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FRI, FEB 02, 2024
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Fresh record highs as Berkshire's A shares close in on $600,000 |
Both classes of Berkshire Hathaway shares closed today at fresh record highs, but the pace of the gains slowed from last week. The A shares closed today at $589,498 per share and hit a record intraday high of $590,000 during the day's trading. For the week, they're up 1.2%, compared to last week's 4.6% advance. The stock is up 8.1% since its near-term closing low of $545,250 on January 17. |
The more widely held B shares also ended the day with a record high of $390.75 per share and set a new intraday high of $392.07.
Like the A shares, however, this week's increase of 1.4% is well below last week's 5.0% rally. They are up 8.8% from their near-term closing low of $359.29, also on January 17. |
Berkshire puts some more pocket change into SiriusXM arbitrage |
This week, Berkshire added another $55 million, a very small amount by the company's standards, to what appears to be an ongoing bet that its SiriusXM tracking stocks (LSXMA and LSXMK) will generate what could be a 41% windfall later this year when Liberty exchanges them for shares (SIRI) in the satellite radio company itself.
(See last week's newsletter for details on the arbitrage potential.)
Disclosures show that on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, it bought almost 800,000 shares of LSXMA for $24.3 million (average price: $30.37) and 1.0 million shares of LSXMK for $31.2 million (average price: $30.30).
It's beginning, however, to add up.
Since the beginning of the year, Berkshire has spent a total of $267.2 million over 12 days of purchases. |
The market value of the combination of Berkshire's previous holdings and this year's additions is a respectable $2.2 billion, although that is less than 1% of Berkshire's equity portfolio. While Berkshire stands to realize a gain of almost one billion dollars based on the current $5.17 price of SIRI shares, there are concerns the stock is overvalued.
CNBC Pro notes that Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall has downgraded SIRI to underweight from equal weight. He estimates its post-deal fair value will be $4.50.
And Barron's says this week's proxy for the merger "highlights the high value of the satellite radio company relative to the cable industry" with projections of lower revenue and earnings this year,
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BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET Some links may require a subscription |
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ARCHIVE |
'You judge management by two yardsticks' (1994) |
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BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - Feb. 2, 2024 |
Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly-traded stocks in the U.S., Japan, and Hong Kong, by market value, based on today's closing prices.
Holdings are as of September 30, 2023 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on November 14, 2023, except for: The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker. |
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 |
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