Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) – Get Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class A Report played both sides of the equity market last quarter — buying some stocks and selling others.
Berkshire purchased about 9.4 million shares of oil titan Chevron CVX in the quarter, boosting its stake to 38 million, according to an SEC filing cited by CNBC. The 9.4 million shares were worth $1.28 billion as of Monday’s close, and the 38 million were worth $5.2 billion. The 38 million were worth $4.5 billion at the end of the fourth quarter.
Berkshire also snagged 14.7 million shares of video game giant Activision Blizzard ATVI in the fourth quarter, before Microsoft (MSFT) – Get Microsoft Corporation Report agreed in January to take it over for $68.7 billion, CNBC reports. Berkshire’s position was worth $978 million as of Dec. 31 and $1.2 billion as of Monday’s close.
As for the selling, Berkshire reduced its holdings in credit companies Visa (V) – Get Visa Inc. Class A Report and Mastercard (MA) – Get Mastercard Incorporated Class A Report. It trimmed its Visa stake by 13% to 8.3 million shares and its Mastercard holding by 7% to 4 million shares, according to CNBC. The Visa stake was worth $1.87 billion as of Monday’s close, and the Mastercard holding was worth $379 million.
Chevron represented the only one of Berkshire’s top 10 publicly-traded stock holdings that changed in size during the last quarter. The top 10 as of Dec. 31, starting from the biggest position, were Apple (AAPL) – Get Apple Inc. Report, Bank of America (BAC) – Get Bank of America Corp Report, American Express (AXP) – Get American Express Company Report, Coca-Cola (KO) – Get Coca-Cola Company Report, Kraft-Heinz (KHC) – Get Kraft Heinz Company Report, Moody’s (MCO) – Get Moody’s Corporation Report, Verizon (VZ) – Get Verizon Communications Inc. Report, US Bancorp (USB) – Get U.S. Bancorp Report, Chevron and Bank of New York Mellon (BK) – Get Bank of New York Mellon Corporation Report.
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Source: https://www.thestreet.com/investing/buffet-buys-chevron-sells-visa-mastercard?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO&yptr=yahoo