Berkshire's latest stock buys & sells; Munger's latest on wretchedness and bull---- earnings

Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio filing and Charlie Munger's pithy opinions on all kinds of things.

VIEW IN BROWSER | SUBSCRIBE FRI, FEB 14, 2020 WARREN BUFFETT WATCH Berkshire adds Kroger and Biogen, cuts back on Goldman and Wells  Berkshire Hathaway revealed late this afternoon what was in its portfolio of U.S. publicly-traded stocks on December 31, the end of 2019's fourth quarter.   The highlights:   Goldman Sachs (GS): Slashed stake by 35% to 12 million shares, worth $2.8 billion at today's close. In 2013, Berkshire received around 13 million Goldman shares by exercising warrants that were part of its 2008 loan deal with Goldman at the height of the financial crisis.  The Q4 sales largely reversed purchases of Goldman shares in 2018. Wells Fargo (WFC): Reduced holding by 14.6 percent to 323 million shares, worth $15.6 billion. It's an acceleration of selling that's been underway since 2017 when Wells' "fake account" scandal was gaining steam. Early that year, Berkshire owned 9.6% of the bank's outstanding shares. Now the stake is down to around 7.6%. The Goldman and Wells sales were probably triggered by Buffett himself.   His portfolio managers, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, were also active in Q4. Based on the size of these moves, we think they can be attributed to them.   Kroger (KR): New stake of 18.9 million shares, worth $535 million. That's about 2% in the supermarket company. Kroger shares gained 6.3% after-hours on the news. Biogen (BIIB): New stake of 648 thousand shares, worth $216 million. It's just 0.4% of the biopharmaceutical's shares outstanding. The stock was up 2.0%. Occidental Petroleum (OXY): The percentage increase in Berkshire's stake, 154%, is enormous. But the value of the additional 11.5 million shares is a modest $478 million. The value of the entire stake is just $788 million. That's a strong indication the buying is not directly related to Buffett's deal last April to loan OXY $10 billion for its acquisition of Anadarko. RH (RH): Berkshire increased its stake by 41% in the home furnishings retailer previously known as Restoration Hardware. Its 9% of RH's shares outstanding is currently valued at $407 million. The company's shares were up 3.3% after-hours.    One interesting item: Berkshire reported owning around $25 million worth of two securities that mimic the S&P 500 stock index. Extremely small change by Berkshire standards, (the company has $128 billion in cash), but something I haven't seen before. Munger: "Wretched excess," Tesla, (expletive deleted) earnings & more When Charlie Munger answers questions at the annual meeting of the Daily Journal, (he's the chairman of the Los Angeles-based publisher serving the legal profession), he doesn't have to share the head table with Warren Buffett.   So, for a little more than 2 hours on Wednesday, it was pure Munger. As usual, he didn't disappoint, with pithy opinions on Tesla's high-flying stock and CEO Elon Musk, Chinese businesses and investors, inflation and economists, and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization).  There was also a lot of "wretched excess" mentioned. (Bill Smead talked about that on "The Exchange" yesterday.)   Of course, our CNBC camera was there. You can watch three minutes and 54 seconds of highlights here: Or you can watch all two hours, six minutes and 46 seconds here: BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET Some links may require a subscription Reuters reports on Brooks vs Brooks: "Berkshire's Brooks running unit sues Brooks Brothers over trademark" CNBC Make It highlights "The advice from Warren Buffett that inspired Bill and Melinda Gates" Inc. recalls that "Warren Buffett Says Anyone Can Achieve Success by Following 1 Simple Formula He Uses Every Day" A Forbes contributor makes the case that "Warren Buffett Has Started The Biggest Energy Revolution" with a "historic" solar deal AP has an on-the-scene report headlined "Warren Buffett's son helps Colombia kick cocaine curse"   CNN Business thinks "Investing like Warren Buffett might not be a good idea right now" as he trails the S&P 500 Bloomberg Opinion argues that "Kraft Heinz's Misery Isn't Over Yet," a bearish outlook for one of Berkshire's biggest holdings Markets Insider notes that today is Valentine's Day and "Warren Buffett loves using Valentine's Day to explain why See's Candies is his 'dream business'" BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH         BERKSHIRE'S TOP STOCK HOLDINGS      Berkshire's top stock holdings by market value, based on today's closing prices. The number of shares held is as of December 31, 2019, as disclosed in the company's February 14 13F SEC filing.   The full list of holdings and current market values is (usually) available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker. (We're having a technical problem right now, but we're working on it.)   QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)   If you aren't already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.    -- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch   Unsubscribe Manage Newsletters Terms of Service   Digital Products Feedback Privacy Policy   © 2020 CNBC LLC. All rights reserved. A property of NBCUniversal. 900 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes and Market Data and Analysis. 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