Invite ye felawes and frendes desirous in gold to enter the gates of Shrewd'm, for they will thanke ye later.
- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 18
Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett) discloses updated portfolio positions in 13F filing: New NYT position, Added to CVX CB DPZ, Lowered BAC AAPL AMZN AON STZ POOL LILA holdings
Highlights from Q4 2025 filing as compared to Q3 2025 (all amounts are approximate):
New: NYT (5.07 mln shares)
Increased: CVX (130.16 mln shares from 122.06 mln shares), CB (34.25 mln from 31.33 mln), DPZ (3.35 mln from 2.98 mln)
Maintained: KO (400 mln shares), KHC (325.63 mln), OXY (264.94 mln), AXP (151.61 mln), KR (50 mln), DVA (31.76 mln), MCO (24.67 mln), GOOGL (17.85 mln), V (8.3 mln),
Decreased: BAC (517.3 mln shares from 568.07 mln shares), AAPL (227.92 mln from 238.21 mln), AMZN (2.28 mln from 10 mln), AON (3.6 mln from 4.1 mln), STZ (13 mln from 13.4 mln), POOL (3.07 mln from 3.46 mln), LILA (2.4 mln from 2.63 mln), BATRK (0.12 mln from 0.22 mln)
No. of Recommendations: 5
Continuing addition to CB is interesting. When Berkshire keeps buying an insurance underwriter it is worth looking at it in depth. Is a full acquisition on the cards?
CB had a great 4th quarter and its outlook for 2026 is also very strong. Stock is trading at Fwd PE of 12 even after stock is up 24% over the last year. Seems to be a very well timed purchase by BH.
Chubb (CB) on Tuesday delivered Q4 2025 earnings that surpassed the average analyst estimate, partly bolstered by strong growth in P&C underwriting income and lower catastrophe losses.
Q4 operating EPS of $7.52, topping the $6.78 average analyst estimate, rose from $7.49 in Q3 and $6.02 a year earlier.
P&C combined ratio fell to 81.2% in Q4 from 81.8% in Q3 and 85.7% in Q4 2024.
Life Insurance income climbed 19.3% Y/Y to $322M in Q4.
CEO Greenberg expressed confidence in "strong growth in operating earnings and double-digit growth in EPS and tangible book value through the 3 sources of income, P&C underwriting, investment income and life though cats and FX aside."
https://seekingalpha.com/news/4546611-chubb-q4-ear...
No. of Recommendations: 1
No. of Recommendations: 1
No. of Recommendations: 0
How much did we net sell in the 1/4? Thank you.
No. of Recommendations: 8
I can't help but wonder if Buffett's purchase of the New York Times had other motives besides investing, namely the protection of the paper from purchase by owners who want to impose their political views on the paper.
No. of Recommendations: 1
“ I can't help but wonder if Buffett's purchase of the New York Times had other motives besides investing, namely the protection of the paper from purchase by owners who want to impose their political views on the paper.“ The B shares have control of nyt, a meaningless odd lot for Brk.
No. of Recommendations: 5
If NYT is a Buffett purchase, I don’t think it had any motive beyond it being a good investment. If he wanted to protect the paper for political reasons, he would have used his personal funds not BRK’s.
NYT is probably a better investment now with the complete collapse of its closest competitor The Washington Post. Maybe that factored in the investment case.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Oops. I read the announcement too quickly. I thought Buffett bought the whole company. He only bought 3% of NYT's shares. My bad.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Looks like net sales of ~1.8% on the ~$274,160,088,000 portfolio. ~$4.9B more cash for dividends, or something.
No. of Recommendations: 3
The position is too small for Buffett. Buffett bought CVX and CB. Buffett sold Appl and BAC. Ted or Todd bought and sold the rest judging by past purchases.
No. of Recommendations: 4
NYT is probably a better investment now with the complete collapse of its closest competitor The Washington Post. Maybe that factored in the investment case.
Some men were walking in the forest when it began to rain heavily. They ran under a large tree which would protect them from the rain. One said "What will we do when the rain eventually makes its way through the leaves of this tree and starts to soak us?"
The smart one said "No problem. We'll just switch to another tree."
When buggy whip makers were going out of business one by one, I'm not sure how good of an idea it was to invest in the strongest buggy whip company.
No. of Recommendations: 3
I liked to see that while a number of other 13Fs showed portfolio managers trading out of GOOG/GOOGL, Berkshire had no issues with sitting still.
Also Li Lu has GOOGL/GOOG as their largest 13F position and sitting still.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Great minds think alike!!
No. of Recommendations: 0
it's not a bad investment for under $400 million . Plus NYT is one of the few papers with a moat . NYT wss up over %30 last year
No. of Recommendations: 18
13 Quarters we have been net sellers of our public equities I believe.
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.
What is the meaning of thirteen times?
We can at least rule out one explanation: they're not short of cash.
Jim
No. of Recommendations: 5
It is rather dizzying how large of a slice of the Berkshire pie cash has become. I'm not in a dissimilar boat. There aren't many compelling securities, and I've been ok with being in a larger cash position in the past, and managed to do some opportune buys in 2009 and 2020 by being patient.
I've been trying to explain to some younger people that there can be something desirable, like a steak. But if the grocer wants to charge you $100 for a steak, and tomorrow it is $80, it isn't suddenly a bargain, and it could halve again and not yet be a compelling buy. I used that one in the context of the price of silver, as there was some chatter from the young about that in another forum.
No. of Recommendations: 5
It is rather dizzying how large of a slice of the Berkshire pie cash has become. I'm not in a dissimilar boat. There aren't many compelling securities, and I've been ok with being in a larger cash position...
Similar here.
I have been lucky that interest rates have been non zero this last couple of years...that takes a little of the sting out of it.
I've topped that up by using (but not using up) the cash to secure some put options I've written. It hasn't been TOO hard to find things that I'd buy if the price were right, and get (say) 8%/year (in addition to the interest I'm earning) for committing to being willing to buy at those levels. Nothing has been assigned, but the income from the premiums and the account interest has added up to a decent return.
I've also had more luck by having moved the cash out of USD a year ago, saving a 10% drop, and by some of my equity picks having done much better than I had any right to expect. Presumably I will soon see a year that everything I own turns to dust.
Jim
