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Buffett's Berkshire: 14 Stocks That Have Gone Up

by: Donald Johnson September 29, 2008 | about stocks: AXP / BRK.A / BRK.B / CEG / GCI / GS / KFT / MTB / NKE / STI / TMK / UPS / USB / USG / WFC / WMT / WSC / WTM    

Donald Johnson

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The last month has seen a sharp increase in volatility in the stock markets, and most stocks are worth less than a month ago, but 14, or 36% of the stocks owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) have produced positive total returns.

While the 14 stocks have gone up in price and total returns in the last month, according to data on Morningstar.com where I track Berkshire’s portfolio, Buffett’s portfolio of 39 stocks actually fell 0.12% in the last month after a 3.68% jump in the last week.

As this chart shows, BRK.A has soared to $135,000 per share from $111,000 nine weeks ago. During the last two weeks, it has popped on news that Buffett and Berkshire have made two deals that took advantage of the economic crisis. First, BRK.A swooped in and bought Constellation Energy (CEG) for a bargain basement price.

Then the huge investment bank, Goldman Sachs (GS), went to Buffett hat in hand and on bended knee, pleading for an infusion of capital. He struck a hard-nosed deal that looks like a long term winner for BRK.A as well as for GS.

Year-to-date [YTD], Berkshire’s portfolio is down 6.74%, compared with BRK.B, which is down 6.57%. The 30 stocks in the Dow 30 Industrials index are down 7.65% and my group of 26 dividend stocks are down 2.77%.

Berkshire’s 14 winning stocks for the last month were:

• SunTrust Banks (STI), up 31.4%
• Wells Fargo (WFC), up 30.5%
• M & T Bank (MTB), up 29.61%
• US Bancorp (USB), up 20.2%
• Nike (NKE), up 15.5%
• USG Corp. (USG), up 10.54%
• Gannett (GCI), up 8.99%
• Torchmark (TMK), up 7.4%
• American Express (AXP), up 3.81%
• Kraft Foods (KFT), up 3.58%
• Walmart (WMT), up 2.9%
• United Parcel Services (UPS), up 2.53%
• Wesco Financial (WSCO), up 2.51%
• White Mountain (WTM), up 0.66%

Daily charts for these stocks are here and here. Click on a chart to see a gallery of charts for a stock.

Disclosure: I don’t own any of these stocks.

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This article has 9 comments:

  •  
    Sep 29 07:36 AM
    BRK no longer owns WTM, FWIW. Sold shares back to the company a couple of months back.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 29 09:27 AM
    The BRK-WTM deal is to close in the third quarter I think.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 29 10:08 AM
    Very disingenusous to show USG up 10%, when BRK bought their position in the mid to upper $40's
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 29 12:59 PM
    The article misses the whole point of BRK. They don't look at one month returns. They look at decades of ownership...THAT is the lesson!
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 29 04:08 PM
    I bought some CNB @ 3.50 and some @ 3.80, still up so far. look for small stocks with a future.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 29 04:33 PM
    What happened to BRKA friday with close at 147, then open Monday at +/- 133? Any thoughts appreciated. Also, I had the misunderstanding that BRK got cheaper after Warren buys "stuff". When does the sale start ? Does Wrigley, Constellation and GS not constitute a spree?
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 29 04:38 PM
    agree with a lot users here all those numbers are not up to date and don t correspond to the buying prices.I have a lot of respect for mr Buffett but please do not write false information about his returns.
    Reply
  •  
    Sep 30 12:53 AM
    Everything down today. (Ah, but it's only one day, you say.)
    Reply
  •  
    Oct 11 01:37 PM
    Berkshire got caught in a short squeeze when shorting financials was temporarily banned. When everyone had to cover berkshire shorts simultaneously, the price shot to the roof. It has since gone down as low as 105 thousand in the forced selling by hedge and mutual funds. It has bounced up to 113 thousand at close, 10/11/08. Fair value by Morningstar is 157 thousand, so this is a great buying opportunity if you have a long term horizon. incidentally, wesco has a Morningstar fair value of 675, more than double it`s present stock price of 296. It is worth noting that both companies have no debt to speak of, and only Berkshire has a few stock default swaps/derivatives that are miniscule compared to it`s balance sheet.


    On Sep 29 04:33 PM 1996 wrote:

    > What happened to BRKA friday with close at 147, then open Monday
    > at +/- 133? Any thoughts appreciated. Also, I had the misunderstanding
    > that BRK got cheaper after Warren buys "stuff". When does the sale
    > start ? Does Wrigley, Constellation and GS not constitute a spree?
    Reply
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