24/7 Wall St.

The New York Times has a new writer, at least for a day.  Warren Buffett has written an op-ed piece for the paper titled "Buy American. I Am." to shore up some hope for stability in the markets.  The Oracle of Omaha said that he is buying common stocks in his personal account.  In the past he has only held government bonds and shares of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A), and recently he has announced support for Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) as the triple-a rated bank was listed as a personal holding of his.  As you will see below, we have put together a list of stocks which we feel Buffett might have added to his personal account.

He is keeping with his mantra of "Be fearful when others are greedy,and be greedy when others are fearful."  Buffett says he can’t predictthe short-term movements, but he wants to buy stocks when they arebattered and will be the clear winners with record profits in timeframes of 5, 10, and 20 years down the road.  Buffett is also notingthat holding cash is not a smart investment.

Here is his recent GE investment and here is his recent Goldman investment.  Based upon his comments on those stocks, it would be very hard to imagine that Buffett didn’t add those two stocks into his personal account.  As Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) is one he has called the only triple-a bank and one of the best around, it is hard to imagine he would not have added to his position.

Mr. Buffett is acreature of habit and that has led us to peruse other stock he might bebuying as their shares have been on sale.  We also looked atstocks where the fundamentals are fairly easy to see for many years.We’d be willing to bet that Buffett added to holdings of Coca-Cola(NYSE: KO), Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT), Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE), and perhapsas part of his recent synthetic trade in Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI).

Here is the full list of his other recent holdings in Berkshire Hathaway if you want to try guessing which other companies he’s buying into.

Jon C. Ogg
October 17, 2008