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Buying shares of Berkshire Hathaway is the easiest way to invest like Warren Buffett. While the A shares cost around $70,000 apiece as of this writing, the B shares sell for only around $2,300 each - roughly 1/30 of the A shares. The B shares do have their disadvantages. For example, holders have less in the way of voting rights and aren’t entitled to indicate where Berkshire charitable contributions go. (Berkshire is unusual in allowing shareholders to recommend how Berkshire’s charity money should be allocated.) And while you can convert A shares into B, it doesn’t work the other way around.

Which to buy? Berkshire is nothing if not shareholder friendly, and Buffett has given this advice: Buy the A shares, if you can afford them, unless the B shares are trading cheaply. “In my opinion, most of the time the demand for B will be such that it will trade at about 1/30 of the price of the A. However, from time to time, a different supply-demand situation will prevail and the B will sell at some discount. In my opinion, again, when the B is at a discount of more than, say, 2 percent, it offers a better buy than A. When the two of them are at parity, however, anyone wishing to buy 30 or more B should consider buying A instead.”

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