Buffett's letter is out Saturday and he'll be on CNBC Monday

We'll be hearing as lot from Warren Buffett over the next few days.

VIEW IN BROWSER | SUBSCRIBE FRI, FEB 21, 2020 WARREN BUFFETT WATCH We'll be hearing from Buffett early Saturday morning, and ... Warren Buffett's annual letter to shareholders will be posted on Berkshire Hathaway's website tomorrow (Saturday) morning around 8a ET. The letter is part of the company's annual report, which will be released at the same time, along with Berkshire's fourth quarter earnings.   Buffett's letters, written in his distinctive folksy style (with editing help from his friend Carol Loomis, now retired from Fortune magazine), cover a variety of topics, including Berkshire's wins and losses from the previous year. (Past letters are also posted on Berkshire's site.)   We'll be looking to see if he says anything about Berkshire's elephantine Apple stake. Now worth almost $77 billion, it's the company's biggest stock holding by far. It's also been wildly successful, roughly doubling what Berkshire paid for the shares.     On the other side of the ledger, we'll see if Buffett addresses his troubled Kraft Heinz position. That stock has dropped around 60% since 2015 when Buffett helped put H.J. Heinz and Kraft Foods together.   We'll also see if he says anything about the company's $128 billion in cash, its underperformance against the S&P last year (often blamed on the cash), potential Berkshire stock buybacks (one way to use the cash), and portfolio manager Todd Combs adding GEICO CEO to his job description (probably nothing to do with the cash.)    Watch for a special edition of this newsletter Saturday with highlights.  ... We'll hear even more from Buffett early Monday morning on CNBC He'll be live with Becky Quick on "Squawk Box" from 6a to 9a ET for our annual "Ask Warren" program. I've already sent my 25 suggested questions to the production team, but oddly enough they still want more.   Use the hashtag #AskWarren on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram to make your own suggestions. You can also use email: askwarren@cnbc.com.   Here's a tip: questions about a topic included in Buffett's letter get special attention from the people selecting which questions to use on the air.   I'll have another special edition of the newsletter on Monday with highlights.   Our (relatively) new podcast, "Squawk Pod," is planning a "super-sized" edition Monday, with additional Buffett segments through the week. Listen for free wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple, Stitcher, and Spotify. Wells Fargo pays $3 billion to settle fake account investigations  Wells Fargo will avoid criminal prosecution in a $3 billion deal with the federal government that settles Justice Department and SEC investigations.   The bank admitted wrongdoing in a scandal involving employees achieving sales quotas by creating millions of accounts that hadn't been authorized by customers.   Berkshire is Wells Fargo's biggest shareholder with 323 million shares now valued at $15.4 billion. Buffett was a vocal fan of the bank in the past, and has predicted it will emerge stronger after correcting its mistakes. Even so, Berkshire has reduced its stake to around 7.6% from the 9.6% of outstanding shares it owned in 2017, when the scandal was gaining steam. BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET Some links may require a subscription The Barron's cover story last weekend was "Inside Berkshire Hathaway's Future Without Warren Buffett."  The issue also included a piece by Andrew Bary headlined "Our Warren Buffett Expert Shares the Rewards and Challenges of Covering The Oracle." (These two stories, and the one linked below, all require a subscription.) This morning, Barrons.com posted "Why Warren Buffett Was Right to Scarf Up Kroger Stock." (A note that based on the relatively small size of that stake, we think one of the portfolio managers, not Buffett himself, made the purchase.) Bloomberg Intelligence Radio posts their weekly podcast featuring "Buffett's New Occidental Purchases Set Up Icahn Fight." The segment begins at 15:23. CNBC.com explains "Why Charlie Munger's 'bulls--t earnings' metric is used by so many tech companies" Entrepreneur asks and answers, "Why Does Warren Buffett Always Pay In Cash?" Men'sHealth recalls that "Warren Buffett Once Tried to Trick Bill Gates in a Game of Dice" BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH         BERKSHIRE'S TOP STOCK HOLDINGS  Berkshire's top stock holdings by market value, based on today's closing prices. The number of shares held is as of December 31, 2019, as disclosed in the company's February 14 13F SEC filing.   The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.   QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)   Look for special editions of the newsletter Saturday after Buffett's annual letter and Monday after his live appearance on "Squawk Box."   If you aren't already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.    -- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch   Unsubscribe Manage Newsletters Terms of Service   Digital Products Feedback Privacy Policy   © 2020 CNBC LLC. All rights reserved. A property of NBCUniversal. 900 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes and Market Data and Analysis. Data also provided by THOMSON REUTERS