Subject: Re: Barrons, Bary guess what's HE buying,
Remember when guessing that the "secret" purchase is in the category "Banks, Insurance and Finance."

I missed that; thanks for pointing it out.

I just hope it is not another big bank. Buffett has a fondness for them and has a long history of owning them. But the bull case for owning them is much weaker now. Regulators keep raising capital requirements, pausing dividends and repurchases with ever stiffer stress tests. Then the self inflicted mistakes like at WFC and BAC’s recent reaching for yield with long duration bonds.

He has never been fond of the investment managers, so that seems unlikely. And BlackRock was much cheaper a few quarters ago and is close to fully valued now.

So it is likely to be an insurance company or a financial services company. Most financial services companies like SPGI and insurance brokers like AJG are expensive. A contrarian pick would be Simon Property Group, the real estate company.

I prefer my picks HSY and DG to any of the financial companies in S&P 500.