Berkshire invests in JPMorgan, Oracle while Buffett puts money to work

(Reuters) – Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has strengthened its commitment to the US financial sector by announcing a $ 4.02 billion stake in JPMorgan Chase & Co and new investments in PNC Financial Services Group and Travelers Companies Inc. , as well as a stake in Oracle Corp.

The investments were disclosed on Wednesday in a regulatory file detailing Berkshire's publicly traded shares as of Sept. 30, after a quarter in which the conglomerate based in Omaha, Nebraska, had spent $ 17.7 billion in shares.

According to the filing, Berkshire held $ 829 million in shares of PNC, $ 460 million from Travelers insurer and $ 2.13 billion from Oracle, the database software company.

It also strengthened its substantial holdings in two previous Buffett investments, Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

"While nervous investors fear the end of the economic recovery, Buffett is buying economically sensitive bank stocks," said Smead Capital Management Inc.'s Seattle-based Bill Smead, owner of Berkshire shares. "Homeowners like us are not bothered by a correction to make with them."

Although the record does not indicate which purchases were made by Buffett or his investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, investors are monitoring the quarterly listing of Berkshire shares for signs indicating where the trio sees value.

The shares of JPMorgan, PNC and Travelers each rose at least 1% after Berkshire published its new holdings, while those of Oracle rose 2.4%.

JPMorgan and Travelers declined to comment. PNC, Oracle and Buffett's assistant did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The investment in JPMorgan, where Combs is a member of the board of directors, closes a noticeable hole in Berkshire's portfolio.

Berkshire was already the largest investor in several companies, including American Express, Bank of America, Bank of New York, Mellon Corp., US Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co, according to Refinitiv data.

Buffett has long praised the leadership of JPMorgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, and has partnered with Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos in the past year to create a new company focused on reduce healthcare costs of employees in the United States.

Atul Gawande, a surgeon and critic of the practices of the medical industry, was appointed in June to lead the company.

Buffett and Dimon also teamed up in June to ask companies to stop giving quarterly earnings forecasts as they encourage an unhealthy focus on short-term profit at the expense of long-term sustainable growth.

Berkshire has more than 90 companies in the insurance, energy, food and retail, industry, railways and other sectors.

Buffett has not made a major acquisition since the purchase of Precision Castparts aircraft parts manufacturer in January 2016.

He often buys stocks such as Apple Inc., in which Berkshire had previously announced a $ 57.6 billion stake, when buying entire companies seems too expensive.

Berkshire also spent $ 928 million to buy back its own shares during the quarter.

Despite stock purchases, Berkshire ended September with $ 103.6 billion in cash and cash equivalents.

Berkshire also announced other portfolio changes, including the divestiture of stakes in Walmart Inc. and French drug maker Sanofi SA and the reduction of its stake in oil refiner Phillips 66.