Monday, February 14, 2011

Buffett's Berkshire Unloads Bank of America Stake; Was There WikiLeaks Influence?

Warren Buffett's holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, has filed its latest quarterly report with the SEC, for the period ended December 31.

The filing shows that Berkshire sold its entire position in Bank of America. The firm sold 5,000,000 shares with a current value of $74.45 million. It is not entirely clear how much input Buffett had in the decision, since the position was fairly small and GEICO's stock picker Lou Simpson is often the sole decision maker on those buy and sells.

However, it is interesting that at the same time Berkshire was unloading B of A stock, Buffett increased his Wells Fargo position by 2% to 342.6 million shares, a total postion that is currently worth approximately $11.6 billion.

Thus, it does not appear that Buffett is negative on the financial sector as much as he appears to be negative on Bank of America. Could WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is hinting he has dirt on B of A via leaked emails,have spooked Buffett out of his position?

Berkshire also sold positions in Nike, Nestle, Comcast and Lowes.

2 comments:

  1. Assange has since said the BofA material is a dud. Don't know if that was tongue in cheek too..

    ReplyDelete