Top Five Click-Baits In Buffett’s Annual Shareholder Letter, Number 4 Will Shock You!

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Investment legend Warren Buffett released his annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter Saturday and with it a trove of wisdom for value investors. Surprisingly, the letter also showed off Buffett’s recently developed penchant for internet click-bait, as several of his asides uncharacteristically directed readers to follow internet fads previously ignored by the 90-year-old market magician. The Stonk Market has summarized those nonagenarian hot-takes below:

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The Click-Baits In Buffett’s Annual Shareholder Letter

  1. "Read this letter and your IQ will automatically go up 15 points, scientists hate me!"

Buffett’s letter included a new header this year that informed readers that simply reading his annual letter would increase their IQs. Psychologist were not able to confirm the claims made in the letter, but Buffett’s 60+ years of success in the market suggest he may be onto something.

  1. "First you will laugh, then you will cry, then you will want to hug your kids"

Buffett took time to explain how he mistakenly used the wrong rung on his trusty abacus to calculate the future earnings of Precision Castparts and how that has resulted in an $11 Billion write-off for the company. The most surprising part of this announcement however was that he did it via an embedded tik-tok video, with Buffett describing the shortfalls in the aerospace industry behind an anime cat-girl filter.

  1. "80% of readers can’t get past this level, can you save the princess?"

Things started to get really out of character when on page 10 of the letter, a description of the health of cashflows generated by Berkshire’s insurance holdings was interrupted by a pop-up for the malware-laden “Lords of the Golden Circle” minigame. Buffett noted that he “has been addicted to this game for a month” and that investors should see if they could beat his high score to prove they are smarter than a billionaire.

  1. "DO NOT CLICK HERE IF YOU LIKE BEING POOR"

The Oracle of Omaha is known for his utter disdain for get-rich-quick schemes and other Wall Street manias that promise outsized returns with little risk. That made this flashing button on page 12 all the more curious. The button linked to Notorious T.O.O.L. Anthony Pompliano’s Bitcoin Investing podcast, which suggests that Buffett, seen by many as the quintessential stalwart against cryptocurrency, may be softening his tone against the asset class.

  1. "Make sure to smash that subscribe button, ding that bell for notifications, and give me a huge thumbs up!"

Buffett’s letters have never had a difficult time finding readers. Bounded copies of his over five decades’ worth of letters to investors are often owned by hedge fund managers and even taught in top-tier business schools. In a sign of the times however, it appears even billionaires now have to prod their readers into supporting their SEO rankings.

This article first appeared on The Stonk Market

Disclaimer: This is a satirical article.