2%
LLOY: 1.8%
TW: 1.5%

My regional breakdown (still heavily UK weighted, but I'm getting there):
Europe: 7.0
Emerging: 11.8
Asia: 7.0
UK: 54.6
USA: 19.6