Berkshire keeps climbing: New ‘B’ closing high and ‘A’ tops $600K
Berkshire Hathaway’s widely held Class B shares gained just 0.2% today but that was enough for a fresh all-time closing high of $398.36 per share.
On Wednesday, they hit a new intraday high of $399.15.
The B shares are a component of the S&P 500 index, which closed today at its own record high of 5026.61 after the government lowered its December inflation reading.
Berkshire’s Apple stake is currently worth around $173 billion after the stock gained 25% over the past 12 months, accounting for almost half of the value of Buffett & Co.’s publicly traded equity portfolio.
Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares crossed above the $600,000 mark on Wednesday for the first time ever, setting a new intraday record high of $600,531 per share.
They ended that day at $599,300, a fresh all-time closing high.
After retreating a bit yesterday, the stock closed today at $599,090.
Berkshire doesn’t bite much as Occidental Petroleum’s price falls
Shares of Occidental Petroleum haven’t traded above $60 since January 4, went as low as $55.53 just over two weeks ago, and have an average closing price of $57.72 so far this year.
The average close was almost $62 in the second half of last year.
Even though sub-$60 prices have often prompted Berkshire purchases since it began accumulating its OXY position in early 2022, there’s been nothing more than a nibble recently.
Late Monday, a Berkshire filing disclosed it bought a total of 4.3 million shares for $245.9 million on February 1, 2, and 5. That’s an average price of $57.15.
That brings Berkshire’s reported OXY stake to 248.0 million shares, 28.3% of the oil giant’s outstanding stock, with a market value of $14.3 billion based on today’s close of $57.47.
This week, Occidental increased its annual dividend by 22% to $0.88 per share and CEO Vicki Hollub told CNBC that while there is too much oil on the market right now due to a “short-term demand issue” as China’s economy falters, “in a couple of years’ time we’re going to be very short on supply” because crude reserves aren’t being replaced quickly enough.
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