I go over Berkshire Hathaway’s latest buys and sells in their common stock portfolio each quarter, after their latest 13F is released. I’m a huge fan of Warren Buffett, as are millions of other investors around the world. And so it’s a great honor to see what he’s up to. You can see the excerpt below, which is part of a full article I wrote for Daily Trade Alert. Enjoy!
Warren Buffett’s latest trades were just revealed via the most recent Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B) 13F filing, which is a filing that gives us information on all of the transactions that took place over the third quarter of 2017 — the quarter ending September 30 — in the stock portfolio managed by the legendary investor.
This filing can provide some valuable insight into where Warren Buffett thinks the best investments might lie.
Now, it might not make sense to piggyback on his trades and simply buy and/or sell whatever he has because these filings are generally released 45 days after the most recent quarter ended, but it would appear to be an intelligent move to investigate exactly where the most successful investor of all time is (and isn’t) putting his capital to work.
It’s also important to note that Buffett allows two other executives – Todd Combs and Ted Weschler – to authorize smaller transactions, so it’s difficult sometimes to decipher who bought and/or sold what.
Below, I’m going to go over every transaction and give some quick thoughts on each respective company.
Image courtesy of: DonkeyHotey via Flickr.
Nice recap. Having a large position in BRK.B I also follow these quarterly position changes. What interested me most this quarter was the continuing large cash position. Either he is working on a rather large deal or believes that prices are too high. Time will tell and I suspect the former.
JayP,
It’ll definitely be interesting to see what they eventually do with the cash. He’s noted a number of times recently that he just can’t find anything big in this environment, so he’s just sitting on the cash for now. But I’m sure he’d love to put it to work into the right opportunity.
Cheers!
Jason, Nice summary. You are definitely adding value to your readers by going through and publishing this exercise. It’s nice to see where some of my holdings stack up as compared to what Warren is doing. I’ve had a nice run with Apple, but have been disappointed in my Wells and IBM holdings. Tom
Tom,
It’s always so much fun for me to go through these reports. These articles are a little different for me in the sense that I usually only have a few hours to complete them. But I totally enjoy looking through the transactions and reporting on what’s going on. One thing I learned by going through them is that Berkshire trades in and out of positions more frequently than some might think, especially on their smaller holdings.
I’ve been disappointed by Wells, too. IBM has taken a bit longer to turn around than I expected, but it’s otherwise okay for me. Wells, however, has had a litany of issues that came out of left field, and they haven’t delivered on the dividend growth yet. I’ll have to see where they’re at in a year or two. If I don’t start to see that dividend really move, I may have to move on.
Best wishes!