Here’s what he answered to this question when he was asked it at the Annual Meeting of Berkshire Hathaway in 2003 as reported in OID (Vol XVIII, Numbers 3 & 4).
“We read a lot—we read daily publications, we read weekly or monthly publications, we read annual reports, we read 10-Ks and we read 10-Qs. Fortunately, the investment business is a business where knowledge accumulates. Everything you learn when your 20 or 30, you may tweak some as you go along, but it all kind of builds into a knowledge base that’s useful forever.”
As reported later in the meeting, he said that he does not read analysts' reports. “We never look at any analysts’ reports", he explained. "It’s far overrated. If I read one, it was because the funny papers weren’t available. I don’t understand why people do it."
In the 2000 Annual Report of Berkshire Hathaway he wrote, "When Charlie and I read [annual] reports, we have no interest in pictures of personnel, plants or products... We're very suspicious of accounting methodology that is vague or unclear, since too often that means management wishes to hide something. And we don't want to read messages that a public relations department or consultant has turned out. Instead, we expect a company's CEO to explain in his or her own words what's happening."
