Berkshire Hathaway Inc. increases holdings in Wells Fargo, US Bancorp, IBM

On Friday, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said that it has increased its holdings in some of billionaire Chairman Warren Buffett’s favorite companies in the first quarter, including Wells Fargo & Co. and International Business Machines Corp.

According to a regulatory filing on Friday, that detailed its US stock portfolio as of March 31, Berkshire has also added to its stake in US Bancorp. Buffett’s deputies have pared holdings in stocks, including National Oilwell Varco Inc. No new companies were listed in the portfolio.

Although, Buffett is widely known for his skill at picking stocks, yet the investment portfolio at Berkshire has become less important over time as the company has shifted toward buying whole businesses.

Further, equities have also gotten more expensive. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is on pace to increase for its 10th straight quarter.

Earlier this week in a phone interview, Gregg Warren, an analyst at Morningstar Inc., said, “If there are no screaming buys out there, there’s not much for him to do”.

Buffett has boosted his IBM holding by 3.4% to 79.6 million shares, and has brought the stake to $12.8 billion at the end of the first quarter. At Berkshire’s annual meeting this month, he said that he had added to the IBM stake despite its revenue slump. He didn’t said how many shares he acquired.

The Wells Fargo investment has jumped by 1.5% to 470 million shares and was valued at over $25 billion at the end of March. The US Bancorp stake has also shown 4.6% rise to 83.7 million shares and was valued at over $3 billion.

Wells Fargo and IBM are part of Buffett’s ‘Big Four’ stock investments. The other two companies in that group include American Express Co. and Coca-Cola Co. The stakes in these two companies remained unchanged in the first quarter. Berkshire is the biggest shareholder in all four businesses.