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Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Invest Like Warren Buffett With These ETFs
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett — the Oracle of Omaha — is known for his value investing style. Many want to mirror the legend's investing strategy and emerge as a winner, having navigated the turbulent financial and economic waters. Let's delve deeper into Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway's quarterly Form 13-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and analyze his investing pattern. Big Bet on UnitedHealth Group Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway revealed a new position in UnitedHealth Group UNH, holding just over 5 million shares valued at about $1.6 billion as of June 30. News of Buffett's move sent UNH soaring more than 11% on Aug. 15, 2025. Investors can play UNH-heavy ETFs like iShares U.S. Healthcare Providers ETF IHF. The ETF IHF invests about 20% of its weight in UNH stock. Other UNH-heavy ETFs include T. Rowe Price Health Care ETF TMED and Harbor Health Care ETF MEDI. Time for Housing Play? Berkshire also initiated fresh stakes in the following companies: Nucor NUE – Currently, holdings are worth 6.6 million shares valued at $857 million. Nucor Corporation is a leading producer of structural steel, steel bars, steel joists, steel deck and cold finished bars in the United States. D.R. Horton DHI – Current holdings are 1.49 million shares worth $191.5 million. Holdings have been slightly is one of the leading national homebuilders, primarily engaged in the construction and sale of single-family houses both in the entry-level and move-up markets. Invest in Gold American Hartford Gold: #1 Precious Metals Dealer in the Nation Priority Gold: Up to $15k in Free Silver + Zero Account Fees on Qualifying Purchase Thor Metals Group: Best Overall Gold IRA Lennar LEN – Exposure increased from 152,000 to 7.23 million shares, worth nearly $799 million. It is engaged in homebuilding and financial services in the United States. Lamar Advertising LAMR – Lamar Advertising Company is one of the largest owners and operators of outdoor advertising structures in the United States and is a new buy. Considerable focus on homebuilders signals Buffett's confidence in housing. This is especially true given the easing of mortgage rates after weak jobs data. Buffett's pickups put focus on homebuilding ETFs like iShares US Home Construction ETF ITB. Rely on Safe Sector Consumer Staples This is a safe sector as it is non-cyclical in nature. The consumer staples sector tends to do well even amid economic growth slowdown and high inflation. Since consumers have to buy staples products even if they cut back on their discretionary spending, big manufacturers of food and beverages normally have the power to pass on the increase in costs to customers. Buffett'sfavorite Coca-Cola has substantial weight in ETFs like iShares U.S. Consumer Staples ETF IYK. Kraft Heinz has a focus on the Invesco Dynamic Food & Beverage ETF added positions in Constellation Brands STZ and Domino's Pizza DPZ, resulting in increased food and beverage bets. DPZ has exposure to AdvisorShares Restaurant ETF EATZ, while STZ has a focus on First Trust Nasdaq Food & Beverage ETF FTXG. What to Do With Apple & BAC? Berkshire's Apple AAPL holdings have fallen. Berkshire's Apple stake would be around 280 million shares, suggesting a decline of 6.7% in its has reduced its Apple stake by 69% from 2023 to 2025. The investment still represents Buffett's most profitable position ever. However, in a shocking shift, Berkshire began reducing its Apple stake by 56% between October 2023 and June 2024, selling over 515 million shares. The scenario of Apple investing has changed lately, with the rise of more AI-friendly Big Tech companies. The case is the same with Bank of America BAC. It witnessed 26 million shares sold from a 630 million share holding. These reductions mark a continuation of Buffett's strategy from last year, where he began trimming some of Berkshire's largest positions. Market Impact and Berkshire Stock Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) shares are down about 11% since his May announcement that he will step down as CEO at the end of 2025. Still, the stock is up about 6% year to date. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Bank of America Corporation (BAC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Apple Inc. (AAPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Nucor Corporation (NUE) : Free Stock Analysis Report Domino's Pizza Inc (DPZ) : Free Stock Analysis Report Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B) : Free Stock Analysis Report Lamar Advertising Company (LAMR) : Free Stock Analysis Report Constellation Brands Inc (STZ) : Free Stock Analysis Report Lennar Corporation (LEN) : Free Stock Analysis Report D.R. Horton, Inc. (DHI) : Free Stock Analysis Report iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB): ETF Research Reports iShares U.S. Healthcare Providers ETF (IHF): ETF Research Reports iShares U.S. Consumer Staples ETF (IYK): ETF Research Reports Invesco Food & Beverage ETF (PBJ): ETF Research Reports First Trust NASDAQ Food & Beverage ETF (FTXG): ETF Research Reports AdvisorShares Restaurant ETF (EATZ): ETF Research Reports This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Sign in to access your portfolio
Mint
6 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Berkshire Hathaway's mystery stock could be revealed Thursday. Filings offer clues.
Berkshire Hathaway's latest mystery-stock investment could be revealed on Thursday. There is a good chance it is an industrial company. And the total size of the holding could be almost $5 billion, based on clues in the conglomerate's 10-Q reports for the first and second quarters. Berkshire also could disclose that it made further sales of Bank of America stock in the second quarter. It reduced the size of that holding by almost 40% to 631 million shares, now worth around $28 billion, from July 2024 through the first quarter. The disclosures are expected because the 45-day deadline for the company to disclose its U.S.-listed equity holdings as of June 30, via a Form 13-F with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is on Thursday. Berkshire normally waits until the final possible day to make its filing. In mid May, when Berkshire reported its equity holdings as of March 31, it disclosed that it requested confidentiality on one or more holdings that it accumulated in the first quarter. At the time, Barron's speculated that the new equity holding—we are assuming it is just one stock—was an industrial stock based on information in the first-quarter 10-Q. The mystery stock could be the highlight of the new 13-F report. Berkshire was a light buyer of stocks in the second quarter, purchasing nearly $4 billion, while selling about $7 billion, indicating it continued to pare its equity portfolio, based on information in the 10-Q for the period. In its 10-Q filings, Berkshire discloses its top five stockholdings–Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, Chevron and Bank of America–as well as sizable investments in Kraft Heinz and Occidental Petroleum. But it doesn't disclose smaller equity investments. Instead, it divides its nearly $300 billion of equity holdings into three buckets: financial, consumer, and a broad category called 'commercial, industrial and other." In the first quarter, the commercial and industry cost basis rose by nearly $2 billion, but the May 13-F disclosure didn't include any notable purchases in that category for that period. In the second quarter, the cost basis in the commercial and industrial category rose by $2.8 billion. Together, the two increases in the cost basis suggest the total mystery stock purchase could be as much as $4.8 billion. Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett periodically has requested confidentiality from the SEC when the company is building a position in a stock over more than one quarter and doesn't want to tip off other investors about the company's identity. Such a disclosure might boost the stock price and make it more expensive for Berkshire to buy. Many investors follow Berkshire and the disclosure of a new equity holding typically results in a rise in its stock price. It's possible that Berkshire might seek a second quarter of confidential treatment for the mystery stock, as it did when it was accumulating shares of the insurer Chubb in late 2023 and early 2024. The Chubb holding totaled about $7 billion when disclosed in May 2024. Chubb was the most recent Berkshire mystery stock. Berkshire also sought confidential treatment when it was buying Chevron and Verizon Communications shares in late 2020 and early 2021. Other clues in the second-quarter 10-Q report indicate Berkshire may have continued to pare its Bank of America investment. Details pointing to the size of Berkshire's realized equity gains in the period are a sign that Berkshire might have sold another $4 billion or so of Bank of America in the second quarter, Barron's estimates.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Billionaire Bill Ackman Just Scooped Up Shares of This Unstoppable Stock
Bill Ackman and his fund, Pershing Square, recently bought shares of Amazon. Amazon's stock has risen a lot over the past two months. AWS is a key part of the Amazon investing thesis. 10 stocks we like better than Amazon › Billionaire Bill Ackman and his Pershing Square fund have made some moves recently. Although it hasn't been disclosed in a Form 13-F, the fund stated that it scooped up shares of Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) at an "extremely attractive" price. Although it didn't give details on what the entry point was, I think it's safe to assume that management essentially bought the bottom of the stock market sell-off in April. Although Amazon's stock has risen significantly since then, is there still enough value in the stock to warrant purchasing shares now? Let's take a look. Amazon's stock bottomed with the rest of the market at around $167 in mid-April. If we assume that Pershing Square scooped up shares at around that price tag, they're already up around 30% on the investment -- not bad for just two months of holding a stock. However, Ackman and his company aren't known for flipping stocks. He's a long-term investor who pinpoints undervalued companies and buys them at attractive prices. As a result, I think it's fairly clear that this 30% gain is nice for Pershing Square, but it expects even more performance from Amazon over the long term. But is that realistic, considering how threatened Amazon is by tariffs? One of Ackman's comments on his Amazon purchase was that he believes earnings will continue to grow because he thinks tariffs will have less effect on consumers than expected. Whether you think that's a valid statement or not, something undeniably factors into this comment: Amazon doesn't get a ton of profits from its commerce division. Even though Amazon's online store is what most customers interface with almost daily, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is far more vital to the company's profitability than the various items that are made in China and sold on its platform, which may rise in price over the next few months. Cloud computing firms are seeing strong growth thanks to a general migration of on-site workloads to the cloud and AI workloads coming online. In the first quarter, AWS' revenue growth was 17% year over year, far outpacing its North American commerce sales growth of 8% and international commerce sales growth of 5%. It's also far more profitable, with AWS' Q1 operating margin at 39%. Overall, AWS made up 63% of Amazon's total operating profits in Q1, despite only making up 19% of sales. Although commerce may have funded the buildout of the AWS business, it's now a cloud computing business with a commerce storefront. With AWS expecting to deliver strong growth over at least the next decade, and with how much it contributes to Amazon's profits, investors should focus on AWS, not commerce. With AWS' profits growing faster than the overall company, it will be able to resist some of the headwinds that tariffs have induced on the commerce side of its business. That's likely why Ackman believes tariffs won't affect Amazon as much as investors thought in April. With Amazon only about 10% off its all-time high after its rally, the market is starting to come around to that idea as well. While you can't hop in a time machine and buy shares at the same level as Ackman, I still think there's a compelling argument to buy Amazon's stock here. AWS is a monster that's displaying strong growth and is extremely profitable. Outperformance by this segment will continue to drive margin expansion and deliver strong earnings per share (EPS) growth quarter after quarter that is faster than the market's growth pace (usually around 10%). That makes Amazon a long-term investment story, and it's one that I'd gladly scoop up more shares of today. Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Amazon wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $657,871!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $875,479!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 998% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 174% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Keithen Drury has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Billionaire Bill Ackman Just Scooped Up Shares of This Unstoppable Stock was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Buffett Offloads Citigroup Shares: Should You Follow and & Sell C Stock?
Per a Form 13-F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) fully sold off more than 14.6 million shares of Citigroup C in the first quarter of 2025. This move was part of a broader reduction in financial sector holdings. Warren Buffett's Berkshire also trimmed its stakes in Bank of America BAC and Capital One COF. It trimmed Bank of America's shares by 48.6 million, while it lowered its stake in Capital One by 300,000 shares. As of March 31, 2025, Berkshire held 631.6 million shares of BAC and 7.2 million COF shares. Many investors follow Buffett and try to match his investing style. So, should you also trim your investment in financial stocks, including Citigroup? Let us have a closer look at C's fundamentals, performance, growth prospects and valuation metric before deciding the next move. C has been emphasizing leaner, streamlined operations to reduce expenses. The transformation process included an organizational restructuring that replaced the reportable segment with five new ones. In January 2024, the company announced its plan to eliminate 20,000 jobs as part of its broad-scale restructuring effort over the next two years. Citigroup remains on track to cut jobs. So far, the bank had already made significant progress, reducing its headcount by 10,000. In January 2025, citing people familiar with the matter, Blomberg reported that as part of the sweeping reorganization under CEO Jane Fraser to cut expenses, managing directors in the wealth and technology units are leaving the firm, and the company is axing people from a team that compiles data and analysis on the bank's clients. For 2025, management expects expenses to be below $53.4 billion. In 2024, the company's expenses were $53.9 billion. Citigroup has been focusing on growth in its core businesses by streamlining its overseas operations. In April 2021, the company announced its plan to exit the consumer banking business in 14 markets across Asia and then, the company has exited consumer businesses in nine countries. It reached a milestone in December 2024 when it completed the separation of its institutional banking operations in Mexico from the consumer, small business and middle-market segments. In June 2024, Citigroup sold its China-based onshore consumer wealth portfolio to HSBC China, a wholly owned subsidiary of HSBC Holdings plc. As part of its strategy, Citigroup continued to make progress with the wind-downs of its Korea consumer banking operations and its overall operations in Russia, as well as the preparation for a planned initial public offering (IPO) of its consumer banking and small business and middle-market banking operations in Mexico. These moves by Citigroup are likely to free up capital to invest in higher-return segments like wealth management and investment banking. Through such efforts, the company expects revenues to see a compounded annual growth rate of 4-5% by 2026-end and will further drive $2-2.5 billion of annualized run rate savings by 2026. Management expects the return on tangible common equity to be 10-11% by 2026. With the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates by 100 basis points last year, the company's net interest income (NII) benefited from it. Given relatively low funding costs, C's NII improved. In the first quarter of 2025, Citigroup reported an NII of $14 billion, marking a 4% increase from the prior-year quarter. Similarly, Capital One's first-quarter NII improved 7% year over year. Also, Bank of America's NII rose 3% year over given market uncertainty, the Fed kept the interest rates steady at 4.25-4.5% at the May 6-7 FOMC meeting. Further, the Fed Chair Jerome Powell noted that there is no 'need to be in a hurry' to make any monetary policy change until there is clarity on the impacts of Trump's tariffs on employment and inflation. As such, interest rates are likely to stay higher for a longer time. Nonetheless, Citigroup is expected to witness an improvement in NII in 2025, given decent loan demand and higher deposit balances. The company projects NII (ex-Markets) to rise 2-3% in 2025 from the 2024 reported level. Citigroup enjoys a strong liquidity position. As of March 31, 2025, C's cash and due from banks and total investments aggregated to $761 billion, whereas its total debt (short-term and long-term borrowing) was $317.4 billion. C's average Liquidity Coverage Ratio stood at 117% for the quarter ended March 31, 2025. The common equity tier (CET) 1 capital ratio was 13.5% as of March 31, 2025. The company's focus on maintaining a strong capital base will support its capital distribution activities. In July 2024, the company hiked its quarterly dividend by 6% to 56 cents per share. It also has a share repurchase plan in place. On Jan. 13, 2025, Citigroup's board of directors approved a $20-billion common stock repurchase program with no expiration date. The bank repurchased $1.75 billion of common shares in the first quarter of 2025 and targets a similar level of share repurchases in the second quarter. As of March 31, 2025, it has nearly $18 billion of stocks available under the plan. C shares have gained 20% compared with the S&P 500 index's growth of 11.9% and the Zacks finance sector rise of 9.1% over the past month. Bank of America has gained 17.3% and Capital One has risen 20.4% over the same time frame. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research From a valuation standpoint, C appears inexpensive relative to the industry. It is currently trading at a discount with a forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) of 9.50X, well below the industry average of 13.80X. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research BAC is trading at a 12-month forward P/E of 11.42X, whereas COF is trading at 12.08X. Hence, Citigroup is trading at a discount compared with both. Citigroup's business restructuring efforts and emphasis on its core operations by divesting non-core units provide a solid foundation for growth, supporting its financials. Also, its strong liquidity position will support capital distribution activities. Given the improvement in NII, along with decent loan demand, the company's financials will likely witness growth in the upcoming period. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Image Source: Zacks Investment Research While Buffett's exit may raise questions, Citigroup's ongoing restructuring efforts and favorable growth projections suggest the potential for long-term growth. Hence, it is advisable to hold the C stock for now. At present, Citigroup carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Bank of America Corporation (BAC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Citigroup Inc. (C) : Free Stock Analysis Report Capital One Financial Corporation (COF) : Free Stock Analysis Report Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Warren Buffett defended his massive $300 billion cash pile in February. Now he doesn't have to.
In February, Warren Buffett took pains in his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders to explain why the conglomerate had a cash pile of $334 billion at the end of 2024. "Despite what some commentators currently view as an extraordinary cash position at Berkshire, the great majority of your money remains in equities," Buffett wrote. "That preference won't change." Now, with Berkshire's annual meeting just a month away, Buffett may not feel quite the same pull to further explain his decision. When Buffett published his annual letter on Saturday, Feb. 22, Trump's tariff threats were mostly that. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) had closed at a record high on Tuesday, Feb. 19, a few days earlier. "Berkshire shareholders can rest assured that we will forever deploy a substantial majority of their money in equities — mostly American equities although many of these will have international operations of significance," Buffett wrote. "Berkshire will never prefer ownership of cash-equivalent assets over the ownership of good businesses, whether controlled or only partially owned." Buffett didn't mention tariffs in his letter once, nor did he suggest any sense of foreboding or even loosely predict any imminent market turbulence in this letter. (In an interview that aired in March, Buffett did warn on the negative impacts of tariffs, calling them "an act of war, to some degree.") Still, Buffett's actions in 2024 were clear: The Oracle of Omaha preferred sitting on cash to buying more stocks. A prescient move that has rewarded investors — Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B, BRK-A) stock is up over 12% this year; the S&P 500 has lost 11%. By mid-May, Berkshire Hathaway will have some answers to questions about whether Buffett found opportunities to deploy some of this cash during the market's worst quarter since 2022. The company will file its quarterly report ahead of its May 3 shareholder meeting, and Berkshire is required to file its Form 13-F with the SEC by May 15. And there's no doubt that Buffett wants Berkshire to deploy if it his annual letter, Buffett added that what the US financial system actually requires from its participants is less of what Berkshire had done — saving — and more "imaginative" deployment of any accumulated capital back into the economy. The market action this week has shown investor confidence drying up. Consumers were already souring on the economic outlook before Trump's sweeping tariffs were revealed. In the weeks ahead, corporations may follow suit. But what Buffett's letter outlines is a system that requires the opposite of saving and austerity. "One way or another, the sensible — better yet imaginative — deployment of savings by citizens is required to propel an ever-growing societal output of desired goods and services," Buffett wrote. "This system is called capitalism. It has its faults and abuses — in certain respects more egregious now than ever — but it also can work wonders unmatched by other economic systems." Seen through the lens of this week's actions on tariffs, Buffett is essentially noting the simple economic fact that an open economy outperforms a closed economy. And making a direct critique of uncertainty, as well as a roundabout one of 2025's tariff drama. In a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Friday, Trump told investors his "policies will never change." Meaning, invest in the US or face the consequences (read: tariffs). The economy is open, it seems, but conditionally. For any of these desired or planned investments to pay off, of course, it will require American savings to be spent down and buy-in from more than the political allies of any world leader. But for people to spend, they need to be assured of the conditions of the market into which they're spending. "True, our country in its infancy sometimes borrowed abroad to supplement our own savings," Buffett added. "But, concurrently, we needed many Americans to consistently save and then needed those savers or other Americans to wisely deploy the capital thus made available. If America had consumed all that it produced, the country would have been spinning its wheels." Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices
