High blood pressure is a common condition in which the long-term force of the blood against the artery walls is high enough that it may eventually cause health problems including heart disease. This is because consistently high blood pressure causes the arteries that supply oxygen and blood to the heart to lose their stretchiness. Hardened arteries restrict the amount of oxygen and blood that can be transported to the heart which is a potentially fatal occurrence.

For diet, a healthy-balanced one with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables will help.

Avoiding salt as much as possible and keeping the processed foods to a minimum will all help.

For exercise, sweating it out for hours is not necessary and there is an exercise to do which is relatively easy with great benefits.

Walking is simple, enjoyable and requires no equipment, making it an excellent choice for anyone wanting to get into fitness but perhaps is far from being fit.

For a person suffering with high blood pressure, walking may hold the key to improved heart health.

Thats the message from researchers who spoke at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine.

A Korean study showed that walking just 40 minutes a day help to lower blood pressure in people suffering with hypertension.

Another study also suggested that taking a stroll offers cardiovascular benefits for people who are morbidly obese.

Original post:
High blood pressure: A simple exercise that will lower reading and reduce health risks - Express

For six weeks, the patients were given a conventional diabetes diet with a high carbohydrate content, and, for the other six weeks, they were given a diet with a reduced carbohydrate content, high protein content and moderately increased fat content.

The patients were given the diet types in random order.

The study found that a diet with a reduced carbohydrate content, high protein content and moderately increased fat content improved glycaemic control (the ability to regulate blood sugar) by reducing blood sugar after meals and 'long-term blood sugar' (measured by 'HbA1c', which is a blood test used to measure the average blood sugar level over approximately the past two months).

Diabetes.co.uk explains: "Carbohydrate is the nutrient which has the greatest effect in terms of raising blood sugar levels and requires the most insulin to be taken or be produced by the body."

Read more from the original source:
Type 2 diabetes symptoms: The sign after sex in men that could be a warning sign - Express.co.uk

April 17, 2020 07:13 ET | Source: Research and Markets

Dublin, April 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Health and Weight Management Market" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report represents an important business tool for evaluating technologies, trends, products and market participants in the health and weight management sector. The geographic scope of this study is worldwide. The report identifies the main elements of products, services, and trends in different types of industries.

The Report Includes:

Health is defined as the state of physical, mental and social well-being, in which disease is absent. Indeed, in our modern society, many people are aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle, including weight management. However, health/weight maintenance is a difficult task for many people due to sedimentary lifestyles. That is why this market has become such a complex and sophisticated industry.

The overall health and weight management market can be divided into a number of sectors such as:

Moreover, the health and weight management industry affects other markets such as the diagnostics sector.

The overall industry offers not just products, equipment and services, but entire lifestyle programs and coaching to improve people's approaches toward nutrition and physical activity.

Obesity is on the rise in many countries (and no longer only in developed countries). Obesity can lead to the onset of other diseases, and therefore has a significant effect on overall healthcare expenses. Physical activity and proper nutrition are becoming integral parts of many modern societies. Therefore, there is a growing need for related services that most people can afford.

Technology has also an effect on this market, in the form of monitoring devices. Moreover, despite privacy concerns, the connection to social media makes this technology a popular trend, especially with millennials.

Key Topics Covered:

1 Introduction

2 Summary and Highlights

3 Market Background

4 Fitness Industry: Equipment and Services

5 Monitoring and Weight Management Market

6 Nutrition and Weight Management Programs Market

7 Obesity Medications and Drug Development

8 Other Treatments for Weight Loss and Weight Management

9 Health and Weight Management and Diagnostics Sector

10 Patent Review for Health and Weight Management Market

11 Market Summary

12 Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/wrngf1

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

Formats available:

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Global Health and Weight Management Market (2018 to 2025) - Featuring Fitbit, Gold's Gym International & Jenny Craig Among Others - GlobeNewswire

Bojan Custic has formed part ofLuka Jovic's personal training team since the start of the year. His job of complementing the daily training regime Jovic performs at Real Madrid is even more important now the player is in self-isolation in Serbia. Through videochat and audiovisual material, Custic and Jovic are able to work from distance - even the player's diet is controlled - as he explained in an interview with Diario AS.

When did you start working with Luka Jovic?

Two months ago.

What was his training routine like back then?

We focused mainly on strength-building exercises, stretching, agility to speed up recovery time after long spells of physical exertion.

And what about now, under quarantine?

Luka trains at home for three hours every day. Every morning we have a one-hour session and in the afternoon, two hours of high-intensity training, a physically more demanding workout.

Do you give him a day off to rest?

He doesn't have any time off because every day there are recovery sessions so he is never really completely free of work.

Was he prepared for what has happened with the lockdown?

He has a treadmill at home, an exercise bike as well as other training equipment so we use all of that for our training sessions. We have been doing workouts that are specifically designed for footballers -thinking about the movements they make and what kind of exercise is required. Every 14 days we revise how his training sessions have gone and analyse his level of fitness.

How would you define Luka physically?

He is in top shape and he feels healthy and well in every sense.

Full screen

Luka Jovic, ejercitndose durante su confinamiento en Serbia. cust_fit(Instagram)

Is it possible for a footballer to be in peak physical form in a situation like the one we are in?

It's possible for them to maintain their physical shape but they really miss the group training sessions - training with the ball, being out on the pitch with their team mates But it's possible.

How difficult is it to motivate a player when they don't even know when competition will restart?

When you are working with a professional footballer, there is no problem. Luka is completely focused on our training programme - independently of his desire to get back working with his team mates.

Do you also control what he eats?

Yes. We have drawn up a plan of the kind of food which he is able to eat and what he shouldn't be eating but that's nothing new for him.

What does his diet consist of?

He has three main meals per day plus two light snack of fruit in between. In general, his diet consists of a lot of fruit an vegetables.

Does he get weighed every day, like in Valdebebas?

Yes, every morning his weight is checked, his legs are measured - hips, chest, arms

Has he lost weight? gained weight or is he the same weight as before?

He looks really well. I would say he probably weighs a little less than before the coronavirus crisis.

Are you in contact with Real Madrid's specialists?

Not at the moment, no.

Luka hasn't had an easy adaptation to Spanish football. Does your work include looking at the psychological side of training?

A lot of his team mates are talking with him and trying to help him and he is absolutely fine. He is going to demonstrate his true potential, he just needs to be patient.

What has he told you about his future?

He has told me that he only wants to triumph at Real Madrid, have a great career and for the Bernabu to chant his name. And he is sure that he is going to achieve all of that.

Read this article:
'Jovic has told me he only wants to triumph at Real Madrid' - AS English

Type 2 diabetes is prevalent in the UK, with around 3.9 million people currently diagnosed with it. If you were to take into account the number of people who are undiagnosed, however, the figure would be far greater. This is because many people will have diabetes without realising it because the condition rarely produces symptoms in the initial stages.

In fact, the condition is usually picked up during a routine examination for another condition.

When blood sugar levels are consistently too high (a complication of diabetes), however, you may experience a number of symptoms.

According to the NHS, one sign that your blood sugar levels are too high is tummy pain.

Other symptoms include:

READ MORE:Coronavirus and type 2 diabetes: How to reduce the risk posed by COVID-19

As a general rule, you should stick to a low-carb diet if you need to lower your blood sugar levels.

Carbohydrate is broken down into glucose relatively quickly and therefore has a more pronounced effect on blood sugar levels than either fat or protein.

"Carbohydrate is found, to varying degrees in a wide variety of food, notably in starchy foods such as rice, pasta and flour (therefore including pastry, bread and other dough based foods)," explains Diabetes.co.uk.

Referring to the Glycemic Index (GI) can help you to identify foods high and low in carb.

The Glycemic Index (GI) is a relative ranking of carbohydrates in foods according to how they affect blood glucose levels.

Carbohydrates with a low GI value (55 or less) are more slowly digested, absorbed and metabolised and cause a lower and slower rise in blood glucose and, therefore usually, insulin levels.

According to the American Diabetes Association, low GI foods (55 or less) include:

Read more from the original source:
Type 2 diabetes symptoms: Experiencing pain in this part of your body is a warning sign - Express

Brady recounted how Bndchen had to explain that she had "goals and dreams too."

Here are somefactsabout Tom Brady, ranging from the begrudgingly impressiveto the annoying:Tom Bradyturned down at least $60 million more dollars to helphis former employers, the New EnglandPatriots, ensure they could surround him withgreat players; Tom Brady and the Patriots lifted the Vince Lombardi trophy six times; Tom Brady wakes up before most of us do,to begin a process of eating healthier than most of us do, which, despite being made easier by wealth, is still a temptation-riddled endeavor.

Tom Brady is married to a conventionally beautiful woman, Gisele Bndchen; Tom Brady is conventionally beautiful.

In the pursuit of greatness, something must give. Brady the athlete and businessmanshares the same body as Brady the husband. Theabove list that demonstrates professional excellence could also be read as a bill that must come due. How does Brady balance the bill?

Akshai Pai, writing for Meaww.com on Brady's interview on Howard Stern's Live, quoted Brady as stating "[Bndchen] felt like I would play football all season and she would take care of the house and all the sudden when the season would end, I would be like, 'Great, let me get into all my other business activities. Let me get into my football training.'"

With Brady leaving the housework to his wife, Bndchen wroteBrady a letter explaining flaws she saw in their marriage. In the interview with Stern, Brady stated he needed a therapist's help realizing that "it wasn't just about him."

With these causes for concern, we may question how well an already rocky relationship can handle a life-changing move from Massachusetts to Florida.

Morgan Halberg, reporting for the Observer, stated that Brady signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on a $50 million, two-year deal.

This move resulted in Brady andBndchen moving to a Davis Island compound referred to as "St. Jetersburg" by locals, as the 30,000 square foot, seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom home they are currently renting belongs to baseball great, Derek Jeter.

That sounds lovely, but, in contrast to the seclusion of their former Massachusetts home, the compound's location enables boats to pull up to Brady's backyard, and "people can crowd around the streets" (Halberg).

In the interview with Stern, Brady explained that one ofBndchen's sisters is living with them.With more interactions with unwelcome guests, along with the presence of an added family member,these are potential stressors on a marriage, and if the foundation is already unstable, there may be problems ahead.

Related:10 Reasons Why Tom Brady Will Flop in Tampa (And 8 Ways He Makes Them Elite)

Speaking with Stern, Brady recounted how Bndchen had to explainthat she had "goals and dreams too. You better start taking care of things in the house," and that "of course [this schedule] works for you."

Theseare problems that lead to arguments and frustrations and regrets in the households of the rich, middle class, and poor. These are problems that humanize Brady, and these are problemsmany willexamineuntil Brady's next public action allows fans tosympathizeor defend, and opponents to revelor attack. In the absence of sports, we have time.

Brady is the oldest quarterback to appear in a super bowl; you do not achieve that without a near-constant dedication to craft and attention to your body's needs. Brady is also a successful businessman, and that, too, requires time.

If to achieve these requisites to maximizean aging body's potential, your time is dedicated to diet, exercise, and recovery, then of course, there is a cost. Time is a commodity, even for the wealthy and beautiful.

While there are implications of Brady'sapproachto interviews that we should debate, one thingwe'd be remiss to ignoreis his dedication to self-improvement, an attribute that can paradoxically prompt selflessness.

Intheinterview with Stern, Brady demonstrated an introspection that comes from a dedication to self-improvement, as he stated that both his andBndchen's parents "provided a great foundation" that enabled him to stay "grounded by [his] family." "His family" includesBndchen's parents, as Brady stated that they have been together for 50 years.

Ifher parents are a part of the foundation, then Brady, a goal-oriented individual, is dedicated to improving to reach that goal of 50 years.

When explaining that "a couple of years ago"he andBndchen were having issues, Brady explained "I had to check myself," indicating an assumption of responsibility.

To "check himself," Brady committed to marriage counseling sessions that resulted in him missing Organized Team Activities with the Patriots (Pai).

While we can ponder whether a third-string QB would be afforded this time, Brady's example illustrates at least a willingness to act, to improve in a direction outside of a game.

Brady explained to Stern that, at one point, he did not want kids until his late 30s, as he thought he'd be finishing his career then, and that he did "not want anything to get in the way" of his career.

At 42, Bradyis past when he thought his career would be finishing, and he has three children.

"Things change... they change for the better," Brady informed Stern. Of his wife, Brady explained that "we're growing in different ways."

We can celebrate the fact that Brady, too, struggles with human struggles, but we also have to note the embrace of change and growth into something different. With limited time and varying notions of "better," we navigate growth into something we hope is great.

While wecan jokingly begrudge him his grammar, and should sincerely engage with his civics, we cannot begrudge him his dedication to self-improvement, to excellence, which mayresult in willfully losing time in one domain of life that we hold dear, and instead investingin an aspect of life deemed more precious.

We cannot all afford to tinker with our allocations of time to the level Tom Brady can, but we can recognize his dedication to the attempt.

NEXT:15 Things Tom Brady Has Recently Revealed

Sophie Turner And Joe Jonas Put Alex Rodriguez And Jennifer Lopez To Shame

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Are Gisele Bundchen And Tom Brady REALLY Happily Married? - TheThings

The Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank Group said it would lose a staggering $24 billion on investments made through its Vision Fund and bets on the co-working real estate company WeWork and satellite telecommunications company OneWeb.

Ultimately, the company expects the losses to help generate a $7 billion total loss for the technology giant for the year as its ambitious bets on early-stage companies come up short.

Over the past two years SoftBank and its founder Masayoshi Son have staked billions of (other peoples) dollars and its own fortunes on a vision that investments in machine learning technologies, robotics and next-generation telecommunications would reap hundreds of billions in financial rewards.

While that was the vision that Son and his team sold, the reality was multiple billions of dollars invested into real estate investment plays like WeWork, OpenDoor and Compass, and companies with direct-to-consumer merchandising plays like Brandless, pet supply businesses like Wag and the food delivery business DoorDash. Add the hotel chain Oyo to the mix and the investment selection from the Vision Fund looks even less visionary.

Over the past year, several of its investments ran aground. Though none of them imploded as spectacularly as WeWork whose valuation was slashed from more than $40 billion to around $8 billion many have struggled.

Brandless went bust earlier this year, and real estate investments in Compass along with investments in travel and tourism-related businesses like Oyo have suffered in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, which has shuttered economies around the world.

While many SoftBank and SoftBank Vision Fund bets were made into companies that have failed, seem to be on that path or perhaps may struggle in the economic downturn, not every wager is a clunker. The Vision Fund put lots of capital into Slack before it went public, and the company has caught a huge tailwind in the remote-work boom that were currently seeing in light of COVID-19.

Perhaps the most visionary of the SoftBank investments (and one not included in the Vision Fund), OneWeb, too, collapsed under the weight of its own capital-intensive vision for a network of satellites providing high-speed global telecommunications services. Zume, SoftBanks robotic pizza delivery business, also folded.

The only reason all of these gambles havent completely destroyed SoftBank is that the company still has a cash cow in its Alibaba stake and a relatively strong core business in telecommunications and semiconductor holdings.

The difference in income before income tax is, in addition to the above, mainly due to the expected recording of non-operating loss totaling approximately JPY 800 billion for fiscal 2019 on investments held outside of SoftBank Vision Fund, including The We Company (WeWork) and WorldVu Satellites Limited (OneWeb), the company said in a statement. This will be partially offset by the gain relating to the settlement of variable prepaid forward contract using Alibaba shares recorded in the first quarter of fiscal 2019 and the dilution gain from changes in equity interest in Alibaba recorded in the third quarter of fiscal 2019, as well as an expected year-on-year increase in income on equity method investments related to Alibaba.

Ultimately, it seems that Son was too enamored of the mythology hed created around himself as a maverick and a visionary. To the detriment of his companys outside shareholders and investors.

As Bloomberg noted in an op-ed earlier today:

Sons insistence that startups grow faster than their founders planned, and strong-arm them into taking more money than they might have wanted, has turned into a burden. And thats become a huge liability to investors in the Vision Fund and SoftBank, too.

By throwing cash around, dozens of startups became addicted to spending instead of building fiscal discipline into their business models. For years, it seemed like a sound strategy. By having more money than rivals, SoftBank-backed companies could win market share by offering bigger incentives, taking out more ads and luring the best talent.

Today, SoftBank has a major stake in sector leaders like Uber Technologies Inc., WeWork, Grab Holdings Inc. and Oyo. But climbing tonumber one doesnt mean being profitable.

View post:
SoftBank expects $24 billion in losses from Vision Fund, WeWork and OneWeb investments - TechCrunch

Health-care stocks are bouncing.

The S&P 500 health-care sector climbed more than 3% on Tuesday in a strong day for the broader market as investors embraced an improving forecast for the coronavirus outbreak. The moves pulled health-care stocks out of correction territory defined as a 10% drop below a recent peak with the group now just 8% away from its January top.

"You're definitely seeing a wave of support here. J&J got the earnings season off to a good start," Bill Baruch, president and founder of Blue Line Capital, told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Tuesday.

Johnson & Johnson shares rose nearly 4.5% on Tuesday after the company rose its quarterly dividend and cut its 2020 outlook in its first-quarter earnings report.

To get a better sense of where health-care stocks might be headed, Baruch examined a chart of the Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLV), which tracks the group.

"You're seeing a very, very good chart setup" as the ETF moves through its 50- and 200-day moving averages, typically a constructive technical sign, Baruch said. "It's really chewed through a pocket of resistance between 90 and 95."

The XLV closed more than 3% higher Tuesday at $97.12.

"There's a few individual names I like, everything from Bristol-Myers to Amgen, but today, I'm going to focus on AbbVie because I think that the fundamentals there are a bit better than some of the others," Baruch said. "You're getting a 6% dividend. You're also avoiding the very high [price-to-earnings multiple]."

The "chart still has some work to do," however, Baruch said. But that's why he liked it.

"You can see a down trend line that it's moving through. There is a trend line that it broke down below previously," he said. "It still faces a 50-day moving average. So all in all, there is a lot of resistance between 81 and 85 in this name, and I think once it gets through there and the broader sector gets through there, this could be a leader to the upside."

AbbVie closed up nearly 4% at $82.13 on Tuesday.

Steve Chiavarone, a portfolio manager, equity strategist and vice president at Federated Hermes, said investors generally should opt for stock-picking rather than passive investing right now.

"You really want to be doing things more selectively with active management," he said. "I think that this crisis has, in a lot of ways, put pressure on weaker business models while also, the economy coming out of this, while we think it can be very strong, it is going to be different. There's going to be winners and losers."

In health care, the winners could be the companies that get us through this pandemic, Chiavarone said.

"There's over 70 vaccines that are under development, so, whichever companies come to the fore first are likely to benefit from that," he said. "More broadly, it's not about a vaccine. It's more about what we're going to do coming out of this crisis, and I think one of the things that we've recognized is that our health-care system was not prepared for this. And so, one of the things we expect that will happen going forward is [to] establish ... strategic reserves for key medical devices and key antiviral drugs, and we expect to see a kind of big buy ahead of that, or a big buying spree in those areas."

That could boost medical-device, pharmaceutical and biotechnology stocks "on a go-forward basis" as demand grows, Chiavarone said.

But picking individual names was still his preferred course of action for buyers.

"We think it really is a stock picker's environment, not just in health care but, quite frankly, across industries. You don't want to own everything right now. You want to be able to choose amongst those companies that are well positioned for the economy going forward and those that may be under some more pressure," Chiavarone said. "So, we would definitely err towards the side of individual stocks."

Baruch largely agreed.

"I think it's going to be a stock picker's game going forward," he said. "This is where you're going to see advisors and individual investors really kind of flourish."

The S&P health-care sector is up over 9.5% in April as of Tuesday's close.

Disclaimer

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As health care climbs out of correction, traders suggest investing 'selectively' - CNBC

Mobile messaging startup Attentive continues to bring in new funding.

The startup raised a $40 million Series B last summer, followed by a $70 million Series C at the beginning of this year. Today its announcing that its extended the Series C by another $40 million, bringing the total round size to $110 million.

CEO Brian Long (who previously founded TapCommerce with his Attentive co-founder Andrew Jones andsold the company to Twitter) told me that the new funding closed just a week ago. He said the money comes from institutional investors who had wanted to participate in the Series C, but for whatever reason, the timing didnt work out.

Then, as the startup wanted to invest in new areas particularly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic Long reached out again. Once they saw Attentives numbers for the first quarter of 2020, the firms were willing to invest.

Apparently, the number of new customer sign-ups is only increasing, with Attentive now working with more than 1,000 businesses. Companies like Coach, Urban Outfitters, CB2, PacSun, Lulus and Jack in the Box use the platform to manage their mobile messaging, with tools around adding text message subscribers, creating engaging messages and tracking the results of those campaigns.

And while were at the beginning of whats likely to be a dramatic slowdown in advertising and marketing, Long suggested that even if businesses pull back on acquiring new customers, theyll still need to maintain a relationship with existing ones.

CRM is such a critical channel for companies email and text are the last thing you would shut down, he said.

Sequoia Capital Global Equities and Coatue are the new investors in the Series C. Sequoias venture fund already led (or co-led) the Series C and the Series B, but Long said he was interested in working with the firms crossover fund and with Coatue partly because they invest in public companies as well.

Not that he has immediate plans for Attentive to go public, but he said, It just creates optionality, so that there are fewer financial pressures regardless of the route the company takes.

Other investors in the Series C include IVP, Bain Capital Ventures, NextView Ventures, Eniac Ventures and High Alpha.

Attentives rapid growth is an indicator of how consumers are eager to find a more direct, personalized and efficient channel to interact with businesses, said Jeff Wang, managing partner at Sequoia Capital Global Equities, in a statement. Weve been impressed by how quickly Attentives business has scaled, its strong customer momentum, and the expertise of the team. We are thrilled to increase Sequoias partnership with Attentive through our Global Equities fund.

As for how Attentive is responding to COVID-19, the startup plans to create funds to help customers navigate the economic fallout. There will be more details released in the coming weeks, but Long said the idea is to launch funds focused on the e-commerce/retail, food/beverage and educational sectors, providing free access to Attentive tools and services to help those companies get recharged.

Long added that he hopes to grow Attentives headcount from 260 employees to more than 400 by the end of this year.

Read the original:
Attentive raises another $40M for mobile messaging, will invest in helping customers respond to COVID-19 - TechCrunch

For nearly two months, Wall Street has been taken for quite the roller-coaster ride.

Following an all-time closing high for the benchmark S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) on Feb. 19, it took just 17 trading sessions for the broad-based index to lose more than 20% of its value and fall into bear market territory. It also took a mere 22 trading sessions (about a month) to lose in excess of 30%. By comparison, previous bear markets have taken an average of 336 calendar days to reach losses of 30%.

Image source: Getty Images.

There's absolutely no question that investors have had their resolve tested like never before. Then again, it also may be a perfect time to be a buyer, assuming you have disposable income to spare amid the current unprecedented disruption in the labor market.

While the stock market offers no guarantees, the closest thing to a surefire idea over the long run has been to buy high-quality stocks during stock market corrections and bear markets. That's because every single correction and bear market in history has eventually been completely erased by a bull market.

Sometimes it takes just weeks for this to happen, whereas in other instances, such as following the Great Recession and dot-com bubble, it took years. But make no mistake about it: Organic earnings growth tends to push stock valuations higher over the long run. That's why long-term investors who stay the course tend to be so handsomely rewarded.

Thus, the question isn't really whether you should be a buyer during a bear market -- it's what stock(s) should you buy?

Over the past couple of weeks, I've offered up numerous investment ideas, including growth stocks, value stocks, high-yield income stocks, and even small-cap stocks that investors can buy in this bear market. But perhaps the single greatest investment opportunity right now is a company that's averaged a 20.3% annual return (yes, averaged) since 1965. For context, this means if you had invested $100 in 1965 with this company and held for the past 55 years, you'd have had more than $2.7 million by Dec. 31, 2019.

A jubilant Warren Buffett at his company's annual shareholder meeting. Image source: The Motley Fool.

This mystery company, which has outpaced the S&P 500's aggregate return, including dividends, by more than 2,724,000% since the end of 1964and has gained at least a double-digit percentage in 35 of the last 55 years, is none other than Warren Buffett's conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B).

Easily the most attractive thing about buying Berkshire Hathaway stock is that you're effectively making Warren Buffett your investment manager. Although Buffett has a team of investment managers, some of whom make purchases on their own, the Oracle of Omaha remains in charge of the lion's share of Berkshire's investment portfolio, which stood at almost $194 billion, as of this past weekend.

Buffett definitely brings what would today be viewed as a unique style of investing to the table. Rather than using fancy charting tools or throwing his weight around as an activist investor would, Buffett chooses to buy businesses with perceived-to-be competitive advantages and -- (here's the really important part) -- hangs onto them for a long period of time. Of Berkshire Hathaway's nine-largest holdings by market value, four have been held for at least 20 years (Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), Wells Fargo, American Express, and Moody's). In fact, Berkshire Hathaway has such a low cost basis ($3.25) on Coca-Cola that Coke's aggregate annual dividend of $1.64 per share equates to a greater than 50% yield on cost.

This is a good time to point out that Buffett's portfolio leans heavily on cyclical business (i.e., those that do well when the U.S. or global economy are expanding). Although Coca-Cola isn't necessarily going to see a drop-off in consumption during a bear market, Buffett's favorite industry -- banking -- is certainly going to see less in the way of interest income and deposit/loan growth.

While that can be bad news during recessions, what's important to note is that the U.S. economy spends far more time expanding than it does contracting. This simple bet on the expansion of the U.S. and global economy is a big reason Buffett is so successful.

Image source: Getty Images.

Another measure of success is that Warren Buffett tends to place a lot of focus on dividend stocks. This isn't to say that Buffett goes out of his way to avoid companies that don't pay a dividend, so much as to point out that he traditionally buys into businesses that are time-tested and comfortable with the idea of sharing a percentage of their profits with shareholders. By my calculations, Berkshire Hathaway is on track to generate around $4.7 billion in dividend income in 2020. Considering Buffett's all-in cost basis of $110.3 billion for his company's 52-security investment portfolio, this works out to a greater than 4% yield on cost.

Furthermore, Berkshire Hathaway acts as an acquirer of businesses. With Buffett at the helm, Berkshire has acquired in the neighborhood of 60 businesses from a variety of sectors and industries, including well-known brands such as railroad company BNSF, insurer GEICO, and confectioner See's Candies. Many of these companies have grown significantly over time and added to Berkshire Hathaway's bottom line.

Though it's easy to overlook Berkshire Hathaway in favor of other high-flying growth stocks, there's probably not a company out there with a better track record over the past 55 years.

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This Stock Has Averaged a 20% Annual Return Since 1965 - The Motley Fool