What's in Steve Markel's Stock Basket? Click and Find Out

Controlled Greed.com reader Jim Heggarty provides this link in the comments section of my post yesterday about buying more Fairfax Financial (FFH) stock. It's so good that I'm featuring it in a post of its own:

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Markel, it's a niche-focused specialty insurance company that is modeled on Berkshire Hathaway, and like Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett, the executives at Markel have an enviable track record investing in public equities.

Vice chairman Steve Markel and chief investment officer Tom Gayner head the firm's stock-picking, and over the last decade their equity investments have appreciated by 13.1% annually, far outpacing the S&P 500's 7.31% annual gain. To put this in perspective, $10,000 invested with the team at Markel 10 years ago would now be worth $34,251, while the same amount invested in the S&P 500 would be worth only $20,251.

Markel's top 10 holdings are:

6.33% Berkshire Hathaway B
5.95% Fairfax Financial Holdings
5.89% CarMax
5.75% White Mountains Insurance
5.41% Diageo PLC
4.86% Berkshire Hathaway A
4.53% Anheuser-Busch
3.92% General Electric
2.66% Brookfield Asset Management
2.60% Forest City Enterprises

Note that adding both classes of Berkshire (BRKA, BRKB) stock brings the company to 11.19% of Markel's portfolio assets.

You'll find the rest of Markel's holdings at the bottom of the linked article. Thanks again, Jim.

Comments

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yes bring more value investors stuff here, although as far as fundamentals are concerned these are not bargains. BRKA and FFH seem to me most attractive but their REinsurace business is dangerous.

2006 Jul 25 07:59 AM