Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway increases stock holdings

Warren Buffett’s investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway, went on a buying spree in the stock market before Christmas. The firm took advantage of a December sell-off to buy more shares. Berkshire Hathaway bought an extra 8.9 million shares in Occidental Petroleum for $405 million. This increased its stake in the Houston-based energy company to over 28%. The firm also purchased about 5 million shares of Sirius XM for around $113 million. It bought approximately 234,000 shares of VeriSign for roughly $45 million as well. These stakes are much smaller, so the transactions may have been made by Buffett’s investing deputies Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. In total, Berkshire bought more than $560 million worth of stocks over the last three sessions. The 94-year-old famous investor seemed to have capitalized on a broad market pullback that made these stocks much cheaper. Occidental shares have fallen more than 10% this month, bringing its 2024 losses to 24%.

Buffett’s end-of-year stock purchases

The energy company is now Berkshire’s sixth-biggest stock holding. Buffett has said Berkshire will not take over the company completely. The sell-off in Sirius XM has been worse. The New York-based satellite radio company is currently in a six-day losing streak. Its stock is down 23% this month and 62% this year. Berkshire began buying more shares after billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Media finished its deal to combine its tracking stocks with the rest of the audio entertainment company. Now, Berkshire’s stake has increased to about 35%. Sirius XM has been dealing with subscriber losses and negative demographic changes. Internet company VeriSign has also had a difficult year, with its stock down 6% in 2024. This is much worse than the tech sector as a whole. Berkshire first bought the tech stock in 2013 and has not changed the stake in years.