Buffett's Berkshire Sells Most of J&J and GE Stakes

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New York, Nov.15, stock tips .- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has eliminated almost all of its stakes in Johnson & Johnson and General Electric. According to Berkshire's 13-F filing with the SEC, the company held just over 492-thousand shares of J&J as of September 30. That's a 95 percent reduction from the 10.3 million shares it reported holding as of June 30. The market value of the remaining holdings is just $34 million, down $682 million.

(Read more: Warren Buffett Buys This With His Billions .. And It Makes Him Happy)

Berkshire's GE stock has been slashed to 588,900 shares. That's down 88 percent from just over five million shares three months earlier. That stake is now worth just under $12 million, down $88.4 million.

Three relatively small holdings were eliminated during the quarter: Ingersoll-Rand (IR) (20,400 shares worth about $923,000), Dollar General (DG) (3,320,885 shares worth $157 million), and CVS Caremark (CVS) (5,301,916 shares worth $241 million).

A few stocks were added to Berkshire's portfolio during the third quarter, but they all appear to have been purchased by one of Berkshire's new portfolio managers, Todd Combs or Ted Weshler.

The biggest addition is Deere & CO. (DE) with almost 4 million shares worth $337 million.

The filing also shows Berkshire owned 1,248,901 shares of Precision Castparts (PCP) at the end of the quarter. That stake is currently worth $216 million,

The smallest addition is Wabco Holdings (WBC) with almost 1.6 million shares worth $92 million.

Increased Stakes

• General Motors (GM)
  Up 5,000,000 shares to 15,000,000. (+50%)
• National Oilwell Varco (NOV)
  Up 1,345,600 shares to 4,186,800. (+47%)
• Viacom (VIA)
  Up 794,000 shares to 7,607,200. (+12%)
• Bank of New York Mellon (BK)
  Up 914,400 shares to 19,633,915 (+5%)
• DirecTV (DTV)
  Up 1,134,9000 shares to 29,555,600 (+4%)
• Wells Fargo (WFC)
  Up 11,504,300 shares to 422,549,545 (+3%)
• IBM (IBM)
  Up 872,500 shares to 67,517,896 (+1%)

Decreased Stakes

• United Parcel Service (UPS)
  Down 202,500 shares to 59,400 (-77%)
• Lee Enterprises (LEE)
  Down 2,095,102 shares to 1,130,720 (-65%)
• Kraft Foods Inc. (Pre-Spinoff)
  Down 28,362,040 shares to 30,464,350 (-48%)
• Visa (NYSE:V)
  Down 524,200 shares to 1,555,459 (-25%)
• Verisk Analytics (VRSK)
  Down 308,437 shares to 1,563,434 (-16%)
• ConocoPhillips (COP)
  Down 4,744,726 shares to 24,123,911 (-16%)
• Procter & Gamble (PG)
  Down 6,809,125 shares to 52,793,078 (-11%)
• US Bancorp (USB)
  Down 4,736,112 shares to 61,264,601 (-7%)

The filing shows that Berkshire now owns 400 million shares of Coca-Cola (KO) instead of the 200 million listed as of June 30. That increase, however, is the result of a two-for-one stock split during the quarter, and doesn't represent new buying. ... Continue to read.

Related articles

• Buffett's Berkshire sheds consumer stocks, buys industrials in 3rd qtr (uk.reuters.com)
• Buffett's firm adds Deere stake, ups bank holdings (seattletimes.com)
• Berkshire Hathaway reveals new investments (cbsnews.com)