Warren Buffett ignored the dot.com boom

Investment wizard Warren Buffett has confirmed that his Berkshire Hathaway group made its biggest quarterly profit in the first three months of this year.

The billionaire investor's company reported a net profit of $1.73bn (�1.1bn), almost double the previous year's figure.

The figures matched the upbeat report Mr Buffett gave to his investors at their annual meeting last weekend.

The profits were boosted by rising insurance rates in contrast with previous years when Berkshire's insurance and reinsurance businesses have suffered big underwriting losses.

As a group, the insurance operations made a profit of $1.1bn before tax, compared with $736 million in the same quarter last year.

Berkshire's profits were dragged down slightly by lower earnings from some of the so-called old economy companies including building product, carpet and retail operations.

Its flight services operations, including Net Jets, a jet-sharing service, made a loss, which Mr Buffett said was due to writing down the value of planes on its books.