13F PATROL: Buffett and Einhorn Announce New Buys

I love 13F filings, it’s always exhilarating to hear about what my investing idols are buying and selling  – even though the filings come out 45 days from quarter’s end and are inherently on a delay.  So what?  The guys I track aren’t day traders, they buy and hold and accumulate even more opportunistically.

I know my friend Jay at Market Folly is tearing into these as we speak so I won’t labor over them here, but there was some cool stuff that caught my attention today I’ll share with you guys:

Warren Buffett is buying Mastercard!

I’m a big holder of Visa for my clients, I just love the recurring revenue model and the capitve, wide moat nature of the credit card processing giants.  What many people don’t understand about these companies is that Mastercard and Visa aren’t issuers – they don’t have exposure to the creditworthiness of the cardholders.  The banks issue the cards, V and MA simply get paid on the transactions.  Inflation actually benefits them; think about what that small percentage on filling your gas tank is worth to the processor when gas prices rise by 20%.  How about that fee when the grocery bill is up 10%.

This is a classic Buffett investment, very little competitive risk save whatever congress may try to do to interchange fees.  According to Berkshire’s 13F, they’ve purchased 216,000 shares.  History says that’s just the start.

Let’s also take a peek at what David Einhorn is up to with his Green Light fund.

I followed Einhorn into the Vodaphone/Verizon Wireless play in 2009 and between the 50% appreciation and the 6% dividend we made out like bandits.  We’ve all heard about Einhorn’s new Yahoo stake but what else is he up to this quarter?

Here are his brand new positions according to Street Insider:

Amdocs Ltd. (NYSE: DOX) new 505,340 share position
Becton, Dickinson & Co. (NYSE: BDX) (CALL) new 30,000 share position
Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) new 6,000,000 share position
CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS) new 3,275,000 share position
First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) (PUT) new 286,900 share position
General Motors (NYSE: GM) new 3,420,000 share position
HCA Holdings (NYSE: HCA) new 2,935,000 share position
Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX) new 3,268,957 share position
Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) new 8,500,000 share position

This Best Buy pickup is by far the most surprising…I had thought that the hedgies had learned their lesson with the Brick and Mortar retailers after the Borders Group, Blockbuster and Barnes & Noble disasters.  We’ll see what he has up his sleeve I suppose.

For the existing holdings he’s bought more of or the positions he’s dumped, you can head over at the link below.

Source:

Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital Shows New Stakes in Best Buy (BBY), GM (GM), Seagate (STX) and Yahoo! (YHOO), Among Others  (Street Insider)