Investing
5 Stocks Warren Buffett Likely Bought More of During the Sell-Off
August 28, 2015 7:50 am
Last Updated: August 28, 2015 7:56 am
With such a crazy week, with stocks tanking and then rifling back up, it is a wonder that the name Warren Buffett has not been thrown around like hot potatoes. After all, his mantra is to get greedy when others are fearful and to be fearful when others are greedy. With such a deep stock market correction on Monday and Tuesday, 24/7 Wall St. cannot help but expect that Buffett sent his stock broker some orders to buy stocks on the cheap.Source: Wikimedia Commons
This last sell-off was one of those events when it just did not pay to be fearful. We have identified such stocks that Buffett probably nibbled on to add to his positions.
What is important about deciding to buy on pullbacks is that not all sell-offs are equal. They are not even equal among sectors, and often not even equal among peers inside each sector.
IBM
International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) would seem to be a sure bet that Buffett and his team added to. He hinted at buying more shares even before the last filing came out, but those new shares did not show up in his filing. If he did buy or wanted to buy more IBM shares after June 30, why would he not have bought more on Monday and Tuesday? IBM was at $155 just 10 days ago, and the shares fell to well under $140 for real trades this week. Even at $148 or so now, if Buffett did not add shares, he is going to be singled out.
IBM was listed as being the same 79.5 million shares in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio as of June 30. The value of IBM as of June 30 was said to be $12.9 billion, up from the $12.8 billion at the end of the first quarter. IBM even received a pretty aggressive analyst upgrade this week, something we are not used to seeing of late.
ALSO READ: 10 Stocks That Have Ignored the Recent Massive Sell-Off
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) is a position that Buffett has been much slower to add to in recent quarters. He is reaching a threshold at 9.1% of the outstanding shares, at which buying shares could come with regulatory issues, but for this stock to have pulled back 10%, it seems obvious that Buffett would have been chomping at the bit to buy more shares.
Its 470.3 million shares makes Berkshire Hathaway the largest holder by far. Its value was $27.6 billion as of June 30. This is by far Buffett’s favorite bank, and he has billions of dollars worth of profits already here.
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