Warren Buffett is known as the world's foremost value
investor. So it's always helpful to know which stocks he's buying
and selling.
Thanks to
Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK-B)
quarterly SEC filings, you can. As a public holding company,
Berkshire Hathaway is required to divulge every stock it buys or
sells and every position it adds to or subtracts from.
Since Warren Buffett owns the company, the public filings give
us a quarterly glimpse into what the uber-investor is
thinking.
Judging by Berkshire Hathaway's latest filing, Mr. Buffett was
a busy man last quarter.
Last week I told you about the one stake -
Intel
(
INTC
)
- the company decided to sell off completely in Q2 2012.
Here are five other interesting moves Mr. Buffett and company
made last quarter:
1.
Added oil exposure.
Berkshire Hathaway bought shares in
ConocoPhillips (
COP
)
spin-off
Phillips 66 (
PSX
)
and
National Oilwell Varco (
NOV
)
, a manufacturer and seller of oil and gas drilling equipment.
Berkshire's stake in the two companies is relatively minor, but
the fact that two of the three new additions to Berkshire's
portfolio were oil-related stocks tells you a little bit about
where Buffett thinks oil is headed.
2.
Newspaper stock?
That's right - Warren Buffett invested in a newspaper company. Is
it because the famously technology-averse investor simply prefers
reading newspapers? Perhaps. But Berkshire's stated reason for
investing in the small Iowa-based newspaper company
Lee Enterprises
(
LEE
)
was because Mr. Buffett believes that newspapers with local or
regional focuses can still succeed. As a former local
newspaper reporter
myself, I hope he's right.
3.
Bullish on
Big Blue. IBM (IBM)
is one of the few technology companies Buffett has felt
comfortable investing in. He
bought shares
in the company in the third quarter of 2011. It's already
Berkshire's third largest position. Buffett and friends only
added to that position last quarter, increasing their stake in
IBM by 3.5%. So far Buffett's bet on Big Blue has paid off - the
stock has gained 26% in the year since Berkshire bought it.
4.
Bank Buys.
Berkshire added 4% to its stake in
Wells Fargo (WFC),
which was already the company's second largest position. And with
good reason. Wells Fargo has been the one
big bank
that has actually managed to grow its profits in a meaningful way
of late. That's why its shares are up more than 21% in 2012. On a
much smaller scale, Berkshire also added shares of the regional
Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK),
tripling its stake in the company last quarter.
5.
Old Stalwarts No More? Johnson &Johnson (JNJ), Kraft
Foods (KFT)
and
Procter & Gamble
(PG)
are three of the most reliable stocks on the market. All three
have been growing their dividends for years, and each of them
boasts a beta of less than 0.5. But Berkshire significantly
reduced its stake in both Kraft and P&G last quarter, and
held its JNJ shares steady. Perhaps Mr. Buffett thinks these
three companies are no longer the old stalwarts they once
were.