Biden says he spoke with Buffett ... Buffett says nothing

Warren Buffett is maintaining his silence on the 2020 presidential election.

He had nothing to say when we asked for a response to Wednesday's press pool report Joe Biden had told contributors he had just spoken with Buffett on the telephone.

During a virtual fundraiser with 37 attendees, Biden said, "Just got off the phone with Warren Buffett and talking about how ... we’re in a position, unlike we were 50, 70, 80 years ago, to lead the whole damn world in a way that no one else can. There’s no limit to America’s future. The only thing that’s going to tear America apart is America itself."

The Biden campaign says most of people participating the fundraiser were Wall Street executives. They included Evercore's Roger Altman, Centerview Partners' Blair Effron, and Insight Partners' Deven Parekh.

Buffett publicly supported Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their White House runs, but hasn't expressed any preference at all in this year's election.

Political donor records show no contributions by Buffett at all in 2020, although he did contribute last year to the DCCC, which supports Democrats running for the House of Representatives.  He also made smaller donations last year to the Senate campaign of Democrat Mark Kelly in Arizona, who is running against the GOP incumbent, Martha McSally. 

In February 2019, Buffett told CNBC he would support billionaire Michael Bloomberg if he ran for president.

The former New York City mayor did officially join the race in November.

A few months later, in February, he told our Becky Quick that he "would certainly vote" for Bloomberg, but added with a laugh, "I don’t think another billionaire supporting him would be the best thing to announce."

Just over a week later, after doing poorly in the Super Tuesday primaries, Bloomberg ended his campaign and endorsed Biden.

Embarrassing correction

In last week's newsletter, I mistakenly showed UPS as Berkshire's second-biggest stock portfolio winner so far this year, as measured in dollars.

As has been pointed out to me by a loyal reader, since that stake is only valued in the millions of dollars, it couldn't have a YTD gain in the billions of dollars.

Number three Moody's $1.4 billion increase should have been in second place, with Amazon's roughly $760 million gain in third place.

They're all still dwarfed by the increase in the value of Berkshire's Apple stake, which is currently just short of $46 billion. 

BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET

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BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH

BERKSHIRE'S TOP STOCK HOLDINGS - October 16, 2020

Berkshire's top stock holdings by market value, based on today's closing prices.

Holdings are as of June 30, 2020 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on August 14, 2020 and other filings, except for Bank of America, which is as of August 4, 2020, DaVita, which is as of September 17, 2020, and Wells Fargo, which is as of August 14, 2020.

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.)

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-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch