As part of several changes to Berkshire Hathaway’s stock portfolio, investor Warren Buffett reiterated his commitment to Bank of America during the first quarter while selling two other banks.
In a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Berkshire presented a quarterly report on its U.S. interests.
Considering Buffett’s extraordinarily successful track record as an investor, many investors keenly monitor the company’s decisions.
While cutting long-standing positions in US Bancorp and the Bank of New York Mellon, Berkshire slightly expanded its 179.4 million shareholdings in Bank of America stock.
Buffett has reduced his holdings in some banks in recent years, but he still supports Bank of America.
Additionally, Berkshire purchased around 10 million shares of Capital One stock.
Although Buffett typically manages Berkshire’s most significant assets worth $1 billion or more, the quarterly reports do not specify which investments Buffett made and which were handled by one of the company’s two other investment managers.
Buffett rarely makes a statement about these stock registrations.
In the third quarter, Berkshire continued to cut its holding in Activision Blizzard, down to 49.4 million shares from 52.7 million at the beginning of the year.
According to Buffett, he purchased that stock to wager on the success of Microsoft’s acquisition of the video game developer.
After British regulators rejected it and U.S. officials filed a lawsuit to stop it, that agreement is now in doubt, even though the European Union did endorse Microsoft’s purchase Monday.
Additionally, Berkshire reduced its position in General Motors from 50 million shares in the prior quarter to 40 million.
Berkshire’s most significant investment decision in the past year—selling more than half of its share in Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD—was not disclosed in Monday’s report.
They are informed separately on the Hong Kong stock exchange and have brought in several billion dollars for Berkshire.
During the previous investment update, Berkshire owned around 108 million BYD shares worth $3.3 billion.
Until last August, Berkshire had 225 million shares it had paid $232 million for in 2008. Before Buffett started selling BYD stakes the previous summer, its value had risen to over $9.5 billion.
The sale of 35 million Chevron shares, which left Berkshire with 132.4 million shares of the oil giant, was one of the company’s most significant other transactions during the quarter.
However, Berkshire had already reported that transaction in its quarterly earnings report.
Buffett is still optimistic about oil stock prices.
Stock in Occidental Petroleum for billions of dollars has been one of Buffett’s most significant acquisitions in the previous year.
As previously reported, Berkshire acquired an additional 17.4 million shares during the quarter, giving it 211.7 million shares, or over 24 percent, of the oil producer’s stock.
Buffett informed shareholders at Berkshire’s annual meeting earlier this month that he has no plans to exercise Berkshire’s warrants to purchase an additional 83.9 million shares of Occidental.
The number of Apple shares owned by Berkshire in its largest single holding, 915.6 million, remained unchanged.
The conglomerate, with headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, did acquire 16.5 million shares of HP Inc., giving it a total of approximately 121 million.
Nearly all Berkshire’s remaining 8.3 million Taiwan Semiconductor shares were sold off. Buffett purchased 60 million shares of that company just last fall, but he has claimed that he immediately changed his mind about the deal due to geopolitical worries about China.
Along with making investments, Berkshire owns many businesses outright, including BNSF railroad, Geico insurance, numerous significant utilities, and various manufacturing and retail companies like Precision Castparts, See’s Candy, and NetJets.
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