Berkshire Hathaway Stock Holdings and Investment Ideas

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) filed its first quarter 13-F with the SEC last week. From the filing, you may find a few investment ideas from where Buffett is putting his money, as noted by Morningstar. At the end of the first quarter, Berkshire held a total of 41 stocks in its equity portfolio, with American Express (AXP), Coca Cola (KO), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Kraft Food (KFT), Procter & Gamble (PG), US Bancorp (USB) and Wells Fargo (WFC) being the largest holdings.

Company	Symbol
American Express	AXP
Anheuser Busch	BUD
Bank of America	BAC
Burlington Northern Santa Fe	BNI
Carmax	KMX
Coca Cola	KO
Comcast Corp	CCS
Comdisco Holding	CDCO
ConocoPhillips	COP
Costco Wholesale	COST
Gannett	GCI
General Electric	GE
GlaxoSmithKline	GSK
Home Depot	HD
Ingersoll-Rand	IR
Iron Mountain	IRM
Johnson & Johnson	JNJ
Kraft Foods	KFT
Lowe’s Companies	LOW
M & T Bank	MTB
Moody’s	MCO
Nike	NIKE
Norfolk Southern	NSC
Procter & Gamble	PG
Sanofi Aventis	SNYNF
SunTrusts Banks	STI
Torchmark	TMK
Trane Inc	TT
US Bancorp	USB
USG Corporation	USG
Union Pacific	UNP
United Parcel Service	UPS
UnitedHealth	UNH
Wabco Holdings	WBC
Wal-Mart Stores	WMT
Washington Post	WPO
Wells Fargo & Co.	WFC
Wellpoint	WLP
Wesco Financial Corp.	WSC

Though no new stock was added to the portfolio, nor was any eliminated during the first quarter, Buffett did make a few adjustments, most notably the increased stakes in two railroad companies, Burlington Northern (BNI) and Union Pacific (UNP), because comparing to auto or air, railroad offers an attractive, and energy efficient, way to transport goods. In addition, Berkshire also increased positions in two of the nation’s largest banks, Wells Fargo and US Bancorp, as bank shares hit multi-year lows in the first quarter, as well as healthcare and consumer products company Johnson & Johnson, after selling stakes in the last quarter of 2008.

At the same time, Berkshire Hathaway has trimmed positions in Carmax (KMX), whose share price has jumped nearly 50% in the first quarter, and ConocoPhillips (COP), which used to be one of Berkshire’s largest holdings but suffered a lot last year as crude oil price dropped some 70% from its peak of $145 last summer, contributing to BRK’s worst quarterly loss in nearly two decades.

Actually, when you look at Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio, you will notice that itdon’t change much quarter over quarter, or even year over year. Buffett is an example of what the buy-and-hold investing strategy really means because some of the stocks have been in Berkshire's portfolio for decades. However, there are arguments that the buy-and-hold method is dead as the stock market has experienced big ups and downs lately, giving stock pickers opportunity to profit from the swings. The stock market has essentially become a trader’s market.

Yes, the buy-and-hold may make my portfolio look bad in a down market, such as the one we have seen since October 2007. But the stock market and economy work in cycles and they will eventually recover. When they do recover, my portfolio will benefit greatly from what I bought now. So I still buy and hold.

Comments

[ozcutty2]

UNH is my favourite from that list, still making $6 billion cash profit in a recession, love it!

2009 May 27 12:17 AM

[ndallasj]

Don't you proofread or spell check your postings ("itdon't change much")? Also, the last time I checked, a lot more goods were transported by truck than by automobile. Otherwise, this was an interesting article.

2009 May 27 09:54 AM

[Hal]

When was Nalco added. You don't list Tesco. You don't list Posco. I can't take this at face value.

2009 May 27 04:17 PM

[tshk1221]

I think it will be better for small investors to choose some of the right ones among the stocks owned by BRK. There are a lot of companies in the list that we do not know well about or that we don't need to own at all. I would go with the following only: AXP, GE, WFC, PG, JNJ, KO, GSK, KFT and WMT

2009 May 27 08:24 PM