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WATCH VIDEO BY CLICKING HERE<\/a><\/p>\n NEW YORK (Reuters) – Warren Buffett on Saturday forcefully defended Berkshire Hathaway Inc\u2019s (<\/span>BRKa.N<\/a><\/span>) decision to invest heavily in stocks of companies such as Apple Inc (<\/span>AAPL.O<\/a><\/span>) as he labors through a four-year drought since his last major acquisition of a company.<\/span><\/p>\n Buffett, 89, also used his annual letter to Berkshire shareholders to assure they should not worry about the future of the company, which is \u201c100% prepared\u201d for when he and 96-year-old Vice Chairman Charlie Munger are no longer around.<\/p>\n Berkshire also posted record full-year earnings of $81.42 billion, nearly twice the prior high from 2017, boosted by unrealized gains from its stock investments. Operating profit, however, fell 3% to $23.97 billion.<\/p>\n The Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate ended the year with a $128 billion cash hoard, after repurchasing $2.2 billion of stock in the fourth quarter and $5 billion in 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI do think it\u2019s on the right path,\u201d said James Armstrong, president of Henry H. Armstrong Associates in Pittsburgh, which invests one-fourth of its assets in Berkshire. \u201cIts balance sheet is exactly the type of toolkit you\u2019d like to leave a successor.\u201d<\/p>\n Berkshire has more than 90 units employing 391,539 people, including the BNSF railroad, Geico car insurer, Dairy Queen ice cream and See\u2019s candies; clothing and jewelry companies, and namesake utility and real estate brokerage businesses.<\/p>\n It also invests in such companies as American Express Co (AXP.N<\/a><\/span>), Bank of America Corp (BAC.N<\/a><\/span>) and Coca-Cola Co (KO.N<\/a><\/span>).<\/p>\n Berkshire ended the year with a $128 billion cash hoard, having made no major acquisitions since paying $32.1 billion in January 2016 for aircraft parts maker Precision Castparts, and Buffett lamented his inability to find big companies to buy.<\/p>\n