Berkshire Hathaway Purchased Six New Positions Last Quarter

Warren Buffett was clearly in a buying mood last quarter, as Berkshire Hathaway opened up six new positions and added to five of its existing positions. On the other hand, Berkshire Hathaway sold none of their existing positions and reduced just three of their existing holdings.

So what did Berkshire Hathaway buy last quarter? Let's take a look:

IBM - 57,348,984 shares ($10,028,617,000)
Intel - 9,333,000 shares ($199,167,000)
Visa - 2,291,708 shares ($196,445,000)
CVS Caremark Corp - 5,661,000 shares ($190,153,000)
Directv - 4,249,4000 shares ($179,622,000)
General Dynamics Corp - 3,064,422 ($174,335,000)

Some of these new holdings, namely IBM and Intel, are certainly interesting considering Buffett's past aversion to investing in technology companies.

Buffett particularly likes IBM, which is now Berkshire Hathaway's second largest holding behind only Coca-Cola.

The five companies that Berkshire Hathaway bought more of in the third quarter of 2011 were:

Dollar General (200% increase)
Verisk Analytics (100% increase)
Torchmark Corp. (50% increase)
Wells Fargo (3% increase)
M&T Bank (0% increase, +18,219 shares)

On the other hand, Berkshire Hathaway decreased existing positions in Johnson & Johnson (-12%), Kraft Foods (-10%) and ConocoPhillips (0%, -700 shares).

Source: Berkshire Hathaway Holdings