Warren Buffett

Buffett underperformed the S&P last year

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway raised its per-share book value 14.4% in 2012, less than the S&P 500's 16% total return. But the marker Buffett dismisses -- earnings per share -- rose 44%.

By Carol Loomis

FORTUNE -- Berkshire Hathaway reported after the stock market's close that its book value per share rose in 2012 by 14.4%, helped especially by excellent results in insurance; strong business for BNSF and Marmon in transporting oil; MORE

Is Buffett overpaying for Heinz?

Berkshire and 3G's $28 billion bid for the ketchup maker could be Warren Buffett's richest deal yet.

FORTUNE -- Part of the mystique, and down-home charm, of Warren Buffett is the belief that most of all he is always looking for a good bargain. Did he get one with Heinz? It's not so clear.

Buffett is best known for having bought up large stakes in companies like Coke (KO), Geico, Gillette and MORE

Does Warren Buffett still hate private equity?

Warren Buffett has teamed up with 3G Capital to buy Heinz. Yes, that's a private equity firm.

FORTUNE -- Warren Buffett is no fan of private equity, having said that buyout firms are short-term financial engineers who "don't love" the companies in which they invest. He also has bragged about how he never has bought a company from private equity firms.

So what are we to make of the fact that Buffett MORE

Buffett and Brazilian investor to buy Heinz

Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital plan to buy Heinz for $28 billion.

By Carol Loomis, senior editor-at-large

FORTUNE -- Two billionaires -- business and personal friends who live on separate continents -- announced today that their companies would jointly buy H.J. Heinz Co. for $28 billion, including the assumption of $4 billion in debt.

The two dealmakers are Warren Buffett and the Brazilian/Swiss businessman and philanthropist Jorge Paulo Lemann. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway MORE

Buffett pulls ahead in wager against hedge funds

Five years into a ten-year bet that an S&P index fund can beat hedge fund funds-of-funds, Warren Buffett is in the lead for the first time.

By Carol Loomis

FORTUNE -- It's halfway time in the 10-year stock market wager sometimes called The Million-Dollar Bet—that's Warren Buffett backing the performance of an S&P index fund vs. a New York money manager backing five funds of hedge funds—and there's double-barreled news.

Item One: For the MORE

Pre-Marketing: Buffett's solar splash

* Blow it up: America's bubble-dependent economy

* It's always sunny in Omaha: Buffett makes huge solar play

* Fight back: Patent trolls want $1,000 for using scanners

* Steven Davidoff: Ackman, Herbalife and celebrity short-sellers

* Morning Call: U.S. futures flatten, European shares climb and Asian shares rise.

* Yalman Onaran: Basel becomes Babel

* McDonald's stakeout: Catch the grease thieves

* Brendan Borrell: The great Canadian maple syrup heist

* Looking ahead: High hopes for 2013 leveraged buyouts

* Tumblr revenue: $13m in 2012, hopes to MORE

Economists poke holes in Buffett's tax argument

Data shows investors tend to pay less for stocks when capital gains rates are high.

FORTUNE -- Taxes, so the saying goes, are certain. What they do to stocks is, apparently, up for debate.

Famed investor Warren Buffett, in a New York Times opinion piece and elsewhere, has been making the case that tax rates, which are set to go up on capital gains and dividends on January 1st, won't affect the MORE

Reading the tea leaves on Buffett's muni trades

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has scaled back its bullish stance on municipal debt, but this shouldn't be a surprise to those who have followed Buffett's remarks.

FORTUNE – Munis beware. So suggests one of the world's savviest investors.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) recently terminated credit-default swaps insuring $8.25 billion of municipal debt, according to the company's latest quarterly SEC filing. The original bet was a bullish one -- in the event MORE

Pinterest of the day: Buffett edition

FORTUNE -- Big kudos to NY Times scribe Kevin Roose, who has created a Pinterest page titled "Warren Buffett doing folksy things."

Among the Oracle's "pinned" exploits are eating a Dairy Queen treat and playing ukulele while singing "I've been working on the railroad." Not quite that hanging out with Jay-Z qualifies as folksy, but we'll give Roose a pass considering that he also found a photo of Buffett wearing reindeer antlers MORE

Buffett faces friendly fire on 'Buffett Rule'

At annual meeting, some shareholders wish Buffett would put a sock in it on taxes.

Omaha (Fortune) -- Warren Buffett says the 'Buffett Rule' has been "butchered a bit." But that hasn't stopped some shareholders from criticizing him for getting involved in the nation's debate over taxes and what the richest Americans should pay in the first place.

On Saturday, Buffett fielded dozens of questions from the crowd of shareholders and journalists MORE