Posts for Ticker ‘TRV’

Buffett & Berkshire Hathaway Holdings P-Z Q3-2009 (BRK-A, BRK-B, PG, RSG, SNY, STI, TMK, TRV, USB, USG, UNH, UNP, UPS, WMT, WPO, WFC, WLP, WSC, WBC)

This is the list of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A)(BRK-B) public US equity holdings as of September 30, 2009.  As noted in the “A to F” and “G to O” lists, there have been changes since the cut off date and those have been noted where applicable. Here are Warren Buffett’s holdings and accompanying notes for the group ‘P to Z.’

  • Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) 96.3 million, the same as before.
  • Republic Services Inc. (NYSE: RSG) 3.625 million shares; NEW POSITION following Bill Gates.
  • Sanofi Aventis (NYSE: SNY) more than 3.9 million shares, same as before.
  • Sun Trust Bank (NYSE: STI) 3.079 million shares; DOWN FROM 3.2+ the quarter before.
  • Torchmark Corp. (NYSE: TMK) roughly 2.82 million, same as before.
  • Travellers Cos (NYSE: TRV) 27,336; NEW POSITION but small.
  • US Bancorp (NYSE: USB) roughly 69 million; Same as quarter before.
  • USG Corp. (NYSE: USG) 17.072 million shares, same as before.
  • United Health Group (NYSE: UNH) 3.4 million shares; DOWN from 4.5 million last quarter and down from over 6 million in Q1.
  • Union Pacific Corp. (NYSE: UNP) 9.55 million shares, same as quarter before but this does not matter as Buffett is dumping his non-BNSF rail holdings.
  • United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) 1.429 million shares, same as before.
  • Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) 37.8 million; WAY UP from the 19.9+ million shares last quarter.
  • Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) over 1.72 million shares, same as before.
  • Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) 313.3 million shares; ABOVE THE PRIOR 302+ million last quarter and above the 290+ million in Q1.
  • Wellpoint Inc. (NYSE: WLP) 3.394 million; DOWN SLIGHTLY from the 3.5 million last quarter and from the 4.7773 million in Q1.
  • Wesco Financial Corp. (NYSE: WSC) 5.7 million shares, same as before.

WABCO Holdings (NYSE: WBC) IS GONE after being 2.7 million shares last quarter.

BUFETT HOLDINGS ‘A to F’

BUFFETT HOLDINGS ‘G to O’

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JON C. OGG

Posted on: November 16, 2009 – 5:11 pm in Activist Investor, Buffett, Conglomerates, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Positive Earnings Show From All 5 DJIA Components (T, MCD, MRK, MMM, TRV)

NYSE Floor ImageWe have seen earnings from five of the thirty DJIA components this morning alone.  All were above expectations, even if some of the year over year comparisons do not look that great at some.  We had AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD), Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK), 3M Co. (NYSE: MMM), and The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE: TRV) all on deck.  We included estimates from Thomson Reuters for comparison, as well as performance and relative color where applicable.
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Posted on: October 22, 2009 – 8:28 am in Earnings, , , , ,

Top 10 Analyst Upgrades, Downgrades, Initiations (ACE, ADSK, ADP, BCS, EAT, EP, LXK, NRG, PAYX, TRV)

These are this Wednesday’s top ten analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations which we have seen early on from Wall Street research calls:

ACE Limited (ACE) Started as Outperform at RBC Capital Markets.
Autodesk (ADSK) Raised to Buy at Kaufman Bros.
Automatic Data (ADP) Started as Outperform at RBC Capital Markets.
Barclays plc (BCS) Started as Outperform at FBR.
Brinker International Inc. (EAT) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
El Paso Corp. (EP) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
Lexmark (LXK) Raised to Neutral at JPMOrgan.
NRG Energy (NRG) Cut to Hold at Jefferies.
Paychex (PAYX) Started as Market Perform at RBC Capital Markets.
Travelers (TRV) Started as Outperform at RBC Capital Markets.

You can join our open email distribution list to get updates on top analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s, secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.

JON C. OGG
OCTOBER 21, 2009

Posted on: October 21, 2009 – 7:56 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , , , , , ,

DJIA Changes Weightings: Higher Tech & Financial (GM, C, CSCO, TRV)

Money Stack ImageNow that General Motors (NYSE: GM) is bankrupt, the Dow Jones Index Team has decided to announce its DJIA component changes.  In this change, there were two components changed rather than just GM.  Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) is also getting the boot.  Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) and Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE: TRV) are the replacements in the index.

Late Friday we gave our list of single replacement candidates for replacing GM in the DJIA 30, and we even dispelled a few names some were hoping for that did not actually make sense with the DJIA being a price-weighted index.  Cisco was our top tech pick for the slot, but Travelers was not in our group.  The notion that this was taken out of Citi makes for a slightly ironic index change.

Jon C. Ogg
June 1, 2009

Posted on: June 1, 2009 – 8:23 am in Autos, Banking, Financial Stocks, Index, Technology Companies, , , ,

Top Analyst Upgrades (BIG, GLW, DRIV, DUK, KSS, MEOH, PFE, STP, TRV, WYE)

money-stack-image19These are the top pre-market analyst upgrades and positive calls we have seen from analysts this Tuesday morning:

  • Big Lots (BIG) Raised to Buy at Soleil.
  • Corning (GLW) Raised to Buy at Collins Stewart.
  • Digital River (DRIV) Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
  • Duke Energy (DUK) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
  • Kohl’s (KSS) Raised to Buy at BofA Merrill.
  • Methanex (MEOH) Raised to Outperform at CIBC.
  • Pfizer (PFE) Raised to Buy at UBS.
  • Suntech Power (STP) Raised to Market Weight at Thomas Weisel.
  • Travelers (TRV) Started as Outperform at Oppenheimer.
  • Wyeth (WYE)  Raised to Buy at UBS.

JON C. OGG

Posted on: March 10, 2009 – 6:33 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , , , , , ,

Bernstein Dumps Insurers (ACE, ALL, CB, CNA, TRV, XL, AIG)

Burning_money_picFinancial stocks may have enjoyed sizable bounces from their lows in November and December, but not all analysts are following them up.  The insurrance sector and some of the re-insurance names have been downgraded by Bernstein.  Here are the following calls we have seen from their report:

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Posted on: January 6, 2009 – 7:56 am in Analyst Calls, Financial Stocks, , , , , , ,

Top Pre-Market Analyst Upgrades (ACE, NLY, ESLR, GFIG, HOKU, ITG, GS, KR, MON, NDAQ, TRV)

These are some of the positive calls and upgrades we have seen from analysts this morning:

  • ACE Ltd. (ACE) raised to buy at Goldman Sachs.
  • Annaly Capital (NLY) raised to overweight at JPMorgan.
  • Evergreen Solar (ESLR) raised to hold at Citigroup.
  • GFI Group (GFIG) raised to outperform at KBW.
  • Hoku Scientific (HOKU) raised to buy at Broadpoint.
  • Investment Technology Group (ITG) raised to outperform at KBW.
  • Goldman Sachs (GS) raised to outperform at Wachovia.
  • Kroger (KR) raised to buy at B of A.
  • Monsanto (MON) raised to buy at BB&T.
  • NASDAQ OMX (NDAQ) raised to outperform at KBW.
  • Travelers (TRV) raised to buy at Goldman Sachs.

Jon C. Ogg
September 17, 2008

Posted on: September 17, 2008 – 7:05 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , , , , , , ,

Insurers Sell Risk Management Via Verisk IPO (HIG, TRV, CNA, AFG, AIG, ACE)

Verisk_logoA company called Verisk Analytics Inc. has filed to come public via an initial public offering in a securities sale of up to $750 million worth of class A common stock.  The company did not provide any reference on the shares being offered nor any price indications.  This is an amalgamated risk management company that is actually owned by many insurance and financial companies as follows:

  • Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: HIG)
  • The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE: TRV)
  • CNA Financial Corporation (NYSE: CNA)
  • American Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: AFG)
  • American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG)
  • ACE Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: ACE)

Read More »

Posted on: August 13, 2008 – 2:08 pm in Financial Stocks, IPOs, , , , , , ,

Will Berkshire Hathaway Lower Its Buyout Standards?

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A) may be setting its sights lower as far as the size of a merger it would pursue.  Reuters has reported that Warren Buffett gave an interview to a Swiss newspaper called Finanz and Wirtschaft saying the company was primarily interested in large takeovers.  Buffett said they would happily buy things in the $5 billion to $20 billion range, although potential targets are rare.  Buffett did note that they were confident they would be able to conclude several larger transactions soon in the interview.

We just ran several buyout targets that we widened out to fit the bill for a "whale" of an acquisition on Monday.

If Buffett looks at smaller companies then he will have a lot more to choose from.  It is somewhat surprising that Buffett has not looked at the retail and commercial banking sector since there are so many with healthy balance sheets and surpressed prices due to a temporarily inverted yield curve.  He has also failed on his promise to go big into power generation operations, and there are perhaps 5 or 6 names he could easily approach in that sector.

The truth is that if Buffett stoops down into the $5 billion to $20 billion range then there will be many opportunities for him.  Perhaps the largest reason for looking at larger deals is that he is probably concerned that he will be one-upped in a higher bid for any deal he considers in that $5 billion to $20 billion range.

Regardless of his comments, he needs to remove T-Bills as his single largest public investment at the current time.  Being too picky and just sitting on the sidelines for too long can come across as indecisive, even if you have made yourself into one of the world’s richest men. 

Jon C. Ogg
May 9, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in any of the companies he covers.

Posted on: May 9, 2007 – 7:22 am in Conglomerates, Mergers and Buy Outs, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Berkshire Hathaway’s “Whale” Acquisition; Who Could It Be?

Stocks to Watch: BRK/A, MRO, TRV, WM, ALL, LEH, CHA, REP, OXY, DOW, VLO, E, MET, BF, DB, SNP

Warren Buffett was noted this weekend as saying he is tempted to find a "Whale" of an acquisition rather than just trying to catch a big fish.  Everyone knows that Buffett has called technology a widget that he wouldn’t buy, so what could this mean?

We screened stocks with some valuations that would entail Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) either selling many stakes it holds in public companies or that would require it to raise capital from the markets.  In order to do this we looked at the balance sheet and decided that the company cut off mark would be somewhere in the vicinity of $35 Billion for the company to still have ample cash to operate without stretching or minimizing activities.  We decided to go up to $80 Billion as the ceiling, thinking that Buffett could probably sell the idea and considering that this amount ‘could’ still occur if he stretched it big time.  He has already said that Geography is not a barrier any longer. 
The companies that trade at $35 billion to $80 billion have price to book value ratios of Less than 2.5, Price-to Earnings ratios of 15.0 or less, forward Price to earnings ratios of under 14.0.  There are many other measures such as discounted cash flows and return on equity that we could have run, but we thought we’d see what comes up. 

Companies that did not have ADR’s were screened out, even though this may not be fair.  He has mostly stayed away from energy companies, but his PetroChina (PTR) stake made us leave this in.  He has stayed away from banks, but since he has been aggressive into insurance we decided to keep this in there.

Here are some of the companies that showed up in the screen:
Marathon Oil (MRO), Travelers (TRV), Washington Mutual (WM), Allstate (ALL), Lehman (LEH), China Telecom (CHA), Repsol (REP), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Dow Chemical (DOW), Valero (VLO), E N I (E), MetLife (MET), BASF (BF), Deutsche Bank (DB), China Petrolem (SNP). 

Here is the problem in evaluating the companies above: If you don’t think Buffett would take on the huge additional risks in insurance or if you think he’d shy away from a bank or brokerage firm, then Buffett would need to go into the chemical companies or into energy and refining.  Even if you scale down the size to say $20 Billion, you have the same type of companies in the mix, except you bring in some metal and commodity names.

What is the biggest problem in having roughly $40 Billion in cash and equivalents?  It’s obviously trying to put the money to work.  Buffett is not under the same pressure as private equity to put his cash to work.  His track record speaks for itself, but you have to wonder about the company down the road and what its strategy will be.  How far will they diversify?  Will they diversify?  When your holding period you evaluate a business on is "Forever" it makes for some interesting problems to have.

Jon C. Ogg
May 7, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in any of the companies he covers.

Posted on: May 7, 2007 – 1:48 pm in Conglomerates, Financial Stocks, Mergers and Buy Outs, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,