Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) initiated no new positions as the market stumbled during the first three months of the year, choosing instead to add incrementally to a handful of existing investments.
At the same time, the holding company reduced its exposure to financial stocks, including exiting its position in Citigroup (C).
Berkshire, of which Buffett serves as chairman and CEO, continued to reduce its exposure to equities in the most recent quarter, according to a regulatory filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.
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That's not a surprise. The holding company has been a net seller of equities for 10 consecutive quarters.
For the three months ended March 31, the company purchased $3.2 billion worth of stock and sold $4.7 billion. That works out to about $1.5 billion in net sales.
Increasingly stretched valuations also led Berkshire Hathaway to halt stock buybacks last year.
Before we get into Berkshire's most recent buys and sells, it's important to know that Buffett has always run a highly concentrated portfolio.
Excluding the company's Japanese brokerage stocks and other overseas equities, Apple (AAPL) alone accounts for almost 26% of Berkshire's stock portfolio, according to data from WhaleWisdom. (That's down from more than 40% a year ago.)
Furthermore, Berkshire's top five U.S. equity holdings comprise about 70% of its portfolio value, while the top 10 account for 88%.
As Buffett likes to say, diversification is for those who don't know what they're doing.
Also, please note that Buffett handles the largest positions in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio.
Buffett says his co-managers – Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, who is CEO of Geico – act independently. They're thought to manage about 10% of the portfolio. Buffettologists generally assume Berkshire's smaller buys and sells are the work of these colleagues.
Stocks Warren Buffett is buying
Berkshire Hathaway more than doubled its position in Constellation Brands (STZ), the beer and wine and spirit maker whose brands include Corona Extra, Modelo Especial and Robert Mondavi Winery.
The holding company upped its stake by 113%, or 6.4 million shares, bringing its total position to 12 million shares worth $2.2 billion as of quarter's end.
Berkshire initiated the position at the end of 2024. With a weighting of 0.85%, STZ is the 15th largest holding in the Berkshire Hathaway equity portfolio.
In other buys, Berkshire upped its stake in Verisign (VRSN) for a second consecutive quarter, this time by 0.14%, or 18,423 shares, bringing its total position to 13.3 million shares.
With a value of $3.4 billion as of March 31, the domain name registry services provider is BRK.B's 12th largest position, accounting for 1.3% of the portfolio.
It should come as little surprise that Berkshire continued to add to some favored holdings.
Buffett boosted the conglomerate's investment in Occidental Petroleum (OXY) fractionally, or by 0.29%. With 265 million shares worth $13.1 billion, OXY is Berkshire's sixth most important position.
Note that OXY shares spent a good part of Q1 trading below $50 a share. It wouldn't be the first time Buffett went bargain hunting in OXY stock when it fell below such levels. Berkshire initiated the OXY position in the first quarter of 2022.
Elsewhere, Berkshire continued to build up stakes in some recent additions, such as Domino's Pizza (DPZ) and Pool (POOL).
The holding company initiated both stakes in the third quarter of 2024, and the sizes suggest they were not Buffett's picks. But let's take a brief look anyway.
The conglomerate increased its stake in pizza chain DPZ by another 10%. With 2.6 million shares worth $1.2 billion at Q1's end, DPZ accounts for less than 0.5% of the portfolio, or its 20th largest holding.
As for Pool, which describes itself as the largest distributor of supplies, equipment and machinery for swimming pools worldwide, Berkshire Hathaway more than doubled its stake, buying another 865,311 shares.
POOL's weight of 0.18% makes it the 26th largest holding in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio. Suffice to say, this name won't be all that important to the conglomerate's overall results.
Berkshire also continued to add to its position in Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI), upping its stake by less than 2%. Berkshire now holds 119.8 million shares worth $2.7 billion as of March 31.
The stake further cements BRK.B's position as SIRI's largest shareholder, owning 35% of its common stock outstanding.
Berkshire also increased its stake by 10% in aerospace and defense company Heico (HEI). With a portfolio weight of 0.09%, or the 29th largest position, HEIA is essentially immaterial.
Lastly, Berkshire received confidential treatment for a position it was building in Q1. Regulators may grant an exemption from reporting in order to prevent other market participants from front-running the stock.
Stocks Warren Buffett is selling
Buffett once again sold Bank of America (BAC) stock last quarter – and slashed exposure to some other big financial names.
BAC is the most important position, however, having been a major holding since 2017. Berkshire reduced its stake in the nation's second-largest bank by assets by another 7.2% in Q1, selling almost 49 million shares.
With 631.6 million shares worth more than $26 billion as of March 31, BAC is Berkshire's fourth-largest holding, accounting for more than 10% of the portfolio value.
In addition to BAC, Berkshire once again pared its stake in Capital One Financial (COF), this time by 4%. At 0.5% of the portfolio, COF is the holding company's 19th most important investment. (Buffett sold COF last quarter too.)
And as for Citigroup, Berskhire closed out the position entirely after slashing it by 74% over the course of the prior quarter.
In other moves, Berkshire continued to lighten up on Charter Communications (CHTR), as it did the previous two quarters. CHTR is now less than 0.3% of the portfolio value.
Other stocks Berkshire continued to ease up on included Formula One Group (FWONK), T–Mobile US (TMUS) and DaVita (DVA).
Finally, Berkshire exited what was left of its small stake in Nu Holdings (NU), a position it initiated in the first quarter of 2021.
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