巴菲特三季度再现“贪婪” 重点布局工业股

2011年11月08日01:02 来源：上海证券报 作者：朱周良

http://stock.hexun.com/2011-11-08/134980284.html

　　⊙记者 朱周良 ○编辑 朱贤佳

　　巴菲特似乎又开始“贪婪”了，就在美股经历三年来最煎熬的三个月之时。

　　巴菲特的旗舰公司伯克希尔·哈撒韦最新发布的财报显示，在截至9月底的三个月中，伯克希尔累计投资了239亿美元，创下至少15年来单季投资规 模之最，其中纯股票投资达到70亿美元。有迹象表明，在继续关注金融和消费企业的同时，巴菲特开始有意识地在加大对工业等领域的投入，这可能也从一个侧面 反映出“股神”对于经济复苏中长期前景的看好。

　　三季度大举投资工业企业

　　根据伯克希尔向美国证监会提交的最新文件，公司在截至9月30日的三个月中买入近70亿美元的股票，第二季度和第一季度，这一数字分别为36.2亿美元和8.34亿美元。此外，第三季度巴菲特还斥资50亿美元购买美国银行发行的优先股和权证，并为完成收购化工巨头路博润支付了约90亿美元。

　　到目前为止，巴菲特并没有发布三季度的持股清单。但从伯克希尔提交的文件来看，第三季度，该公司被列入“商业、工业和其他”类别的股票持有量按买入成本计猛增62%，至174亿美元，超过在金融和消费产品公司方面的股权投资。

　　分析人士认为，从最新的报告看，巴菲特一方面显著加快了买入股票的步伐，同时也开始扩大在消费品和金融之外的领域的投资，比如工业。

　　“他肯定是看到了什么，而且是大家伙。”伯克希尔股东GRG公司的合伙人鲁索说。另一位伯克希尔的股东、亨利·阿姆斯特朗合伙公司的总裁阿姆斯 特朗则表示，从以往经验看，巴菲特对于消费品和金融类公司的青睐要胜过工业企业。但是眼下市场变了，巴菲特的投资方向似乎也在跟着改变。

　　鲁索表示，眼下对巴菲特来说具有吸引力的公司可能包括3M、肯纳金属等拥有专利技术的制造类公司。

　　上一次巴菲特单季投资超过200亿美元还是在2008年，当年他在第二和第四季度的投资都超过了200亿美元。

　　巴菲特再次出手“抄底”

　　总体上看，伯克希尔第三季度的业绩表现并不理想，这在很大程度上是受到了股票衍生品业务的拖累。第三季度，伯克希尔净利润下跌24%，至22.8亿美元。

　　相比一年前，伯克希尔在股票衍生品方面的亏损几乎多了两倍。不过，巴菲特并不对这部分投资感到担忧。他说，衍生品投资组合的大幅季度性波动“毫无意义”，运营业绩才是衡量伯克希尔公司表现得更好指标。伯克希尔第三季度的经营利润为38.1亿美元，同比增长接近40%。

　　股票市场的剧烈波动，是三季度伯克希尔在衍生品市场“栽跟头”的主要原因。据公司提交给美国证券监管委员会（SEC）的材料，第三季度，伯克希尔的衍生品合约覆盖的指数累计跌幅在11%至23%不等。

　　第三季度对美国股市来说可谓自金融危机见底以来最惨痛的一个季度。当季，标普500指数累计下跌14%，创自2008年以来最大季度跌幅。仅8月8日一天，也就是标准普尔公司宣布下调美国最高信用评级后的第一个交易日，美股标普500指数暴跌超过6%。

　　但从最新披露的投资情况以及股市自那以来的表现看，这一次，“股神”似乎又抄到了底。

　　在那之后，巴菲特8月15日接受电视采访时透露，他在8月8日当天买入股票的数量超过了今年其余时候的任何一天。巴菲特9月30日在接受电视采访时又说：我们已经准备好了大量买入，只要哪只股票够便宜，我们就会买入它。

　　股票回购只是“幌子”？

　　回过头来看，市场对于伯克希尔在9月底宣布将回购自家股票的意外决定，多少有些误解。9月26日，伯克希尔发布公告称，鉴于公司股价目前被严重低估，公司将最多以较账面价值溢价10%的价格回购其A股和B股股票，该消息一度刺激伯克希尔的两类股票大涨。

　　巴菲特一直抵触回购股票或是派息，因此在很多人看来，他决定回购自家股票可能是认为投资机会匮乏。

　　但事实似乎并非如此，至少从三季度的投资数据看不是这样。伯克希尔公司表示，从开始回购的9月26日起至四天后的第三季度末，公司回购了仅1790万美元的股票。相比之下，三季度伯克希尔斥资近70亿美元收购了其他公司的股票。

　　而从市场的表现看，从8月8日美股暴跌6%当天算起，美国标普500指数截至上周五已反弹了12%左右。一些市场人士认为，巴菲特回购自家股票以及在三季度的大举投资，恰恰反映出“股神”对美国经济复苏前景的乐观。巴菲特多次表示，他并不认为美国经济会二次探底。

　　高盛前首席经济学家奥尼尔认为，除非意大利变成第二个希腊，否则即便全球经济增长放缓，风险仍将在可控范围之内。奥尼尔等经济学家认为，经济降 温带来的并不都是坏处，比如通胀压力缓和，这将提升美国消费者的购买力，同时中国等新兴经济体则在财政和货币政策方面仍拥有很大调整空间。

 

Buffett Broadens Portfolio by Spending $23.9 Billion in Quarter

November 07, 2011, 8:26 PM EST

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-07/buffett-broadens-portfolio-by-spending-23-9-billion-in-quarter.html

By Andrew Frye

Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. invested $23.9 billion in the third-quarter, the most in at least 15 years, as he accelerated stock purchases and broadened the portfolio beyond consumer and financial-company holdings.

Berkshire bought almost $7 billion of equity securities in the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with $3.62 billion in the second quarter and $834 million in the first, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said Nov. 4 in a filing. Stockholdings labeled “commercial, industrial and other” soared 62 percent in the three months to $17.4 billion on a cost basis, surpassing equity investments in financial and consumer-product firms.

“He sees something, and it’s big,” said Thomas Russo, a partner at Berkshire investor Gardner Russo & Gardner.

Buffett, 81, drew down Berkshire’s cash as Europe’s debt crisis and Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. pushed stocks to their worst quarterly performance since 2008. The investments disclosed Nov. 4 include $6.9 billion of equities, $5 billion for preferred shares and warrants in Bank of America Corp. and the acquisition of Lubrizol Corp. for about $9 billion.

Buffett is expanding a portfolio that for more than 20 years has included equity stakes in Coca-Cola Co., the world’s largest soft-drink maker, and Wells Fargo & Co., now the No. 1 U.S. home lender. The chairman and chief executive officer acquired a power company in 2000 and railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe last year.

“Historically he has preferred consumer products and banking to industrial companies,” said James Armstrong, president of Berkshire shareholder Henry H. Armstrong Associates. “But the market changes, so the names he comes up with changes.”

U.S. Downgrade

The S&P 500 Index fell 14 percent in the third quarter, the most since dropping 23 percent in the last three months of 2008. The period’s biggest one-day decline was more than 6 percent on Aug. 8, the first trading day after S&P stripped the U.S. government’s AAA rating. Berkshire spent more on stocks that day than any other this year, Buffett told Charlie Rose in an interview broadcast on PBS on Aug. 15.

Berkshire’s third-quarter net income slid 24 percent to $2.28 billion as the stock market slump pressured the value of Buffett’s equity derivative bets, the firm said in the filing. Insurance units posted a $1.7 billion pretax underwriting gain, while net earnings at the railroad rose 8.5 percent to $766 million. The market value of the stock portfolio advanced to $68.1 billion on Sept. 30 from $67.6 billion at the end of June.

Berkshire’s holdings of banks, insurance and finance stocks advanced 2.7 percent to $16 billion on a cost basis in the three months ended Sept. 30, while consumer products shares fell 5 percent to $12.6 billion. Berkshire’s equity investments include stakes in American Express Co. and Procter & Gamble Co.

Confidential Treatment

Berkshire has disclosed new stakes this year in MasterCard Inc., the world’s second-biggest payments network, and retailer Dollar General Corp. Buffett’s firm has requested permission to omit information from filings that list U.S. equity holdings as of March 31 and June 30. Regulators sometimes let companies withhold data to limit copycat investing while building or cutting a position. Berkshire hasn’t filed its third-quarter stocks statement as of yesterday.

Buffett, in preparation for his eventual retirement, hired money manager Todd Combs last year and instructed him to focus on equities. MasterCard was one of Combs’s holdings at his former hedge fund, Castle Point Capital Management LLC.

‘Crazy With Buy Orders’

“I wonder if he turned Todd Combs loose,” said David Rolfe, chief investment officer of Berkshire investor Wedgewood Partners Inc., which also owns stakes in AmEx and Visa Inc., the No. 1 payments network. “I hope Buffett went to the movies one day and Combs got on the phone and went crazy with buy orders” for Purchase, New York-based MasterCard.

Manufacturing firms with proprietary technology like 3M Co., the maker of auto parts and Scotch-Brite sponges; and toolmaker Kennametal Inc. may appeal to Buffett, Russo said. MasterCard had a market value of about $46 billion as of Nov. 4, compared with the $55.6 billion form 3M and $3.3 billion for Kennametal of Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

Buffett didn’t respond to a request for comment e-mailed to an assistant outside of normal business hours in Omaha.

The last time Buffett invested more than $20 billion in a period was 2008 when he did it in both the second and fourth quarters of the year. Buffett deployed more than $70 billion that year, including $10.1 billion on stocks, as the S&P 500 posted its biggest decline since 1937. This year, Berkshire bought $11.4 billion of stocks in the nine months ended in Sept. 30, while selling $885 million of equities.

Cash holdings dropped to $34.8 billion at the end of September from $47.9 billion on June 30. The hoard is replenished from maturing securities and profit from investments and the company’s more than 70 operating subsidiaries.

‘Ready to Buy’

In the third quarter, Buffett directed $1.9 billion to fixed-maturity securities and about $2.2 billion to property, plants and equipment at Berkshire’s units. Some of the results were derived by subtracting first-half results from Sept. 30 data released last week. Berkshire, which doesn’t pay a dividend, started its first buyback in September, giving Buffett an additional investment option.

“We’re ready to buy lots of things,” Buffett told Bloomberg Television’s Betty Liu on Sept. 30. “If the stock is cheap, we will buy it.”

Berkshire declined 8 percent in the third quarter and 3.9 percent in 2011 through Nov. 4. St. Paul, Minnesota-based 3M fell 24 percent in the three months ended in September, while Kennametal slid 22 percent. MasterCard rose 5.3 percent in the same period.

‘Part of His Legacy’

Berkshire bought 80 percent of Israel’s Iscar Metalworking Cos., the maker of machine tools, for $4 billion in 2006. Buffett has expanded MidAmerican Energy Holdings, the power producer he bought in 2000. Burlington Northern hauls freight over a 32,000-mile rail network.

“He’s broadly diversifying across numerous industries, and he would perhaps want that to be part of his legacy,” said David Kass, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. The third-quarter stock spending “sounds like at least one major investment. And it wouldn’t surprise me if it were two or three,” said Kass.

--With assistance by Maryellen Tighe in New York. Editors: Dan Kraut, Peter Eichenbuam

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Frye in New York at afrye@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Kraut at dkraut2@bloomberg.net.

 

Buffett goes on $20 billion stock buying spree

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http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-07/buffett-broadens-portfolio-by-spending-23-9-billion-in-quarter.html

By Chris Isidore November 7, 2011: 1:29 PM EThttp://money.cnn.com/2011/11/07/markets/buffett_stocks/

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- In the worst quarter for U.S. stocks since the financial crisis, investor Warren Buffett went on a stock buying spree.

A filing late Friday from Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500) shows it bought $20 billion in stocks in the three months ended Sept. 30 -- including $6.9 billion worth of dabbling in U.S. stocks.

The purchases also included the $8.7 billion purchase of specialty chemical company Lubrizol Corp., which closed in the quarter after being announced earlier in the year, and $5 billion in preferred shares and warrants of Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500).

The $6.9 billion in common stock purchases represented a fairly aggressive market position, said Greggory Warren, the analyst who follows Berkshire for Morningstar.

"That's a better jump than we've seen from them in a while," he said.

Berkshire bought about about $3.6 billion in stock in the second quarter and less than $1 billion in the first quarter. Given Buffett's inclination to try to find bargains, the buying in the third quarter wasn't a surprise, Warren said.

"We saw a fairly significant decline in the quarter," he said. "The question is where he put the money to work. We'll have to wait to find that out."

The blue chip Standard & Poor's 500 fell 14% in the third quarter, the biggest drop since the fiscal crisis hit markets in the final three months of 2008. Other major indexes also tumbled, driven by the downgrade of the U.S. debt rating, the uncertainty over the European sovereign debt and rising worries during the period that the U.S. economy is in danger of a new recession.

Buffett continued to be bullish on stocks in comments during the period. On Aug. 15, he told PBS interviewer Charlie Rose that on the first day of trading after the U.S. credit downgrade -- as the S&P 500 plunged nearly 7% -- Berkshire made its largest single-day stock purchases of the year to date. And he said the $7 billion Berkshire had invested to that point of the year was at least $1 billion more than it had ever purchased in a year.

"It's like buying on sale," he said in that interview.

Berkshire's earnings tumbled 24% in the quarter to $2.3 billion, hurt by the decline in value of its holdings and a $1.6 billion loss on derivatives it held during the period.

But Cliff Gallant, analyst with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, said he believes most of the reported derivative losses have already been reversed by the rebound in stocks in October. He said the operating earnings beat forecasts.

"The strength of core operating earnings shrugged off mark-to-market paper losses in the derivatives book," he wrote in a note Monday. "With nearly $35 billion of cash on hand and as one of the highest credit worthy financial institutions in the world, we expect that Berkshire will continue to be positioned for such attractive opportunities."

Berkshire shares were down just less than 1% in midday trading Monday, but that was less than the drop in the broader markets.