Berkshire Hathaway added a relatively small number of Occidental Petroleum shares this week, making the purchases between $56.49 and $57.25 per share.
The average purchase price for the 2.1 million shares bought on Monday through Wednesday was $57.10.
It paid an average of $58.18 for the 5.6 million shares it picked up over nine days in May.
As of Wednesday, Berkshire owned 224.1 million shares, a 25.1% stake in the oil giant, with a market value of $13.2 billion at today’s closing price of $58.80.
We won’t know until next week if there was more buying yesterday and today, as the stock’s price ranged from $57.67 to $59.45.
Berkshire has received regulatory approval to buy up to half of Occidental’s shares, but he told shareholders in May that the company will not be trying to buy a controlling stake in the company, saying, “We wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
BYD out …
As Berkshire’s OXY stake continues to grow, its BYD holdings continue to shrink.
In a Hong Kong Exchange filing disclosing its stake in the Chinese electric carmaker had dropped just below 9% as of June 19, Berkshire revealed it sold 9.7 million shares since early May when its stake fell below 10%.
That leaves just 98.6 million BYD shares in its portfolio, down 56.2% from the 225 million shares it purchased in 2008 for $230 million.
At today’s closing price of $32.00 they have a market value of $3.2 billion.
The selling has been fairly steady since it has first disclosed last August. If the pace continues, we should be getting another filing in mid-July as Berkshire’s stake falls below 8%.
It is, though, unknown if the selling might stop at some point.
So far, Buffett has only said, in an April interview with CNBC, that BYD is an “extraordinary company,” but “I think that we’ll find things to do with the money that I’ll feel better about.”
Along with buying Occidental Petroleum, one of those things appears to be Buffett’s continuing purchases of stakes in five Japanese “trading house” stocks.
Those investments are now worth just under $20 billion.
Citing Charlie Munger’s praise of BYD in February’s Daily Journal annual meeting streamed by CNBC when he said the company is “so much ahead of Tesla in China …it’s almost ridiculous,” Barron’s suggests he and Buffett “might disagree” on EVs.
But at that same meeting, Munger said it’s “not a cheap stock” and “you can understand why someone would sell BYD’s stock at 50 times earnings.”
Berkshire underperforming S&P at year’s halfway mark
Today was the last trading day of the first half of 2023, and with the benchmark S&P stock index increasing by 15.9%, its best first half since 2019, it is easily outperforming Berkshire, despite BRK’s solid gains. With dividends included, the S&P’s lead is even greater, with a gain of 16.9%.
Berkshire’s A shares are up 10.5% and the B shares are up 10.3%.
