FeedPosted Aug 21st 2010 10:30AM by Ted Allrich (RSS feed)
Filed under: General Electric (GE), Coca-Cola (KO), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Procter and Gamble (PG), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT), Comfort Zone Investing
This past week, Warren Buffett's holding company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), gave an update on what its stock holdings look like, what stocks were added, which ones added to, and which ones it was selling. Though there aren't many major changes in the list, there are some telling points that most investors can study and learn how to invest like Mr. Buffett.
These are stocks he's added to or added in the last quarter:
- Becton Dickinson (BDX): Up 155,000 shares (total owned: 1.889 million shares).
- Fiserve Inc. (FISV): This is a new position of 4.4 million shares.
- Iron Mountain (IRM): Increased position by 206,000 shares. Has been buying this over the past several quarters with a starting position of 3.3722 million shares.
Continue reading Comfort Zone Investing: Bend It Like Buffett
Posted Aug 20th 2010 3:00PM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: Apple Inc (AAPL), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Market Matters, Politics, Chasing Value™, Recession, Financial Crisis, EZCORP (EZPW), Ebix Inc. (EBIX), Fiserv Inc (FISV), Portfolio Recovery Associates (PRAA)

Government debt is expanding -- again! At the same time corporate coffers are
overflowing some $1.6 trillion with reserve capital, not counting financial institutions. In some instances they have more money than any state in the Union and most small countries.
Chasing Value: Apple's Holding $48 Billion -- For What?
Here's a shocker -- personal savings continues to increase. When the (false) economy was booming valuations for everything were spiraling out of control, leverage was extreme, and the savings rate was next to nothing. Everyone wanted to join the party and most people stayed at the party to long, which did not end well. The savings rate has not been so high in a decade as people reduce their debt and streamline their personal budgets.
Continue reading Chasing Value: Four Great Stocks -- Gov't Fears Savings Spiraling Out of Control
Posted Aug 19th 2010 2:00PM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: Forecasts, Management, Apple Inc (AAPL), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Market Matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), Chasing Value™

Over the past four years I have made numerous bad calls. Thankfully, I have made far more good calls. But if only I would have been right all the time, then I would probably have a lot more of your money. To bet and never lose adds up pretty quickly to a substantial bit of change.
Yesterday when I posted
Chasing Value: Citigroup Beats Apple one commenter took me to task
"Didn't you post the same post about Berkshire B versus Apple at the beginning of the year?" The answer is yes, and I stand by that belief.
These two great companies, Apple Inc. (
AAPL) and Berkshire Hathaway (
BRK.B) led by extremely talented entrepreneurs, have very divergent businesses, by design, and neither would choose any other path. I could not help but go back to examine the stock records for the year to see by how far I might have blundered, assuming our reader already had. Here is what I found.
Continue reading Chasing Value: Apple vs. Berkshire Hathaway -- A Dead Heat
Posted Aug 9th 2010 2:00PM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Media World, Chasing Value™

The Apple (
AAPL) iPhone and iPad are all the rage and the demand exceeds the supply. The supply produced in China is where we are sending a lot of our money -- stimulus money.
Ongoing discussions about whether the federal government should, or should not start priming the economic pump again with a another $750 billion got me thinking: what happened to the first stimulus money?
The money did not evaporate. It did not go up in smoke, and contrary to popular belief, Congress did not eat it, try as they might. If it still exists then why would the economy need more -- and the debt burden that goes with it?
Continue reading Chasing Value: Corporate America Hoarding $1.6 Trillion
Posted Aug 2nd 2010 11:00AM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron Corp (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP), BP p.l.c. ADS (BP), Anadarko Petroleum (APC), Bargain Stocks, Chasing Value™, Oil, Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR), Transocean Ltd. (RIG), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A)
Until recently, my largest positions were in financial stocks Citigroup (C), Wells Fargo (WFC) and Bank of America (BAC). As a contrarian investor, I do buy on fear and sell on greed as "my pal Warren" has advised for many years. This has worked out to be very profitable over the past 18 months. However, in the past 30 days the financial stocks have dropped to second place in favor of oil and gas stocks.
I think the economic recovery is moving at a snail's pace, lowering anticipated demand for oil while gas was already depressed based on the same factors and the addition of numerous new large supplies. Add to this the mess in the Gulf of Mexico and the public's already negative sentiment about oil companies and you have the makings of depressed pricing in the sector.
Continue reading Chasing Value: Buffett Must Be Buying Oil
Posted Jul 30th 2010 4:10PM by Jon Ogg (RSS feed)
Filed under: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Research in Motion (RIMM), Merck and Co (MRK), Alcatel-LucentADS (ALU)

A reading of
+2.4% GDP is still growth. It is just not very robust growth. It is also as the argument continues of whether the U.S. is headed for a double-dip recession or just a period of slower growth. PIMCO's Bill Gross calls it a
long protracted period of slow growth. Today was lighter than normal on the earnings news, and the final verdict over a green or red ticker at the close was not clear until the final minutes today.
Here were the unofficial closing bell levels:
Dow Jones 10,465.94 -1.22 (-0.01%)
S&P 500 1,101.59 +0.06 (0.01%)
Nasdaq 2,254.70 +3.01 (0.13%)
Top Analyst CallsContinue reading Closing Bell: Slow Growth, Still Growth (MFE, SYMC, TNAV, ALU, K, BRK-A, RIMM, MRK)
Posted Jul 21st 2010 2:00PM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Duke Energy (DUK), Chasing Value™, Stocks to Buy, Southern Company (SO), National Grid (NGG)

Four weeks ago,
I made the argument that National Grid (
NGG) might be on Warren Buffet's radar screen as a foreign acquisition. The strategic benefits, depressed stock price and yield all made it look like a good fit.
Ten days ago,
Barron's trumpeted National Grid, a British company traded on the NYSE, for all the same reasons, absent the merger and acquisition possibilities.
So last week I bought NGG on a dip as a value proposition and if by some miracle
"my pal Warren" makes a play for it that would be a bonus. Not to mention my crystal ball would go up in value. If you might be interested in a 7.72% yield from a company with the cash flow to back it up, read on.
Continue reading Chasing Value: NGG, Buffett, Barron's and Me
Posted Jul 12th 2010 2:30PM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: International Markets, Competitive Strategy, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Market Matters, Amer Intl Group (AIG), Serious Money, Stocks to Buy, MetLife Inc. (MET)

To continue the saga of what might be on Warren Buffett's foreign wish list, consider the current holdings of Berkshire Hathaway (
BRK.A/
BRK.B), the largest of which is insurance. The insurance industry has been hard hit by the economy, but it also has the greatest potential to rebound of any industry. Insurance companies have huge cash flow and a large float (mandated by government regulation) that can be used for investments. This has been a major contributing factor in Buffett's success.
Unlike the construction, automobile or financial sectors that have been met with an economic tidal wave that destroyed demand, there is no lack of demand in the insurance industry. The insurance companies have been hurt by the shrinking of their investment portfolios more than loss of demand or even claims, accepting companies that wrote swaps, like American International Group (
AIG).
When next
"my pal Warren" invests abroad he may not have to go very far.
Continue reading Serious Money: Buffett Going Global -- Part 5
Posted Jun 24th 2010 10:40AM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Technical Analysis

Warren Buffett decided to stock up on Tesco (
TSCO) shares earlier this week, MarketWatch
reported this morning. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) purchased roughly 2 million additional shares, boosting to group's stake in the British supermarket past 3%.
Buffett's decision comes two weeks after the company announced a succession plan, naming Philip Clarke as chief executive effective in March. In addition, Tesco released first-quarter earnings a week ago, receiving a mixed reaction from analysts as same-store sales were mostly flat.
Continue reading Warren Buffett Stocks Up on Tesco
Posted Jun 22nd 2010 3:00PM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: Management, General Electric (GE), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Brazil, Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Mexico, Canada, Serious Money, Israel

There are many places that Warren Buffett may choose to invest Berkshire Hathaway (
BRK.A /
BRK.B) capital. At the same time you can be sure there are places he will not set foot. It is not likely he will invest anywhere that does not have a vibrant, well-established stock market with a stable government. So, Mr. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela will not likely see any capital deployed from the likes of
"my pal Warren" any time soon.
As a matter of fact, I would put the chances at slim of any South American country, besides Brazil, getting a look at all. Brazil is just too big and too vibrant to ignore. I would rule out Africa entirely except for indirect investments in oil and minerals through large conglomerates. The closest thing in the region would be Israel, at the furthest western reaches of Asia. He has already invested there and there is a high probability he would again. Investors from most of Europe and Asia have done the same, although many would rather not discuss it.
He has also invested in China, Great Britain, South Korea, and Switzerland. I would expect more money to be plowed into all of them again without reservation if the right deal materialized.
Continue reading Serious Money: Buffett Looking Beyond Our Borders -- Part 3
Posted Jun 16th 2010 6:00PM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: International Markets, Management, Coca-Cola (KO), Home Depot (HD), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), American Express (AXP), Lowe's Cos (LOW), PetroChina Co Ltd ADR (PTR), Entrepreneurs, Wells Fargo (WFC), Israel

Stories are starting to appear that
"my pal Warren" is gearing up for a major foreign acquisition. One of my dear friends Randy S. is taking a post graduate business class at UCLA where this issue is a part of the course. He is supposed to figure out what non US companies Berkshire Hathaway (
BRK.A/
BRK.B), led by Warren Buffett, might be considering for investment.
Ahh yes, the prediction business, quite tricky indeed. Starting with some basics, in most cases I would stick to the time tested philosophy that past performance is not an indicator of future success. That said, I think in the case of Buffett, it does. There are many clues along the trail based on his past performance.
Here are some basic consistencies from the existing portfolio that I would expect to hold true going forward.
Continue reading Serious Money: Buffett Looking Beyond Our Borders
Posted Jun 9th 2010 3:00PM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: Rants and Raves, Apple Inc (AAPL), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Market Matters, Scandals, Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Amer Intl Group (AIG), Wells Fargo (WFC), Politics, Financial Crisis
Voltaire said, "Common sense is not so common" and
George Bernard Shaw commented that having " ...enough of it was genius."
This reminds me of Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (
BRK.A) or Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. (
AAPL) that have both displayed plenty of the former and arrived at the latter in their business pursuits.
Derivatives like Collateral Debt Obligations, or CDO's, and Credit Default Swaps, get their value from something else entirely: total hype in an environment of smoke and mirrors.
It turns out that if you build layer upon layer of derivatives until you have no idea what the original underlying value truly is, it becomes so convoluted that a genius can't comprehend it at all. It is self evident that nobody could even determine all the counter-party risk.
Continue reading Financial Reform Has No Credit Default Swap
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