Economy News, Lake Economy: US Bancorp

Saturday, November 28, 2009

CNBC VIDEO:Buffett"s Berkshire Hathaway regigs portfolio

What"s Warren Buffett buying? The answer appears to be not much in the first quarter of this year, although his stakes in two healthcare companies and Kraft Foods did increase somewhat.

Berkshire Hathaway"s just-released disclosure of its U.S. stock portfolio holdings as of March 31 does not include any new names. (Three months ago we learned from the quarterly filing that Buffett had accumulated a sizable stake in Kraft Foods.)

Remember, however, that Berkshire sometimes receives permission to hold back information about stocks it"s actively acquiring.

After steadily cutting back on its Ameriprise Financial

Ameriprise Financial Inc

AMP

49.83 -0.82 -1.62%

NYSE

Quote | Chart | News | Profile

[AMP 49.83

-0.82 (-1.62%)

] holdings over many months, Berkshire appears to have totally eliminated the stake. This quarter"s filing does not list any holdings. It reported 4.3 million shares a year ago, 2.5 million shares at the end 2007"s second quarter, 1.5 million for the third quarter, and just 662-thousand at the end of the year.

Other changes:

Ingersoll Rand [IR 45.85 1.11 (+2.48%) ] stake increased dramatically, up 47 percent to 936,000 shares from 636,000 shares at end of Q4.
Iron Mountain [IRM 29.76 -0.16 (-0.53%) ] stake cut 28 percent to 3.4 million from 4.7 million shares. It had been cut by almost half at the end of the fourth quarter.
United Health Group [UNH 32.32 0.62 (+1.96%) ] holdings increased by 6.7 percent to 6.4 million shares from 6.0 million last quarter.
Wellpoint [WLP 51.53 1.65 (+3.31%) ] also increased. It"s also up 6.7 percent, to 4.8 million shares.
Kraft Foods [KFT 32.51 0.58 (+1.82%) ] stake increased 4.4 percent to 138.3 million shares from 132.4 million.
Carmax [KMX 21.19 -0.08 (-0.38%) ] stake increased 1.4 percent to 21.3 million shares. We first learned Berkshire had added Carmax to its portfolio in its third quarter filing from last year.
US Bancorp [USB 33.91 -0.49 (-1.42%) ] stake increased 1.6 percent to 68.6 million shares.
Sanofi Aventis [SNY 36.99 -0.07 (-0.19%) ] stake is up just a bit, edging 0.5 percent higher to about 3.6 million shares.
M&T Bank [MTB 91.64 -2.47 (-2.62%) ] increased very slightly, up 0.1 percent to just over 6.7 million shares.
Wells Fargo [WFC 28.95 -0.65 (-2.2%) ] holdings are also up a little, gaining 0.5 percent to almost 291 million shares.
Berkshire"s Burlington Northern Santa Fe [BNI 108.56 0.63 (+0.58%) ] stake increased to almost 64 million shares during the quarter, but that figure was previously disclosed in January, when Buffett completed a string of purchases during the month that were revealed in SEC filings.
Trane [ASD 46.79 0.14 (+0.3%) ] holdings fell less than 1 percent to about 10.9 million shares.

Current Berkshire price:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc

US%3bBRK.A

122400.0 890.00 +0.73%

NYSE

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[US;BRK.A 122400.0

890.00 (+0.73%)

]

See Warren Buffett Watch on CNBC"s The Call, most weekday mornings at 11:50a ET

Questions? Comments? Email me at buffettwatch@cnbc.com

Monday, November 23, 2009

SEEKING ALPHA: Buffett"s Latest Headache: U.S. Bancorp

While the market is trying its best to trade higher today, US Bancorp (USB), which until recently had held up relatively well during this bear market, is getting hit hard. As shown in the chart below, the stock is trading down nearly 20% today after reporting a 65% decline in Q4 income due to larger than expected writedowns during the quarter. With today"s decline, the stock joins the rapidly growing list of financial sector stocks that have lost at least half of their value already this year.

US Bancorp"s largest shareholder is Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), which holds a stake of more than 4%. It is because of Berkshire"s large stake that many have recommended the stock throughout the credit crisis. The reasoning was that Warren Buffett wouldn"t invest in a bank if he thought it had taken on too many risky investments. So much for that argument.

In fact, a look at Berkshire Hathaway"s equity holdings from its most recent filing shows that while its portfolio held up better than the S&P 500 over the course of 2008, 2009 has already been a tough time for the company. Year to date, the dollar value of Berkshire"s equity portfolio (using the company"s filing as of 9/30) is down 15.6% compared to a 10% decline in the S&P 500. And Berkshire"s third largest holding, Wells Fargo (WFC), which has also often been cited as one of the "safe" financials out there, is down nearly 51% so far in 2009 (see table below) as well. Like just about every other investor, even Buffett is having a hard time making money in this market.

Buffett is widely considered to be among the greatest investors of all time. However, his growing list of "headaches" (index put options that Berkshire wrote, GS and GE preferred stock deals, WFC, and now USB) and the performance of Berkshire"s stock have shown that even the best haven"t been spared during this bear.