Berkshire breaks OXY streak

In today's newsletter: Berkshire Hathaway hasn't reported any additional Occidental Petroleum share purchases after buying for six straight days, Buffett's moves in Asia get attention, and an activist arrested at Berkshire's annual meeting is not being prosecuted,

VIEW IN BROWSER | SUBSCRIBE FRI, MAY 26, 2023 WARREN BUFFETT WATCH Six and done ... for now Occidental Petroleum's stock price in recent days has mostly stayed below the $60 level that has sometimes prompted Berkshire Hathaway to buy more shares, but the company hasn't reported any new purchases after the six-day streak that ended on Thursday last week.   Berkshire has two business days to disclose its moves, so we won't know until later tonight or next week if Berkshire added to its position in the oil giant in the second half of this week. At today's closing price of $58.94, Berkshire's 217.3 million share stake is valued at $12.8 billion. It owns 24.4% of Occidental's outstanding shares.   In addition, Berkshire has warrants that it received as part of its 2019 financing of Occidental's Anadarko Petroleum purchase to buy an additional 84 million shares for $59.62 each.   Since exercising those options would prompt Occidental to issue new stock, increasing the number of its outstanding shares, Berkshire's stake would be just under 31% if that happened, not 34% as I mistakenly calculated in last week's newsletter. Buffett's moves in Asia draw attention Warren Buffett's growing investments in Japan, and his decision to sell a big stake in a Taiwanese company, got some additional coverage this week.   In a Bloomberg opinion piece headlined "Buffett's Play Means This Time, Japan Is Different (Really)," Gearoid Reidy notes that "overseas buying exploded over the past month, ever since Warren Buffett announced he'd boosted his investment in the country's five largest trading houses."   With new corporate governance rules pushing Japanese companies to boost shareholder returns and the yen depressed by expectations that interest rates in the country will remain low, the benchmark Nikkei 225 is trading at levels not seen since 1990, the year after CNBC first went on the air. Reidy writes that Berkshire's decision to completely sell a recently acquired, multi-billion dollar stake in Taiwan Semiconductor amid tensions with China ("I feel better about the capital that we've got deployed in Japan than in Taiwan") is providing the "narrative investors needed: In a changing world, Japan is a safe place to put your money."   Investor's Business Daily lists some "Big in Japan ETFs" in its "Warren Buffett Is Investing In This Country — How To Buy In, Too" piece.   But Institutional Investor warns that due to Japan's "unique" market and economy, big U.S. investors "have much to learn about the country before they bet on its success."   And MarketWatch says, "Just because Buffett is doing it, that doesn't mean investing in Japan equities is without risks," including the possibility that inflation will ultimately force the country's central bank to join the global trend toward higher rates. Pres. Biden takes the stage at a Taiwan Semiconductor plant in Phoenix, Dec. 6, 2022.  REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst Meanwhile, in a Washington Post opinion piece, the National Review's Jim Geraghty worries that Buffett's sale of Berkshire's TSCM stake "might make the world a tiny bit more dangerous" because "if Buffett isn't sure Taiwan is a safe place to invest anymore, then it's a sign that China's intimidation is already working."   "If China can scare foreign investors away," he writes, "it will gradually but steadily erode Taiwan's ability to pay for what it needs to deter an invasion." Charge dropped in Berkshire annual meeting arrest Omaha prosecutors have dropped a criminal trespassing charge against the leader of a conservative group who was arrested at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting earlier this month.   That's according to a statement this week by the National Legal and Policy Center in which Chairman and CEO Peter Flaherty says he "never should have been arrested" and that Berkshire's "silencing of me in an ominous precedent for the right of shareholders in public companies. It cannot be allowed to stand."   As he was speaking in favor of his shareholder proposal to separate Berkshire's chairman and CEO roles, Flaherty insinuated that Bill Gates was associated with Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking of young women.   At that point, his microphone was turned off and he was escorted out of the meeting by an Omaha police officer for allegedly refusing a request to leave.   Buffett could be heard saying Flaherty had "crossed a boundary" with a personal attack. BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET Some links may require a subscription CNBC.com: Paramount pops after Buffett's favorite banker makes 'interesting' bet in media giant's key shareholder CNBC Pro (subscription): Analysts are high on Markel, which models itself after Berkshire CNBC Pro (subscription): Tesla vs. BYD: Here's why one fund manager prefers the Buffett-backed automaker Real Money: Doug Kass: Warren Buffett, The Sly Fox From Omaha Morningstar: Buffett's Love of Dividends is a One-Way Street TheStreet: Jim Cramer Agrees With Warren Buffett on the Value of One Huge Tech Stock Investor's Business Daily: Nvidia Dusts Warren Buffett In Race To $1 Trillion Business Insider: Warren Buffett swapped shares for cocoa beans in a weird 1950s deal. Billionaire Thomas Pritzker just told his father's side of the story. HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ARCHIVE There's no "degree of difficulty" factor in investing (1998) Warren Buffett explains why he prefers to stay away from more difficult investments. BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - May 26, 2023 Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly-traded U.S. stocks, and BYD, by market value, based on today's closing prices.   Holdings are as of March 31, 2023 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway's 13F filing on May 15, 2023, except for:   BYD, which is as of a Hong Kong filing on March 31, 2023 Occidental Petroleum, which is as of May 18, 2023   The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker. QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)   If you aren't already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.   Also, Buffett's annual letters to shareholders are highly-recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire's website.     -- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch Unsubscribe Digital Products Manage Newsletters Feedback Terms of Service Privacy Policy Join the CNBC Panel © 2023 CNBC LLC. All rights reserved. A property of NBCUniversal.   900 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632   Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes and Market Data and Analysis.   Data also provided by THOMSON REUTERS