Even Warren Buffet has succumbed to the vagaries of the investment disaster of the past few years: "In his chairman's letter, Buffett states that 2008 had good points mixed in with the bad. But in an unusual admission for the opening pages of the letter (a point easily recognizable by this writer because she has edited Buffett's letter for 32 years) he says bluntly, "During 2008 I did some dumb things in investments." The dumbest, he said, was buying a large amount of ConocoPhillips stock when oil prices were near their peak and in no way anticipating the dramatic drop in prices that subsequently occurred. Buffett said he still thinks the odds are good that oil will sell in the future at much higher prices than the $40 to $50 per barrel now prevailing. But even if prices should rise, he said, "the terrible timing" of the Conoco purchase has cost Berkshire several billion dollars." By the way....his BRKA stock has fallen 48% since it's peak in 2007....which represents a tidy sum of over $65,000.00.....loss per share.