If you didn’t see Warren Buffett’s Op/Ed piece in the New York Times yesterday, here’s the link. Buffett is calling on Congress to make the hard choices when the economy gets back on track. 

 

MarketWatch recently had an interesting piece on contrarian investment strategies, highlighting the fact that many of the contrarian managers who were hit hard last year are now netting some strong bounce-back gains.

Warren Buffett’s annual report for Berkshire Hathaway was released over the weekend. His letter to his shareholders is one of the most widely read investment documents there is. Buffett’s down home charm, inviting sense of humor and investment savvy are always a great read. 

Perhaps the biggest surprise was that the net asset value of Berkshire Hathaway dropped by $11.5 billion. Buffett was not immune to the market’s drop. Despite well-publicized investments in General Electric (NYSE:GE) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) that are down considerably, the lion’s share of balance sheet loss has come from derivatives, what Buffett has called “financial weapons of mass destruction.” 

 

An interview with Charles Rotblut, vice president of web content and senior market analyst for Zacks.com. Rotblut encourages investors to take a prudent approach to investing in today’s climate by following a disciplined sell strategy and buying non-economically sensitive stocks.

The industrial materials sector continued its outpacing of the broader markets for the past month amid rising gold prices. Much of this sector comprises mining companies whose profits are amplified with the increase in price of their underlying commodity.

Wall Street calls it a "correction." From the October, 2007 highs to early March lows, the S&P 500 fell 20%. The Dow Industrials dropped 19%, and the NASDAQ plummeted 24%.

Last week, someone asked me what my favorite investment books were. I told him to read "One up on Wall Street," by Peter Lynch, and the letters of Warren Buffett, free on the Berkshire Hathaway, both men ended up in the news.

Nothing beats finding a well-run, fundamentally strong company whose shares are trading at less than their intrinsic value, scooping it up, then waiting until the market discovers it, sending its shares to a fair value - at which point you can take your gains.

An increasing number are tapping into that old standby that can be counted on through thick and thin: value investing.

Warren Buffett recently released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) shareholders. Find out what wisdom he has to share. Also, Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) shares surge after the company reaches a settlement with NTP Inc. And, much was made of eBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY) acquiring of Skype. But are big Internet acquisitions really that valuable?