Of the top brands, the following came in after Apple:

2. International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM)

3. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)

4. McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD)

5. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT)

6. Coca-Cola Corporation (NYSE: KO)

7. Marlboro of Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO)

8. AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T)

9. Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE: VZ)

10. China Mobile Limited (NYSE: CHL)

11. General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE)

The ‘Top Riser” from 2011 to 2012 was Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) with a 74% rise

The full Millward Brown study on these brands gets broken down into segments such as industry, brand growth, geographic, and sectors.

JON C. OGG

The U.S. allows China to buy treasuries directly without banker assistance. (Reuters)

MF Global paid Jon Corzine $8 million in the year before it collapsed. (Reuters)

The new BrandZ annual study of brand values puts Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) in the top position, followed by McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD), Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), IBM (NYSE: IBM), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). (Reuters)

Trading losses at JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) help competitors make money. (Reuters)

Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) will share Wi-Fi systems to give customers more access to wireless broadband. (WSJ)

Many traders blame Morgan Stanley for overpricing Facebook shares. (WSJ)

France and Germany remain in a battle over the future of austerity in the region. (WSJ)

Facebook’s largest hurdle with investors remains its mobile strategy. (WSJ)

The European Union gives Google little time to answer charges about its business practices, which include privacy matters. (WSJ)

Formula One Group will go public on the Singapore Stock Exchange to raise $2.5 billion. (WSJ)

Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA) shares are hurt by the drop in Facebook’s stock. (WSJ)

JP Morgan will kill is share buybacks because of trading losses. (NYT)

Eastman Kodak loses its patent case against Apple and Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM). (NYT)

France will press its neighbors to create eurozone-wide bonds. (FT)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Former CEO Market Hurd built his reputation because he was a talented cost cutter. He fired more people than Whitman will with the upcoming cuts. In one move, after HP bought tech consultant EDS, he sacked 24,000 people he deemed redundant. Despite the human damage, he increased HP’s margins and its share price. If it were not for indiscretions, he would still be wielding his axe.

IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) multidecade turnaround and success was built on a weeding out of weak businesses and bolstering of good ones, along with a smattering of smart M&A. Starting with uber-CEO Louis Gerstner, IBM cuts its workforce by tens of thousands. Some observers believe IBM continues to silently let people go as it outsources their jobs to India and other parts of Asia. Not many months ago, IBM’s shares were at an all-time high.

One of the most proficient cost cutters in the tech world is Larry Ellison of Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), one of his generation’s great success stories. His serial acquisitions of smaller companies almost always result in elimination of redundant jobs.

Layoffs at weak tech firms may seem cruel and examples of how some people who have jobs today help a company atone for past sins. But they also are often the start of new focus by a CEO with reasonable plans to make his or her company much better, at least financially.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Also, keep in mind that portfolio managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler are still new and those new positions of under $200 million $300 million are likely tied to them.

24/7 Wall St. has gone through line by line of each position to see which stocks have been bought and sold as new positions, as well as having added in whether or not the number of shares grew or shrank on each since the prior quarter. We had added some color in on some of the positions if applicable.

Be advised that the number of subsidiaries that this filing covers is 14 entities rather than 18 entities in the prior quarter. There is also a note in the 13F filing showing that the SEC has granted “Confidential Treatment” on some Berkshire stock holdings and that likely suggests that Buffett is still acquiring a position he does not want the public to know about yet. This filing does not signal the half-dozen or more European shares that Buffett said he bought so that remains an outstanding issue as well.

The value of the stock portfolio was $66,151,587,000 at the end of 2011 and this was listed as $75,300,250,000 at the end of March 2012.

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

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE: BK) is now 5.6 million shares, HIGHER THAN the 1,793,915 shares last quarter.

CVS Caremark Corporation (NYSE: CVS) is the SAME SIZE at 7.106 million shares after having been a new holding in a recent quarter and having been raised one quarter ago.

Coca Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) was right at 200 million shares, SAME AS BEFORE.

ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) is roughly 29.1 million shares, roughly the SAME AS BEFORE but it is still lower than previous quarters in past reports.

Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ: COST) 4,333,363 Shares, SAME AS last quarter after having lowered it before.

Da Vita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) is now 6 million shares worth $541 million and that LARGER THAN BEFORE after having been a new position of 2.684 million shares.

DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) is a LARGER POSITION listed at 22.999 million worth over $1.13 billion. This one had been 20.348 million shares worth $870 million one quarter earlier and it had been a new position just two quarters ago at 4.249 million shares.

Read: America’s Hottest Brands

Generally, most brand analysis done by the business press is biased toward dollar valuations and contributions to corporate earnings. Obviously, financial success is one factor that demonstrates how well a brand is regarded by consumers. But brand valuation is a financial view, and not one that relies entirely on consumer perception. Based on analysis performed by brand expert company CoreBrand, 24/7 Wall St. wanted to see brands through the eyes of the consumer. For this reason, Corebrand examined brands from the standpoint of favorability and familiarity.

One of the most notable results of the analysis is the high ranking of brands not normally present on most highly valued brands list. When they are evaluated through the consumers’ eyes, however, brands that belong to companies that are struggling financially can still be high on a consumer-perception weighted list. These brands, naturally, are used by a large number of people. More than that, the consumer interaction with the product and services associated with the brand is positive.

Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) and Avon (NYSE: AVP) would not appear high on most brand valuations lists. The two have struggled too much as companies and in the stock market to be high on any business-weighted brand list. They are, however, at the top of the list of brands with high favorability and familiarity. The Avon lady and Dell laptops still carry weight with consumers.

Financial success does not exclude consumer success; they usually go together. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Ford (NYSE: F) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) do extremely well according to CoreBrand’s ranking. Each of these corporations has posted large profits over the past few years. Their shareholders have also done well. The products and services from the companies have boosted sales fairly consistently.

24/7 Wall St. examined the “hottest” brands list from independent brand valuation firm CoreBrand. CoreBrand looked at the largest brands where both favorability and familiarity increased, measured by overall reputation, perception of management and investment potential. 24/7 Wall St. then ranked the six brands with the greatest increases in favorability from the fourth quarter of 2010 to the fourth quarter of 2011.

These are America’s hottest brands.

The technology sector needs for Cisco to show that the warnings of spotty spending a month ago were just contextual.  Does Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) have much to do with Cisco?  Technically not a thing if you just use common sense.  The reality is different though.  Apple remains the tech darling of Wall Street but its shares have pulled back and have gotten down almost as low as they were before the huge earnings gap-up in the last couple of weeks.

The first two issues to address are Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) and Alcatel-Lucent, S.A. (NYSE: ALU).  Juniper turned in an earnings report that looked like it was offering a stabilization to a really bad drop, but its stock popped up and then immediately pulled back and the stock is now under where it was before earnings.  Alcatel-Lucent just gave poor results this earnings season and its stock is back under $1.50 per ADR and is floundering as it tries to find some sense of remaining relevant outside of Europe.

The real issue here is Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) with Cisco.  Many analysts do not compare Oracle and Cisco enough because up until lately Oracle was more of a software play.  With Sun under its belt it has datacenter exposure but even if Oracle was to jettison its physical equipment the comparison is still crucial to understand.  While Cisco is a very different part of the enterprise technology dollars to be spent, weakness in one may mean weakness in another as technology officers can push orders out further on the horizon.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) is now more and more of a competitor with Cisco as well, even though the company was trying to get rid of the PC unit.  By competing in the datacenter, the former partners now compete.  H-P is also an off-calendar quarterly reporting company and its shares are back down to almost $23.00 and close to a 52-week low.

There is also the old ties to Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM) and Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK), although this is more historic than present day.  Both companies remain highly challenged and we suspect that their futures will both remain challenged regardless of what Cisco says in its conference call.

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (NASDAQ: CTSH) recently kept the pace of other IT-outsourcing outfits by warning about a weak IT-spending climate but it was hard to not notice that some of the more fresh weakness was noted as being in North America.  Cisco could easily be in a different bucket here, but we did see this trend as almost unified in the outsourcing segment.

Perhaps the biggest relevance is International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM).  IBM’s services backlog was slightly lower but IBM is still maintaining its long-term goals of $20.00 in earnings per share.  The stock is still within 5% of all-time highs and it has recently juiced up its dividend more than expected.

Cisco is also the last major tech report before Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) updates investors this Thursday.  It has only been about three weeks since Intel’s earnings report and we are only 24 hours or so since the chip and processor giant announced a dividend hike of its own.  Shares of Intel are now off almost $2.00 from the high of $29.27 and the consensus price target is $29.72.

Cisco shares are back under the $19.00 mark after having been at $20.00 as recently as May 1, 2012 and having been at $21.00 as recently as April 3, 2012.  The 52-week trading range is $13.30 to $21.30 and the consensus price target from Thomson Reuters is $22.58.

The Thomson Reuters estimates for Cisco are $0.47 EPS and $11.57 billion in revenue.  Cisco usually offers guidance in the conference call rather than in the press release and those estimates are $0.49 EPS and $11.99 billion in sales for the quarter ahead.  Keep in mind that Cisco trades at a mere 10.2-times its expected earnings for the fiscal year-end of July 2012.

As far as Cisco on the stock charts, this has been very weak and the 50-day moving average was up above at $19.00 and the 200-day moving average was lower around $18.13.  Both of those figures are likely to be a couple of cents different on Wednesday ahead of earnings.

A more detailed preview will appear Wednesday morning ahead of the formal Cisco earnings report showing expectations for cash, margins, options trading, stock charts, and a final revised set of earnings estimates.

Your email address

subscribe

terms and conditions

JON C. OGG

When Team Buffett adds to a position, it is often in the new or relatively new positions already in the Buffett portfolio.  24/7 Wall St. has taken a look at the recent additional stake or new stake positions to see which shares that Mr. Buffett and his team of portfolio managers has likely added to along with some color and logic behind the move.

CVS Caremark Corporation (NYSE: CVS) was a larger position as of the end of 2011 at 7.106 million shares after having been a new holding in a recent quarter.  This was worth about $280 million at the start of 2012 and it is up more than 10% since then and the market cap here is $58 billion.

Da Vita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) was previously listed as a new position of 2.684 million shares worth $203 million at the end of 2011 but that position is worth about 12% more.  This is the leader as a kidney dialysis provider.  If the health trends remain then this one is right up Buffett’s alley.

DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) was most recently listed as a larger position which was listed as 20.348 million shares worth $870 million at the end of 2011.  In a prior report we had it as a new position of 4.249 million shares one quarter earlier.  The share price alone is up over 13% from the value at the end of 2011.

Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG) is one of the stocks which we think Team Buffett would have liked to own much more of.  The rapid rise in the value of the dollar store trends as a secular theme was even noticed at Berkshire.  This was the same size at the end of 2011 at 4.497 million shares but this was a new position and a larger position and it seems that the price just appreciated too fast for Buffett and friends to add many shares.  Perhaps they participated in the most recent secondary offering, but that might not appear based on the cut-off dates.

General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE: GD) was most recently a larger stake of 3.877 million shares worth $257 million after being listed as a new position just one quarter earlier before of 3.064 million shares.  These shares are hardly higher than the end of 2011, so perhaps Buffett and team have added to the stake on weakness.

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) was a larger of 11.495 million shares worth $278 million at the end of 2011; this was a new position of 9.333 million shares last quarter.  Shares are up 16% so far in 2012, so Buffett’s stake here may have grown in size and in value.

International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) is one that Buffett already hinted at owning more of, but perhaps that is due to IBM’s share float shrinking from its buybacks.  The most recent filing showed some 63.905 million shares worth some $11.75 billion now after having been a new position with an average cost of about $170 per share.  Buffett’s bet has been worth more than a 10% unrealized gain ($1 billion or so) on what is now one of his largest positions.

Liberty Media Corporation (NASDAQ: LMCA) was a new position of 1.7 million shares worth some $132.7 million.  If Buffett is involved much here, it is under his new portfolio managers. Shares are up about 6% this year so far but it is unknown what the real goal or strategy is here when you consider the DirecTV angle.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) was most recently listed as a larger position of 2.865 million shares worth $291 million at the end of 2011.  This was listed as 2.291 million shares in the previous quarter.  The company has a near-duopoly and market strength and history that it seems just like a Buffett dream.  He likes banks, but owning the toll road providers for the theme of consumers using less cash and more card swipes in the years ahead.

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) is almost certainly a larger stake.  The reason for believing that is that Wells Fargo seems to be a position which grows in size infinitely and it was raised during the prior filing period to more than 383 million shares.  As of Friday’s closing bell, that stake (assuming no share count growth at all) would be worth a shopping $12.65 billion.

It is unlikely that Buffett would have added to each and every position.  He just doesn’t do that and his new team may be more interested in adding on other new targeted stocks on the books.

Again, here is the FULL BUFFETT STOCK HOLDINGS.

If you enjoyed the top Buffett picks, you can join our free email newsletter that includes analyst summaries each morning sent right to your inbox.  We also cover top issues such as IPOs, special financial exclusives, mergers, Warren Buffett and guru tracking, and more. Sign up in the box below.

Your email address

subscribe

terms and conditions

JON C. OGG

Prostate cancer and the issue of Buffett’s successor are likely first.  Will this cause shareholders to call for a more focused disclosure over who will take over as CEO? Even if so, every Berkshire Hathaway investor knows that Berkshire Hathaway is Warren Buffett and Warren Buffett is Berkshire Hathaway.  Our take: Buffett is likely to divulge his successor only when it is on his terms or when the decision must be announced.

The second issue is The Buffett Rule.  Most of the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders are not exactly middle class.  They are usually the one-percenters, at least they are for the A-Shares with that super-high share price.  Warren Buffett was met with a cold stare from the audience before when he defended Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and it will be interesting to see how the audience reacts to any notion of paying higher taxes and their chief capitalist calling for Obama and Washington D.C. to increase the tax burden on the wealthy.

Read Also: Buffett’s Full Investment Holdings

While this may seem like a sideshow, the investments in International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) almost have to be a topic to bring up.  For years Mr. Buffett has shied away from technology.  A $10 billion bet or thereabouts has only grown in value and we all know that Buffett said he would never invest in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) because his close ties with Bill Gates would be construed as possessing knowledge that is too close to the situation.

It will be interesting to see if Buffett addresses relatively new positions such as DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) and Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG).  DaVita is the king of kidney dialysis and if that is not a captive market then no other market is captive.  Dollar General is one we have referred to over and over as benefitting from the secular trend of dollar stores as these stores are reaching up to grab customers from traditional retailers.

We would also expect to hear a little bit more about the investing decisions and input from Berkshire’s two new portfolio managers Ted Weschler and Todd Combs.

With extremely large stakes in Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) and with those positions now being up near highs again, it will be interesting to see if Buffett addresses these core holdings as keys to the core holdings with higher dividends.

Berkshire Hathaway’s A-shares closed on Thursday at $121,800 against a 52-week range of $98,952.00 to $123,578.00; and the B-shares closed at $81.26 against a 52-week range of $65.35 to $82.47.

JON C. OGG

• Happy Birthday Dell!! What an incredible journey it’s been and continues to be. Revenue from the start to now is about $700 Billion!

Here is what is interesting about the milestone.  Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is the current love of technology in the current market, and expectations from Thomson Reuters show revenue projections of $162.4 billion for fiscal 2012 and $195.5 billion in 2013.  That is over $350 billion expected in only two years.  Sales in each of the last three years were $108 billion, $65 billion, and almost $43 billion, respectively, and that comes to a total of $216 billion more.

If you look at the last three years of sales for Dell it is $62 billion, $61.5 billion, and $52.9 billion, respectively.  Thomson Reuters has estimates of almost $62.5 billion in 2013 (January year-end) and $63.5 billion in 2014.

Dell is moving more and more towards services while it still competes head to head in PC sales (and services) against Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ).  Gateway has been gobbled up and International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) thought so much of the personal computer business that it sold that PC unit to Lenovo in China.

Up until April it was every new day that analysts were hiking their price targets almost daily and that Apple stock was rising and rising.  Apple experienced what Dell experienced in the 1990s.  Dell finds no such love from analysts and at $16.27 its consensus analyst price target is now almost $19.50 against a 52-week range of $13.29 to $18.36.  Dell has not been able to come close to $20.00 since the entire stock market recovery started in early 2009.

The market is in love with Apple even if the shares have finally decided to take a breather, yet it has little love for the likes of Dell.  Apple trades at 12.4-times its expected September 2012 (year-end) earnings and Dell trades at just under 7.7-times its expected January 2013 (year-end) estimates.  Apple is now paying a dividend, Dell is not.

What investors have to remember is that the stock market does not reward a company for its past.  It tries to act as a discounting mechanism for the future, or a prediction tool of sorts.  IBM is within 2% or so of its all-time highs and it is now over $100 billion per year in sales, yet that is entirely without the PC division and what is effectively no more real products sold retail to Joe Public.  Apple hit new all-time highs earlier in 2012 yet Dell’s all-time share price peaked above $59.00 at the peak back in March of 2000 during the tech bubble.

Is there a moral to the story?  Unfortunately, it is not what you did in the past… It is what you are expected to do in the future.

JON C. OGG

Read The Most Powerful CEOs in America

Read The Least Powerful CEOs in America

The most powerful CEOs fall into three categories. The first are founders who are currently CEOs. They may, by themselves, or with other founders, have voting control over their companies. Larry Page of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is the best example of this. He started the Internet search engine with Sergey Brin. Together with Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt, who they hired, the three hold shares that have nearly two-thirds of the company’s voting rights.

The next category is founders who no longer have the majority of the vote in their companies, but who have been in charge successfully for so long that their job security is not in question. Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) is the best example of this group. He owns slightly less than 20% of the company that he started in 1994. This stake is greater than that of any other shareholder. But it is his status as founder and his tremendous success that ensure he will not be replaced unless he wishes to be.

The final category of powerful CEOs are relatives of founders. These CEOs inherited the voting rights, usually from their parents, and they use those rights to run the company for another generation. The best example of this is Brian Roberts of Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), whose father started the company. By almost any measure, Comcast has done well financially and in the stock market. Even if it did not, Roberts would have his job.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the corporate structure, governance and voting rights of the 500 largest companies by market cap. Based on a review of company proxies, we identified those companies where the CEO had voting control of the company or was the company’s founder. We then limited the universe to those companies with market cap in excess of $30 billion.

These are 24/7 Wall St.’s most powerful CEOs in America.