Subject: Mystery Financial Stock
Could the mystery financial stock Buffett is buying be one of STT, SYF, MET or AIG? The two insurers have market caps of over $50B, STT is $22B and SYF is $17B.
Buffett does love companies buying back shares and STT bought back 13.5% of its shares in 2023. Also STT is not a real bank and has an oligopoly in custody services to institutions. Also, STT shares price dropped from $78 to $66 in July, when Buffett might have started buying. It started rising again in Nov, but has again pulled back to $73. The stock is trading at fwd PE of 9.3 and div yld of 3.8%. 5-year avg ROE of 10.3 and ROA of 0.86% are mediocre, esp. for a fee earning financial services company.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/...
And what is with GM spending $7.6B buying back 14.3% of its shares? Haven’t they heard about the EV revolution and the need for massive R&D and capital spending?