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Follow
the Big Money
The “work smarter, not harder” adage applies to picking stocks. For
instance, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, founded by Bill Gates
of Microsoft fame along with wife Melinda, controls more than $10 billion
in assets. With that much at stake, you know that the trust has access to
the brightest and best minds in the financial industry.
Gates' Biggest Holdings
Which stocks does the trust hold? Gates’ friend Warren Buffett’s
Berkshire Hathaway is by far the biggest holding, possibly because Buffett
may have contributed some of the shares to the trust. Besides for
Berkshire Hathaway, the foundation holds big stakes in Waste Management,
McDonald’s, Canadian National Railway, Costco Wholesale, Caterpillar,
Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobil, among others.
Info Readily Available
I didn’t have to spend days digging out this information. It’s all
neatly compiled and available for the asking on Gurufocus.com (www.gurufocus.com).
The site compiles the holdings and recent trades of more than 60 well-know
big players that it dubs “gurus.” Besides for Gates, other familiar names
include Warren Buffett, and George Soros, whose Quantum hedge fund
averaged a 32% average annual return over a
26-year period starting in 1969.
Buffett & Soros
What area their biggest holdings? For Buffett it’s Wells Fargo,
Coca Cola, American Express and Kraft Foods. Soros is betting big on gold.
His biggest holding is an exchange-traded-fund that directly tracks that
precious metal’s price (SPDR Gold Shares). After gold, Soros’ biggest
holdings, at least according to Gurufocus, are Ford Motor, and Emdeon, a
small provider of payment management services to the healthcare industry.
What Are They
Buying Now?
In September, Gates initiated positions in CSX Corporation, M&T Bank, XTO
Energy and American Express. Buffet recently initiated new positions in
Republic Services, Exxon Mobil, and The Travelers. Also in September,
besides for Emotion and Ford, Soros established new positions in Coach
Industries, Applied Materials and Macy’s.
What Are They Dumping?
Equally important is which stocks these wired-in players are
selling. Gates’ foundation recently sold all of its holdings of Seattle
Genetics, ARYx Therapeutics, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and Johnson &
Johnson, among others. Buffett recently dumped WABCO Holdings, Eaton,
Constellation Energy Group, Ameriprise Financial, and Dow Jones & Company.
According to Gurufocus, Soros recently unloaded his entire holdings of
Altera, ArvinMentor, AU Optronics, and Boston Scientific, among others.
Whose Hot?
The Guru
Scoreboard shows you which of its Gurus are hot, and which are cold,
over periods ranging from six-months to 10-years. Oilman T Boone Pickens
leads the pack by far over the past six- and 12-month timeframes. His
biggest holdings include Transocean, Hess, and Devon Energy. Besides for
Hess, Pickens recently established new positions in Sandridge Energy,
McMoRan Exploration, and GasStar Exploration. In June he sold his entire
holdings of Applied Natural Resources, Consol Energy, and Fluor, among
others.
Long-Term Best
Taking the long-view, over the past 10 years, Gurufocus rates value
investor Arnie Van Den Berg, founder of Century Management, at the top.
His biggest current holding is Frontier Oil, which is just added to his
portfolio in the September 2009 quarter. Other recent buys include Cirrus
Logic and Micrus Endovascular. Recent sells include Youbet.com and King
Pharmaceuticals.
Gurufocus doesn’t say where is gets its guru data, but it probably comes
from reports that big shareholders file with the Securities & Exchange
Commission on a quarterly basis. That information isn’t particularly
timely since the trades listed in those reports could have happened almost
three months before the report date. For instance, trades that took place
in July wouldn’t be reported until the end of September.
Thus, it’s best to pay most attention to low turnover players such as
value investors like Van Den Berg who tend to be long-term holders or to
very large holders such as the Gates Foundation that, because of the size
of their holdings, can’t move on a dime.
published 12/6/09 |
