Greggory Warren, CFA

Greggory Warren, CFA, is a strategist for Morningstar.

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Wide-moat-rated Berkshire Hathaway had a fairly quiet second quarter in its equity investment portfolio, selling some $2.1 billion worth of stock while also acquiring a little over $1 billion of equities.

While the company raised an estimated $10.6 billion during the period by selling positions in 11 different stocks, the trimming of stakes in Apple (57.2 million shares for an estimated $7.1 billion) and Wells Fargo (75.0 million shares for $2.0 billion) accounted for most of the capital raised.

While there was little in wide-moat BlackRock's fourth-quarter earnings to alter our long-term view of the firm, we expect to increase our fair value estimate to around $750 per share from $620 to account for the continued recovery in the equity, credit and currency markets following the steep COVID-19 induced sell off in the first quarter of 2020.

But the crisis will also accelerate the company's evolution from a reinvestment machine to one returning more capital to shareholders.

More About Greggory Warren

Greggory Warren, CFA, is a strategist, AM Financial Services, for Morningstar*. He covers the traditional US- and Canadian-based traditional asset managers, as well as the alternative asset managers and Berkshire Hathaway. Over the course of his career, Warren has covered not only financial services names but companies from the consumer staples and consumer cyclicals sectors, and been involved in portfolio stock selection and management.

Prior to joining Morningstar in 2005, Warren worked as a buy-side equity analyst for more than eight years, covering consumer staples and consumer cyclicals. Before assuming his current role at Morningstar in 2017, Warren covered the financial-services sector as a senior analyst since late 2008. Prior to that time, he covered the non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers and distributors, packaged food firms, food service distributors, and tobacco companies.

Warren holds a bachelor's degree in accounting and English from Augustana College. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation and is a member of the CFA Society of Chicago.

During 2014-19, Warren was selected to participate each year on the analyst panel at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, asking questions directly of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. The analyst panel was disbanded ahead of Berkshire’s 2020 annual meeting. Warren also ranked second in the investment services industry in The Wall Street Journal’s annual “Best on the Street” analysts survey in 2013, the last year the survey was conducted.

* Morningstar Research Services LLC (“Morningstar”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc

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