Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Saturday that he was "dead wrong" with a prediction that the U.S. housing market would begin to recover by now, but he remains optimistic about the nation's economy。

　　股神巴菲特周六在致伯克希爾-哈撒韋公司股東的公開(kāi)信中認(rèn)錯(cuò)，表示自己在去年對(duì)美國(guó)房地產(chǎn)市場(chǎng)的復(fù)蘇判斷“錯(cuò)得離譜”。但他表示還是對(duì)美國(guó)的經(jīng)濟(jì)持樂(lè)觀態(tài)度。

　　In his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Buffett said he is sure housing will recover eventually and help bring down the nation's unemployment rate. But he did not predict when that will happen。

　　在致伯克希爾-哈撒韋公司股東的年度報(bào)告中，巴菲特表示他相信房地產(chǎn)最終會(huì)復(fù)蘇，并降低美國(guó)的失業(yè)率。但他沒(méi)有預(yù)測(cè)樓市復(fù)蘇將在何時(shí)出現(xiàn)。

　　Buffett said housing "remains in a depression of its own," but he predicted, in typical plainspoken style, that the housing market will come back because some human factors can't be denied forever。

　　巴菲特在公開(kāi)信中承認(rèn)目前樓市“ 還是很低迷”，但他還是直言不諱地預(yù)測(cè)，因?yàn)槿藶橐蛩氐挠绊懀康禺a(chǎn)市場(chǎng)還是終究會(huì)復(fù)興起來(lái)。

　　The housing prediction proved painful for Berkshire Hathaway. It owns more than 80 subsidiaries, including the Geico insurance company and See's Candy, and five of them depend on construction activity。

　　巴菲特去年的樓市誤判讓伯克希爾-哈撒韋公司很受傷，該公司擁有超過(guò)80家子公司，其中包括政府雇員保險(xiǎn)公司和喜詩(shī)糖果公司。旗下有五家公司主要經(jīng)營(yíng)建筑業(yè)務(wù)。

　　Those businesses, which include Acme Brick, Clayton Homes and Shaw carpet, generated pre-tax profits of $513 million last year. That's well off the $1.8 billion those companies added to Berkshire in 2006.

　　巴菲特投資的5家房地產(chǎn)相關(guān)公司，包括艾可美磚料、克萊頓房屋公司和逸夫地毯公司，在2011年稅前利潤(rùn)為5.13億美元，與2010年相當(dāng)，但明顯低于2006年的18億美元。

　　Berkshire's insurance companies took $1.7 billion in catastrophe losses last year, including from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Berkshire reported only $154 million in underwriting profit, down from $1.3 billion the previous year。

　　伯克希爾的保險(xiǎn)相關(guān)公司在去年承擔(dān)了17億美元的災(zāi)難損失費(fèi)用，其中就包括日本的地震和海嘯。年度報(bào)告中顯示公司的承保利潤(rùn)只有1.54億美元，遠(yuǎn)低于上一年的13億美元。

　　Buffett reassured Berkshire shareholders that the company has someone in mind to replace him eventually, but did not name the successor. He emphasized that he has no plans to leave。

　　巴菲特還在公開(kāi)信中向股東確認(rèn)公司已有了接班人的人選，但并未透露繼任者的名字。他也強(qiáng)調(diào)目前并無(wú)離開(kāi)的計(jì)劃。