Warren Buffett (NYSE:BRK.A) Claims he Bought Stocks Yesterday but Remains Coy on Which

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By Chris Hillman on October 2, 2014 Company

Warren Buffett (NYSE:BRK.A) was in the market for stocks in yesterdays sell-off though when interviewed on behalf of MSN Money he was unwilling to reveal where he was making his latest deals. However he did allude to the type of share he was buying when he said they were recognizable names.

The billionaire investor went further in this interview by revealing that he likes to buy stocks when they’re down and not up. He added that it was folly to attempt to hit the market by trading the names of individual stocks.

He heralded the prudent investors who stuck to a strategy of buying from a broad spectrum of American companies, claiming they had done extremely well over the past decade or two. He put this down to the fact that over time you will always see an appreciation in value, and he reminded us that the Dow Industrial Average had been below 100 in his lifetime.

While the majority of investors on Wall Street are fixated on the size of prospective interest rate rises Buffet claims that the Fed’s operations are of no concern to his investment portfolio. His strategy is to buy into businesses with a view of how they will perform over 50 years. Included in this strategy is the deal he cut recently to buy the US’s biggest privately owned car dealership, Van Tuyl Group.

He also praised Coca-Coca (NYSE:KO)’s new plan for executive compensation, this follows his abstention from the vote earlier this year on a plan which he called ‘excessive’. The new plan favours payments which are predominantly cash oriented as opposed to the one in favour of more stock options from earlier this year. The benefits of the new strategy according to Buffett are that they represent shareholders best interests and will serve to motivate employees.

Warren Buffet (NYSE:BRK.A) is also contributing a sum of $3 billion in preferred equity to support Burger King (NYSE:BKW)’s plan to buy the Canadian company Tim Hortons for a reported fee of $11 billion, the deal will see a new company created in the maple leaf state.

He said the deal differed from most other inversion deals due to the lack of a tax motivation. The largest tax bill Burger King (NYSE:BKW) has had to foot in recent years it about $30 million, if Hortons were to be moved to the US this bill would be increased significantly according to Buffett.

He also refused to be drawn on whether he agreed with President Obama’s assertion that these types of tax inversions were unpatriotic. However he did say that he would like the US to be more competitive with other countries such as those in Europe when it comes to the nation’s corporate tax strategy. Buffett claimed that the current structure meant that companies from America were uncompetitive on the global stage when it came to the more attractive low corporate tax rates.

Berkshire Hathaway is trading at 206,014.34 as of 11.05 ET. Having opened at 205,000.00 it reached a daily high of 206,344.33 and a low of 205,000.00. An annual high of 212,075.05 and a low of 164,075.10