Warren Buffett followers got their quarterly glimpse into the mind of the Oracle of Omaha after the market closed Monday. Berkshire Hathaway Inc (ticker: BRK/A, BRK/B) filed its quarterly holdings report with the Securities and Exchange Commission listing all the stocks that Buffett bought and sold in the first quarter. Most of the revelations didn’t surprise Buffett followers, such as his aggressive buying of Apple Inc (AAPL).
But with the market surging to record highs in 2017, Buffett also dialed back his investment in his three more well-known holdings.
Buffett revealed at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha last weekend that he has been selling shares of IBM (IBM). In fact, Buffett reduced Berkshire’s IBM holding 21 percent in the first quarter.
“I don’t value IBM the same way that I did six years ago when I started buying,” Buffett said at the shareholder meeting. “I think if you look back at what they were projecting and how they thought the business would develop, I would say what they’ve run into is some pretty tough competitors.”
Besides selling IBM, Buffett also dumped Berkshire’s entire $8.9 million stake in Twenty-First Century Fox (FOXA). Although Buffett hasn’t spoken about this decision, the company is confronting a number of challenges at the moment. After losing its CEO Roger Ailes last summer amid a flurry of sexual harassment charges, Fox News recently fired its top on-air talent, Bill O’Reilly, because of similar allegations. Plus, cable news networks face an increasingly uncertain future in an era of cord cutting and streaming TV competition.
Perhaps the most surprising Buffett move was his sale of Delta Air Lines (DAL). Buffett has been buying up huge stakes in Delta, Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV), American Airlines Group (AAL) and United Continental Holdings (UAL) since the third quarter last year. He continued buying airline shares this year, upping Berkshire’s stakes in American 8 percent and Southwest 10 percent. With Delta, though, he cut his stake 8 percent.
Buffett once famously called airlines a “death trap” for investors, but he told shareholders in Omaha that the industry now uses seatsmuch more efficiently.
Buffett didn’t mention Delta specifically at the shareholder meeting. Over the past year, Delta shares have performed…
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