Berkshire Hathaway's 60 year run

We just love Heatmaps. It's one of the best ways to visualise a 2D matrix as it forces you to simplify data to only show what matters.

This Week's Chart Drop

For twelve straight quarters, Berkshire Hathaway has sold more shares than it’s bought, resulting in a $382 billion cash pile. They're not even buying his own shares. The headlines are quick to say “has the Oracle lost his touch”, yet over the last 60 years he’s outperformed the market 40 times.

This Week's Design Trick

Heatmaps make it easy to see patterns across time or any two dimensions. In our example, we map years and decades, but you could use years vs. products, products vs. countries, or any other meaningful pair.

With conditional formatting to create scales, heatmaps show trends clearly, helping your data speak for itself.

Each week, I share one simple Excel visual—from sport, business, or personal finance—to give finance professionals ideas on how to present their data.

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