Buffett, Berkshire Making Moves

Berkshire Hathaway’s second-quarter trades are out, and Warren Buffett’s firm has been making some interesting moves.

Berkshire cut back sharply on two major food-related holdings, slashing its stake in Kraft Foods by 88% and its stake in Mondelez by 92%, CNBC’s Alex Crippen reports on Warren Buffett Watch. Berkshire did add heavily to some of its financial stocks, upping its stake in U.S. Bancorp by 27% to nearly $3 billion and its stake in Bank of New York Mellon by more than 30% to about $750 million. And it increased its holdings in General Motors by 60%, a stake now worth $1.4 billion.

As for new stakes, Berkshire added $586 million in shares of Canadian energy firm Suncor Energy to its portfolio, and a $24 million stake in Dish Network. “The smaller the size of the position, the more likely it’s the work of one of Berkshire’s portfolio managers, not Buffett himself,” Crippen notes. “For Suncor, however, it’s worth noting that in 2008 he and Bill Gates made a ‘quiet’ visit to the area.”

Overall, Berkshire’s stock portfolio was worth $89.0 billion at the end of the quarter, according to an SEC filing, up from $85.0 billion at the end of the first quarter.

 

 

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