Berkshire adds to Liberty tracker stake in bet on Sirius

In an SEC filing on Wednesday, Berkshire Hathaway revealed it had bought more than 5.3 million shares of Liberty Media Series A common stock, bringing its total holding to 20.2 million shares of the tracking stock as of Monday, November 1.

It paid an average of less than $50.02 per share. That's about $267 million for the added shares.

The stock closed today at an all-time high of $55.00, up almost 4% on the day.  That puts the value of Berkshire's stock at $1.1 billion.

Berkshire also holds almost $2.4 billion of the nonvoting Liberty Series C stock.

Barron's notes that on Thursday, Liberty reported it had done a tax-free exchange of A shares for Sirius XM Holdings stock, bringing its ownership of the satellite radio company to more than 80%, something investors in both companies have been anticipating for years.

That makes future dividends and distributions from Sirius to Liberty tax-free.

Berkshire reports earnings and buybacks tomorrow

Berkshire Hathaway will release its third quarter earnings news release and 10-Q quarterly report tomorrow morning at around 7 a.m. Central (8 a.m. Eastern).

The company's buybacks of Berkshire stock will be detailed in that report.

In an article headlined "In a Deal Desert, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Keeps Buying Itself," the Wall Street Journal says analysts expect repurchases will have held steady during the quarter.

It bought $12.6 billion of its own shares during the first half of the year.

Berkshire would like to spend some of its $140 billion in cash on an acquisition, but, as the Journal puts it, "The market's enduring rally, private-equity deal makers and an abundance of special-purpose acquisition companies have driven up many would-be acquisition targets to record prices."

It quotes CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert as saying, "The phone calls Berkshire would have gotten 20 years ago -- they're just not getting."

Munger: "Artificial" windows have advantages over real windows

Charlie Munger is still defending his University of California, Santa Barbara dorm design, which is often referred to in headlines as "windowless," although it actually has many windows. They're just not in the bedrooms. Those bedrooms are, however, singles, and they do feature "artificial" windows.

In an interview with reporter Matt Egan on CNN Business, Munger said that in some ways, they're better than "real" windows.

The "artificial window delivers the exact spectrum of daylight. So when you look at that window with that configuration, you can not tell that it's artificial by looking at it. 

"In addition, the student in this room can twist a knob and he can brighten up the sun or dim it down. And so, if he wants it a little cheerier, he can brighten up the sun on a dark day. If he wants it romantic, he can dim it down."

Asked about the architect on the school's review committee who quit in protest, Munger said his critic hadn't really thought enough about the design. "When an ignorant man leaves, I regard it as a plus, not a minus."

Munger pointed to a dorm he designed at the University of Michigan that also doesn't have windows in the bedrooms where "you never saw a happier bunch of students," and that building doesn't have artificial windows.

"Everybody loves it. They fight to get in. What I'm building here is way better than what's done in Michigan." (CNN found mixed reviews.)

Munger said he made his $200 million donation to help pay for the $1.5 billion dorm on the condition his design ideas be used because "I want it done right instead of wrong."

But, Munger adds, there's been "huge" input from the university. "This isn't something some crazy donor has done on his own."

(Munger also told CNN the proposal from some Democrats to tax stock buybacks is "literally insane" and "there's no reason" to remove Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chair, but he agrees with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren that "there ought to be more regulation of our financial institutions.")

On MSNBC, Chris Hayes isn't a fan of Munger's resident hall. "At a certain point, our ultra-wealthy overlords just run out of things to spend their money on...so they drop $200 million to cosplay as an architect and design a horrifying nightmare building. Couldn't Munger have just gone to space instead?"

Slate's Henry Grabar writes that given UCSB's housing shortage, which has some of its students living in hotel rooms, having a single room in a high-capacity building with an artificial window doesn't seem so bad. "Maybe that's the best we can do."

And it's not entirely clear where Choire Sicha stands on New York's Curbed site. That piece, headlined "Yes, Build the Windowless, Bathroomless Dorm in My Backyard," doesn't hold back as it runs through the criticisms.

But it concludes (earnestly?) with a list of positives, including that the dorm has no room to park cars ("This dorm already outperforms 98 percent of all American housing. I will live in this dorm."), features single bedrooms ("Sharing bedrooms with strangers is sometimes hilarious but mostly is disgusting and bad. What are we, Europe?"), and could provide a template for dealing with housing shortages nationwide ("Mint the coin, build the hive, let's save the future.")

BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET

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BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH

BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - Nov 5, 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