Berkshire shares are below Buffett's late-spring repurchase prices

Berkshire Hathaway's price is below levels Warren Buffett found attractive enough to repurchase stock during most of the second quarter.

In an email to investors this week posted on his Empire Financial Research web site, value investor Whitney Tilson credits his former colleague Glenn Tongue for noting that Berkshire's Class A price of $418,101 is now 3.3% below the $432,227 per share average price Buffett paid when the company repurchased shares worth almost $1.3 billion in May and June. (Updated to reflect Friday's close.)

The buybacks are detailed on page 44 of Berkshire's most recent 10-Q report. 

April's repurchases were at an even lower average price of $408,470, but they accounted for only 17% of the quarter's Class A buybacks.

For all of Q2, Buffett and Berkshire paid an average of $428,138 per Class A share. Friday's close of $418,101 is 2.3% below that level.

It's a similar story for Class B shares.

The average price in May and June was $281.00 as Berkshire bought shares worth a total of almost $3 billion.

Friday's close of $277.87 is 1.1% lower.

Again, Berkshire paid less in April when it bought back more than $1.5 billion worth of stock at an average price of $267.75.

But that accounted for 36% of the quarter's Class B repurchases, pushing the overall average price down to $276.32. Friday's close is 0.6% higher than that.

Tilson writes that the Class A shares are now priced at around 81% of his recent $513,000 estimate of Berkshire's intrinsic value. "I can't think of any stock offering this combination of safety and growth trading anywhere near this level of discount."

But, he warns, "keep expectations modest" due to Berkshire's large size.  He expects it to beat the S&P by "perhaps" 5% a year for the next five years.

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BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH

BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - Sept 24 2021

Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly-traded U.S. stocks by market value, based on today's closing prices.

Holdings are as of June 30, 2021 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on August 16, 2021, except for Apple, Bank of America, and U.S. Bancorp, which also include shares held as of June 30, 2021 as disclosed in New England Asset Management’s 13F filing on August 16, 2021.

In addition to U.S. stocks, shares held as of December 31, 2020 of China's BYD, as listed in Buffett's 2020 letter to shareholders, are included. The price of those shares in U.S. trading is used to approximate the current market value of the position. The value of the stake as a percentage of the company's market value is fixed at what was listed as of December 31, 2020 in the letter.

The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

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-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch