Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said in an interview with Nikkei on Tuesday He was proud of his investments in stocks of Japanese trading houses.

He elaborated further on the logic behind his Japanese bets during his appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Wednesday.

What happened: Buffett agreed that his investment in Japanese stocks reflects his cachet in Japan. That was true a few years ago, too, he said.

“I was puzzled by the fact that we could buy into these companies and actually have an earnings yield of maybe 14% or so, with dividends … up 70% in that time and people having money a quarter percent or invested.” don’t have anything, and then if they put it out for a year, the quarter percent wouldn’t grow,” the billionaire said.

“It’s definitely going to be better than I thought.”

See also: Warren Buffett’s forex strategy

Investment history tracking: Buffett told CNBC that investing in the Japanese trading houses started about four years ago.

“I looked at company after company, like I do every day, and I just thought these were big companies. These were companies that I generally understood what they were doing, somewhat similar Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B),” said the billionaire investor.

Those shares were trading at “ridiculous” prices compared to the interest rates then prevailing, he said.

As a result, Buffett said he began buying all five of the largest trading houses during his 90th birthday (August 30, 2020). The five trading companies in which Berkshire has an interest are:

• Itochu Corp. ITOCY
• Mitsubishi Corp. MSBHF
• Mitsui & Co.,Ltd MITSY
• Sumitomo Corp. SSUMY And
• Marubeni Corp. MARUY

Berkshire acquired an identical 5% stake in each of those companies, and Buffett wrote to the companies’ CEOs at the time that he would never buy more than 9.9% of each without their approval.

Since Berkshire’s purchases, dividends from these…