9 Stocks Warren Buffett Keeps Buying
Do you want to know the best way to find new investment ideas? I'll let you in on a little secret: Follow the investment portfolios of great investors. Laws here in the United States make it so that large investors have to show the world every U.S. stock they are buying and selling. So why is this so important? Well, this requirement provides the average investor a great resource to use for potential new ideas to include in their own portfolio. Large investors hate this requirement because it makes them give away their best investment ideas for free. But hey, their loss is our gain!
In this video, we're going to look at what stocks Warren Buffett has been buying and selling. And let's just say he has been pretty busy as of late. Buffett bought nine stocks recently, and we're going to go through them one by one. You're going to want to stick around to the end of this video because who knows, you may just find your next great investment idea. But first, make sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel if you aren't already because it is my goal to make you a better investor by studying the world's greatest investors. Now let's get into the video!
One of the stocks Buffett's firm, Berkshire Hathaway, bought in a big way recently is a company called Ally Financial. Buffett bought an additional 21 million shares in the company, and Berkshire now owns 30 million shares of this company worth approximately one billion dollars as of the making of this video. This equates to a stake worth nine point seven percent of the entire company. Just as a quick aside, this position represents less than 0.3 percent of Buffett's entire portfolio, but he owns nearly 10% of all of the company stock. This just shows how massive Berkshire Hathaway's stock portfolio is.
Ally Financial is a bank holding company, which is just a fancy way of saying the company covers different financial products. The company provides financial services including car finance, online banking via a direct bank, corporate lending, vehicle insurance, mortgage loans, and an electronic trading platform to trade financial assets. However, the biggest part of the business is related to lending or insuring the auto industry—around 80 percent of the company's sales is from lending money both to consumers as well as car dealerships themselves. This makes a ton of sense considering Ally Financial used to be a part of U.S. automaker General Motors until GM experienced financial troubles during the Great Financial Crisis and was essentially forced to sell the business.
The stock price of Ally Financial has been struggling so far this year. The stock price is down around 35 percent from its high this year back in January. However, in typical Buffett fashion, he is using that weakness in the stock price to add to his position. It is no secret why Buffett would like this name; Ally has a dominant position in the automotive lending space—an industry that has been around for a hundred years and will probably be around for a hundred more. Despite this dominant position, the stock trades at a P/E ratio of only five times. The company generates a ton of cash, having generated two billion dollars in cash over the last 12 months. That cash was used to buy back stock, as the company repurchased nearly 1.2 billion dollars in stock over the last six months.
The company has already repurchased roughly 10% of the shares that were outstanding as of the end of 2021, and Buffett is a huge fan of companies repurchasing shares when its stock is trading at a discount. As the company buys back shares, it increases Buffett's stake in the company without him having to buy any more shares himself. Considering Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owns nearly 10% of Ally, large share repurchases by the company quickly increased his stake. Given Buffett's already large stake in the company, it will be interesting to see if he continues to buy or if he even eventually attempts to purchase the entire company.
The next stock Buffett bought large amounts of in the quarter is Occidental Petroleum. This company explores, develops, produces, and markets oil and natural gas. The Berkshire Hathaway portfolio added over 22 million shares of the company, and Buffett now owns over 158 million shares. This makes Berkshire the largest shareholder of the company at 20%. Buffett knows this business well; he first invested in Occidental back in 2019 when the oil company was in a bidding war with Chevron to buy its crosstown Houston rival, Anadarko. However, shortly after Buffett made this investment, the price of oil tanked from a high of around 80 a barrel in 2018 to prices in the 20s and 30s per barrel in the first half of 2020.
Considering Occidental is an oil company, I'm sure you can imagine how important oil prices are to the health of the business. As a result of falling oil prices, Occidental struggled. Surprisingly, Buffett even sold all of his common shares in Occidental during the oil crash of 2020. However, things can quickly change. So far in 2022, the price of oil has skyrocketed, hitting a high of over 120 dollars per barrel this year, and the price has spent much of the year above 100. Buffett's thinking about the company has done a complete turnaround. He went from selling all his common shares in the company to just around two years later being the biggest shareholder in the company.
But it doesn't stop there! Buffett made a big announcement recently. Berkshire Hathaway received approval from the federal government to buy up to 50% of Occidental. Here's what I think about this news: There is now a chance that Buffett continues to buy stock in Occidental until he approaches that 50% limit. At that point, he could then make an offer to buy the entire company and purchase the remaining shares at a premium price. Given that Occidental Petroleum is worth nearly 70 billion dollars, this would be one of, if not the largest acquisition Buffett has ever done. However, I wouldn't be surprised if that happened; Buffett has been saying for years he has been wanting to do a large acquisition, and this might just be his chance.
Next up on our list of stocks is Paramount Global. Buffett bought an additional 9.5 million shares in the company, and this brings Berkshire Hathaway's stake in the company to over 78 million shares, or roughly 13% of the entire company. Paramount Global operates as a media company. The company produces and distributes entertainment content through studios, networks, streaming services, live events, and merchandise. The company operates three distinct segments. The largest, accounting for 45% of revenue, is the cable network segment. This is where all the cable networks sit, including Showtime, BET, Nickelodeon, MTV, and Comedy Central. The other large segment is the TV entertainment segment, which is also roughly 45% of the company's revenue. This consists of the CBS television network and the company’s streaming offering. The third segment is filmed entertainment, which is where the company produces movies. One of the company's biggest hits in years was "Top Gun: Maverick."
Paramount has a market cap of just over 16 billion dollars, and the stock currently trades at a P/E ratio of 11.4 times. Buffett knows the media industry extremely well, and he has been investing in it for decades. In the 1980s and 90s, Warren Buffett was the largest shareholder in a company called Capital City ABC. This company consisted of television and radio stations throughout the United States. The company would later go on to merge with the Walt Disney Company to create the media empire that Disney is today.
The fourth stock on our list of stocks Buffett is adding to is Celanese. Buffett bought 1.3 million shares in the company, bringing his total number of shares owned to 9.2 million, or 8.5% of the entire company. Despite having a market cap of over 12 billion dollars, I think it's fair to say that Celanese is fairly unknown to the average person. I personally had heard the name before and knew they were a chemicals company, but that's about it. Celanese is a global chemical and specialty materials company. The easiest and most simple way to describe what this business does is that Celanese sells chemicals that are then used to help make products. These chemicals are sold to companies in the automotive, construction, paper, and packaging, and food and beverage industries, just to name a few.
If you're a fan of Buffett, you probably know that he loves investing in companies that generate a ton of cash, and Celanese definitely meets that criteria. The company is on track to generate nearly 1.6 billion dollars in free cash flow this year. Free cash flow is calculated by taking the amount of cash a company produces from its operations and subtracting out how much it's spent on what is referred to as capital expenditures. These are things like equipment, real estate, a new factory, etc. If you compare that free cash flow to the company's current market cap of 12 billion dollars, that means Celanese has a free cash flow yield of 13.3%. The higher the free cash flow yield, the better. All else being equal, the higher the free cash flow yield, the more cash the business generates relative to the price you as an investor have to pay for it. For reference, Buffett's largest holding in his portfolio has a free cash flow yield of 3.8%.
Before we go on to stock number five on our list, I quickly want to mention the stocks Buffett is selling. During the second quarter of 2022, Buffett made the following moves: He reduced his position in banking company U.S. Bancorp by five percent. He reduced his position in grocery chain Kroger by 10%. He reduced his stake in car company GM by 15%, and he reduced his stake in Store Capital Group, a real estate investment company, by over 50%. In addition, he also completely exited his stakes in two companies: Royalty Pharma, a company that acquires biopharmaceutical royalties, and telecommunications giant Verizon. None of these sales were incredibly meaningful parts of the Berkshire Hathaway stock portfolio.
Number five on our list of stocks is Markel. Buffett bought 47,000 shares of the company. If that doesn't sound like a ton, considering he purchased millions of shares in the other companies, it is important to keep in mind that each share of Markel currently trades for more than twelve hundred dollars. This purchase brought Berkshire's stake in Markel to 3.5%, making Berkshire the fourth largest shareholder in the company. The best way to think about Markel is as a baby Berkshire. What I mean by that is that Markel has a similar business model to Berkshire.
At its core, Berkshire Hathaway is an insurance company. Berkshire owns a variety of insurance businesses that create what is referred to in the insurance industry as float. Float is essentially money an insurance company is able to hold on to before they pay out claims. Think about it like this: Let's say you purchase an insurance policy for your house or car. You pay for the insurance policy up front, meaning that the insurance company receives cash first before they have to pay out any claims for damage that is done to your car or house. In between the time the insurance company receives the money from its customers and when it has to pay on it in claims, the insurance company has the ability to invest that money to generate investment income. While this timing difference may not seem like a ton, it's how insurance companies really make their money.
For example, Berkshire Hathaway ended 2021 with a staggering 147 billion dollars in float that they could invest. Markel follows the same business model. They have insurance businesses at the heart of the company, and they then use profits and float from the core insurance businesses to invest in stocks and purchase entire companies. Markel just does it on a much smaller scale than Berkshire Hathaway, hence the "baby Berkshire" nickname. Markel's stock portfolio is around 7 billion, while Berkshire Hathaway's is more like 300 billion. Interestingly enough, the largest position in the Markel stock portfolio is actually Berkshire Hathaway. Markel is actually the 13th biggest shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway Class A.
Number six on our list of stocks Buffett continues to buy is McKesson. Buffett bought 276,000 shares of the company, bringing the total stake in the company to 3.2 million shares. Berkshire now owns 2.2% of the company and is the sixth largest shareholder. McKesson distributes pharmaceuticals and medical supplies throughout North America. Think of McKesson as a pharmaceutical wholesaler. They buy branded and generic medications for manufacturers and deliver them to pharmacies. Pharmaceutical wholesalers are a middleman who sits between large and fragmented markets. On one side, there are 1,300 manufacturers like Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Teva. On the other side, there are over 180,000 distribution points like your local Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, and hospitals.
McKesson generates massive amounts of revenue; the company had revenue of nearly 270 billion dollars over the last 12 months. However, the amount of that revenue that falls down to the bottom line in the form of profit is very tiny. The company did 270 billion in sales, but their net profit was only 3.5 billion dollars. Doing the math here, we can see that this is a net profit margin of about 1.3%. To put that in perspective, Apple, Buffett's largest holding, had a net profit margin of 25.7% over the last 12 months. Coca-Cola, which has been a large position in Buffett's portfolio for decades, had a 26.1% net profit margin in 2021. Despite the slim profit margin, McKesson does have one important characteristic that aligns well with Buffett's strategy. McKesson has what is referred to by Buffett as a moat—a competitive advantage a company has that prevents other companies from entering the industry and taking customers away.
McKesson's large size is its biggest competitive advantage. In order for a company to successfully operate with very low margins, it needs to have scale advantages. Due to its large size, think Walmart in the United States as another example. Without massive scale like McKesson, a new company entering the market has no chance of being profitable. The industry is dominated by three large players: McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Cardinal Health. These three companies control over ninety percent of the market, leaving no room for a new company to enter.
Number seven on our list of stocks Buffett continues to buy is Activision Blizzard. Buffett bought 4.1 million shares of the company, bringing his total stake to 68.4 million shares. Berkshire is the largest shareholder in the company, owning 8.8% of the entire company. Activision Blizzard is one of the largest deliverers and publishers of video games in the world. Its franchises include World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Candy Crush, and Call of Duty. You may be asking yourself a very important question: Why would Buffett, a 92-year-old man, be investing in a video game company? He doesn't know the first thing about video games, and you would be right. This isn't a traditional Buffett-style investment; this is what is referred to as a merger arbitrage bet.
Let me explain. Back in January, Microsoft announced that it would be acquiring Activision for 95 dollars per share. You would think that when this deal was announced, the price of Activision stock would be trading at 95 until the deal goes through, considering this is the price Microsoft announced they would be buying the shares at. That is how it works when most publicly traded companies get acquired. However, this deal is different for one big reason: It is not 100% certain that the government will allow Microsoft to purchase Activision. In fact, there is a good chance that the government won't approve the deal. This is why Activision stock trades at 78 dollars per share—an 18% discount to the 95 dollars per share Microsoft said they would buy the stock at if they get government approval.
With a merger arbitrage investment, Buffett isn't really investing in the company in his usual way; he's instead betting on the deal to go through. If the deal does go through, the difference between the price Berkshire bought shares at and the 95 per share acquisition will be the profit in his investment. But there is one big risk to this bet: If the deal doesn't get approved and Microsoft can't make this acquisition, the share price will crater, just like what happened when it was announced that Elon Musk was no longer going to be acquiring Twitter. When making a merger arbitrage bet, it all comes down to two things: whether the deal will go through and how much money you will make or lose depending on that. Obviously, Buffett likes his odds or he wouldn't have made the investment.
Stocks number eight and nine on the list are going to be mentioned together because they are both relatively small purchases of two positions that are significant holdings in the Berkshire portfolio. Those stocks are Apple and Chevron. Buffett bought 3.9 million shares of Apple, bringing Berkshire's total stake in the tech company to 915 million shares. Berkshire owns 5.7% of the entire company, and now that doesn't sound like a huge position until you realize that Apple is currently worth 2.6 trillion dollars—yes, trillion dollars—and Berkshire's stake is worth 148 billion dollars. Buffett also purchased 2.3 million shares in oil company Chevron. This purchase brought Berkshire's stake in Chevron to 163.5 million shares, or 8.4% of the entire company.
There is a reason I mentioned these two stocks together. While the stock portfolio that Buffett manages consists of roughly 50 different stocks, these two stocks, Apple and Chevron, account for roughly half of the entire stock portfolio, with the majority of that coming from Apple, which counts for 42% of the portfolio. Talk about a concentrated portfolio! Warren Buffett has frequently talked about how he prefers having a concentrated portfolio of stocks, but Buffett has actually received criticism, saying that his stock portfolio is extremely diversified. Now these critics point to the 50 or so stocks that are in the portfolio as an example of this. I think what these critics failed to realize is that Buffett's portfolio is still extremely concentrated. Over 40% of it is in one stock, Apple, and the top five holdings—Apple, Bank of America, Chevron, Coca-Cola, and American Express—make up a whopping 73% of the stock portfolio. If that isn't concentrated, I don't know what is.
Thank you so much for watching this video! Make sure to like this and subscribe to the channel because it's my goal to make you a better investor by studying the world's greatest investors. Talk to you again soon!