The new Buffett holdings are below.

American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) was roughly 151.6 million shares, SAME AS last quarter.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE: BK) was almost 19 million shares, which appears to be slightly lower but it had been raised before. What matters here is that it remains a substantial holding still.

Chicago Bridge & Iron Co. (NYSE: CBI) was a NEW POSITION at just over 6.5 million shares worth over $400 million.

Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) was more than 400 million shares due to the stock split of 2012, but this is virtually the SAME AS BEFORE.

ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) is the SAME POSITION at 24.1 million shares, but this is lower than in prior quarters.

Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) was the SAME POSITION at 4,333,363 shares.

DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) was a LARGER POSITION and already more than a 10% stake and we recently saw that Berkshire Hathaway had entered into a standstill agreement not to buy more than 25% of the company after already having increased its stake recently. This was listed as 14.97 million shares as of March 31 versus 13.6 million shares before.

Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE) was the SAME POSITION at roughly 4 million shares.

DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) was HIGHER YET AGAIN at 37.275 million shares versus almost 34 million shares and that was also higher than before.

Gannett Co. (NYSE: GCI) was the SAME POSITION of 1.74 million shares.

General Electric Corp. (NYSE: GE) is listed as the SAME POSITION at 588,900 shares, but this is still way down from prior reports.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) is the SAME POSITION at 25 million shares, but this was previously up from smaller positions.

GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) is the SAME POSITION at 1.51 million shares.

Estimates come from Thomson Reuters and we have added color on each if applicable.

Pfizer Co. (NYSE: PFE) is set to report earnings Tuesday April 30. The drug giant is in the DJIA and is expected to report earnings of $0.56 EPS and $14.0 billion in revenue. Pfizer is within about 2% of a 52-week and multi-year high with a $219 billion market cap.

Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK) reports earnings on Wednesday May 1 and shares are within about 2% of multi-year highs. Merck is in the DJIA and earnings are expected to be $0.79 EPS and $11.09 billion in revenue.

Kraft Foods Inc. (NASDAQ: KRFT) is the most recently booted of the former DJIA stocks, but that was due to the split-up of the company to form Mondelez and Kraft as separate companies. We are not giving historic comparisons as analysts are generally very slow to smooth out spin-off data for a couple or few quarters. Estimates are $0.64 EPS on $4.49 billion in revenue.

American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) is a former DJIA stock as well and it is set to report earnings on Thursday, May 2. Earnings are expected to be $0.87 EPS and $8.64 billion in revenue. AIG is within about 3.5% of multi-year post-bailout highs. As a reminder, Uncle Sam owns no more shares and has no more official oversight of AIG’s daily operations outside of tight regulatory monitoring that should be expected for years.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) is another former DJIA component which is listed twice here today but it reports on Thursday, May 2. The big question is whether or not Uncle Sam and the Treasury will sell many more millions of shares as we have been led to believe in recent weeks. GM is expected to report earnings at $0.54 EPS on $36.6 billion in revenue. Expect Europe to remain a huge drag here. Amazingly enough, GM is within 0.5% of a 52-week high now.

On Thursday, May 2 we get International Paper (NYSE: IP) earnings. This is a former DJIA stock that is often forgotten about from the past, but it still has a $20.8 billion market cap. Its earnings are expected to be $0.74 EPS and $7.05 billion in revenue. Shares are about 3% short of a 52-week high.

American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) is holding its annual meeting on Monday, April 29, 2013. The news we have seen so far is that a vote proposed to split the role of chairman and CEO has failed.

Other DJIA Issues To Watch:

General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) and Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) are both former DJIA components and are both set to release April auto sales on Wednesday May 1. Again, GM reports earnings the following day. Ford has already released its earnings.

E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (NYSE: DD) is set to have its annual investor meeting on Thursday, May 2. DuPont shares are literally a few cents off of new 52-week highs.

International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) has yet to confirm this expected dividend hike we have been waiting for. We named it among the other three dividend hikes of the DJIA stocks expected in April and we expect the company to be aggressive on the dividend front. A hike of only a few percent will not give us much satisfaction because IBM has no organic growth and the company’s dividend yield of 1.7% is pretty pathetic considering the yield of other DJIA and even against DJIA technology stocks.

The U.S. dollar index is trading down 0.14% today, now at 82.563. The GSCI commodity index is down 1.5% at 600.97. WTI crude oil closed up 1.2% today, at $XX a barrel. Brent crude trades 1.77% at $100.39 a barrel. Natural gas is up 4.8% today at about $4.40 per million BTUs, after the weekly storage report showed a smaller-than-expected build in inventories (more coverage here). Gold settled up 0.7% today at $1,392.50 an ounce.

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down more than 79 points to 14,539.14 (-0.54%), the NASDAQ fell more than 38 points (-1.20%) to 3,166.36, and the S&P 500 fell -0.67% or more than 10 points to 1,541.63.

There were a several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Qiagen NV (NASDAQ: QGEN) started as ‘sell’ at Citigroup; Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT) started as ‘overweight’ at HSBC; HollyFrontier Corp. (NYSE: HFC) raised to ‘buy’ at BofA/Merrill Lynch; American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) started as ‘outperform’ with a price target of $50 at BMO Capital Markets; and FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) cut to ‘underperform’ at RBC Capital Markets.

Earnings reports since markets closed last night resulted in some price moves today, including these as of the last half hour of trading: American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) is up 1.7% at $65.20 (more coverage here); SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) is down 6.7% at $52.00 (more coverage here); eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) is down 5.6% at $52.98 (more coverage here); Kinder Morgan Inc. (NYSE: KMI) is up 0.4% at $37.95 (more coverage here); AutoNation Inc. (NYSE: AN) is up 1.7% at $43.22 (more coverage here); Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (NYSE: FCX) is up 0.3% at $28.09; Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is down 4.7% at $20.47 (more coverage here); Nucor Corp. (NYSE: NUE) is down 0.4% at $XX; Peabody Energy Corp. (NYSE: BTU) is up 8.2% at $20.58 (more coal coverage here); PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP) is up 2.8% at $81.08 after posting a new 52-week high of $83.44 earlier today (more coverage here); Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE: PM) is down 2.5% at $91.65 (more coverage here); and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) is up 3% at $51.01 after posting a new 52-week high of $51.67 (more coverage here).

Before markets open tomorrow morning we are scheduled to hear earnings reports from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF), Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (NYSE: CMG), E*Trade Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFC), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE: HON), McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD), Rockwell Collins Inc. (NYSE: COL), and Schlumberger NV (NYSE: SLB).

Some standouts among heavily traded stocks today include:

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) is down 12.6% at $3.13. The mobile phone maker posted weak first quarter results. There’s no mercy in the markets. More coverage here.

Rite Aid Corp. (NYSE: RAD) is up 6.2% at $2.39. The drug store chain accepted the resignation of board member Jean Coutu, who has been reducing his group’s stake in the company. More coverage here.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is down 2.7% at $392.06. The tech giant’s shares will close below $400 for the first time in more than a year.

Stay tuned for Friday. Fed Governor Jeremy Stein is giving a speech. There are no other events on tomorrow’s schedule.

American Express plans to raise its dividend from the current $0.20 per quarter to $0.23, beginning in the second quarter. The company expects to buy back $3.2 billion in stock over the course of 2013 and up to an additional $1 billion in the first quarter of next year.

The company’s CEO said:

Cardmember spending grew 6 percent (7 percent adjusted for foreign currency translations) and we saw a modest increase in loans outstanding. Revenue from annual cardmember fees was also up from a year ago, reflecting the value our customers see in their relationship with American Express. Credit indicators continued to be excellent. We made good headway throughout the business and continue to see very encouraging customer response to initiatives like our reloadable prepaid products and loyalty marketing initiatives that are expanding our footprint into newer segments of the market. Progress on cost control initiatives allowed us to continue to make investments to grow the business, while holding operating expenses well within our target of less than 3 percent annual growth for the next two years.

Last quarter American Express announced a restructuring of the company that included the firing of 5,400 employees and a pre-tax charge of $400 million to pay for the restructuring.

For the 2013 fiscal year, consensus estimates call for EPS of $4.76 on revenue of $33.33 billion. Today’s report from American Express did not include any guidance.

Shares are down about 1.1% at $64.13 in after-hours trading today. The 52-week range is $53.02 to $67.76. Prior to today’s release Thomson/Reuters had a consensus price target of around $67.00 on the company’s shares.

The U.S. dollar index is trading up 1.06% today, now at 82.613. The GSCI commodity index is up 0.2% at 609.91. WTI crude oil closed down 2.3% today, at $86.68 a barrel after small drop in the EIA’s inventory report (more coverage here). Brent crude trades down 2.1% at $100.39 a barrel. Natural gas is up 1.2% today at about $4.19 per million BTUs. Gold settled down 0.3% today at $1,382.70 an ounce.

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down nearly 139 points to 14,618.13 (-0.94%), the NASDAQ fell about 60 points (-1.84%) to 3,204.67, and the S&P 500 fell -1.43% or nearly 23 points to 1,552.00.

There were a several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) reiterated as ‘sell’ at Argus; Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU) started as ‘overweight’ with a price target of $85 at Barclays; Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd. (NYSE: QIHU) started as ‘overweight’ with a price target of $38 at Barclays; Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE) cut to ‘neutral’ at Macquarie; and Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) reiterated as ‘outperform’ and price target raised to $59 at Oppenheimer.

Earnings reports since markets closed last night resulted in some price moves today, including these as of the last half hour of trading: CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) is up XX% at $XX (more railroad coverage here); Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) is up XX% at $XX (more coverage here) United Rentals Inc. (NYSE: URI) is up XX% at $XX; Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is up XX% at $XX (more coverage here); Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) is up XX% at $XX (more coverage here); and Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) is up XX% at $XX (more coverage here).

Before markets open tomorrow morning we are scheduled to hear earnings reports from American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP), SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK), eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), Kinder Morgan Inc. (NYSE: KMI), AutoNation Inc. (NYSE: AN), Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (NYSE: FCX), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), Nucor Corp. (NYSE: NUE), Peabody Energy Corp. (NYSE: BTU), PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP), Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE: PM), Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK), and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ).

Some standouts among heavily traded stocks today include:

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. (NYSE: MHR) is down XX% at $XX after posting a new 52-week low of $2.43 earlier today. The struggling oil & gas producer fired its auditing firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, last night after the auditors asked for additional information that might have a material impact on the company’s financial statements.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is down XX% at $XX. The tech giant’s shares fell below $400 for a moment today. More coverage here.

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) is up XX% at $XX. The mobile phone maker reports earnings tomorrow morning, and the struggles at Apple are assumed to be good news for Nokia.

Stay tuned for Thursday. Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota and Fed Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin are giving speeches. We have also noted the following events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 8:30 a.m. – New claims for unemployment benefits
• 10:00 a.m. – Philadelphia Fed survey
• 10:00 a.m. – Leading indicators
• 10:30 a.m. – EIA weekly petroleum status report
• 1:00 p.m. – 5-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) auction
• 4:30 p.m. – Fed balance sheet and money supply

Facebook’s revenue in 2012 was $5.1 billion. Some analysts expect that number to move about $7 billion this year. According to research by Business Insider, the largest advertisers on Facebook spend many, many times what GM spent, even when its investment was $10 million. These marketers include AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG), American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT). Either GM is behind the curve in its adoption of social networks as an effective ad tool, or car marketing does not work as well on Facebook as marketing for consumer goods, retail and credit cards.

GM’s budget for Facebook never made any difference to the social network’s success, any more than if a large advertiser did not use newspapers, radio or television. Big corporations have reasons why they think one medium works better than another, depending on the message the want to send, the creative execution they use and their demographic targets. If GM wants to adopt Facebook as a medium, it may be as much because it has decided that, for some products, during some periods, social networks are more effective than, say, TV.

Just as marketers move from television to print, to online banner ads, to social media, an investment in Facebook as a marketing medium may have no more relevance than the fickle nature of how companies sell products and services.

Monday’s change of authorization replaces the prior share repurchase program that had been in place. The company’s previous plan was also for up to 150 million shares of common stock, but American Express only had about 70 million shares of common stock remaining on that previous plan.

We look at the buyback adjustment as good, but note that American Express hit a new 52-week high on Monday as well. At $66.35 now, the new 52-week range is $53.02 to $66.77.

Some investors may be confused about the dividend. When the Federal Reserve approved an increase in the buyback and an increase in the dividend, it was to raise the payout to $0.23 per common share starting in the second quarter. American Express declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.20 per common share, so this will be the fifth such payment at $0.20 per share. Again, the company did get approval to boost the dividend but apparently that is now a quarter out.

What we are disappointed about here is that American Express will yield only 1.4%, rounded up from 1.2%. For being at the high-end of the consumer, American Express just does not offer a high enough dividend yield. As a reminder, American Express is a longstanding member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and this is a low yield when compared to many DJIA stocks.

Safeway currently owns about 96% of Blackhawk and “will continue to hold shares of Class B common stock representing a significant majority of the combined voting power” of Blackhawk’s outstanding shares after the offering. The lead underwriters for the offering are Goldman Sachs, BofA/Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank Securities.

According to the filing, Blackhawk currently counts among its gift-card customers such high-profile companies as Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW), Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M), Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) and Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes. The company also serves the three large payment networks: American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP), Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) and Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA). Blackhawk also issues reloadable cards for Green Dot Corp. (NYSE: GDOT) among others, including its own PayPower brand.

Blackhawk’s filing indicates that the company will receive none of the net proceeds from the offering. Class A shares will have one vote and Class B shares will have 10 votes on all matters that are put to a shareholder vote.

According to the filing, Blackhawk posted net income of $48.165 million in 2012 on operating revenues of $959.07 million, up from $362 million in revenues and $22.7 million in operating profits in 2001, the year the company was founded.

Among the banks getting approval for their capital plans were Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) and Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC). American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) received approval to pare back its stock repurchase plan.

J.P. Morgan already had received approval to repurchase $6 billion in stock and boost its quarterly dividend from $0.30 to $0.38 a share, but the bank’s CEO warned that it may have to cut its plans after it prepares a new capital plan at the end of the third quarter. Goldman will also submit a new plan at the same time.

Bank of America plans to repurchase up to $5 billion in common stock and $5.5 billion in preferred stock. The bank’s quarterly dividend of $0.01 will not change.

Citigroup plans to buy back $1.2 billion in common stock through the end of the first quarter of next year and plans no change to its $0.01 quarterly dividend.

Shares of J.P. Morgan are trading down about 2% in the premarket this morning, at $50.06 in a 52-week range of $30.83 to $51.00.

Goldman’s shares are trading down about 1.6%, at $151.62 in a 52-week range of $90.43 to $159.00.

Bank of America is trading up 3.7% at $12.56, a 52-week high, in a current range of $6.72 to $12.44.

Citigroup is trading up fractionally at $47.50 in a range of $24.61 to $47.92.

The companies paying the most in taxes tend to fall into only a few categories. The first is huge oil companies that often post outsized profits every year. They are both large and getting larger as the price of oil rises and remains near historic highs.

Click here to see the 10 companies paying the most in taxes

Click here to see the 10 companies paying the least in taxes

Another group of companies that pays very high taxes are the large tech companies, particularly those that have been around for some time. Unlike the darlings of the moment such as Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) pays tremendous taxes and has done so for many years. Even though its growth has slowed, it continues to be very profitable.

The third group is the most unlikely, at least in the eyes of most investors. The banking industry was nearly ruined by the 2008 global financial crisis. However, since then banks have bounced back, and many have huge profits from trading and investment banking operations, and even from renewed demand for mortgages.

Oddly, while some politicians and the public would like to see the tax burden on the mammoth companies raised, other experts want to see the tax rate reduced. Organizations such as the Tax Foundation have made the case that lower taxes will encourage companies to add workers, expand and make more purchases of plants and other equipment. While this opinion is probably not very popular, it illustrates how complex the issue of corporate taxes can be.

Regardless of how this debate will shake out, each of the 10 companies on this list paid at least $4 billion in taxes, and one of them, Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), paid more than $30 billion. It is at least some evidence that America’s large companies often pay extraordinary amounts.

To identify the companies that pay the most taxes, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed corporate tax payments for the top 150 companies by revenue. Included in our analysis were company financials, including income, employee count and earnings before taxes. These were either provided by Capital IQ, or obtained by 24/7 Wall St. reviews of SEC filings or financial statements. All data, including taxes paid, are for 2012, or the most recent complete fiscal year.

These are the companies paying the most in taxes.