Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Eliminates Two Small Stakes

Lacy O'Toole | CNBC

Warren Buffett at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder's Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has eliminated its holdings of two stocks: Archer Daniels Midland and General Dynamics, according to the quarterly filing with the SEC that lists its portfolio of U.S. publicly traded stocks as of March 31, the end of the first quarter.

Neither of the stakes were very large by Berkshire standings. The almost 6 million shares of ADM Berkshire held as of December 31 would be worth almost $207 million.

The 3.9 million General Dynamics shares held at the end of last year would be worth $297 million today.

The small size of those stakes indicates they were sold by one of Berkshire's portfolio managers, not by Buffett himself.

Buffett has said that the portfolio managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, don't need and don't get his approval before buying or selling shares.

At this year's shareholders meeting, Buffett said they sometimes buy things he wouldn't buy just as he buys things they wouldn't want in their portfolio.

Berkshire added a 6.5 million share stake in Chicago Bridge & Iron. It's worth $375 million at today's close and was almost certainly also bought by a portfolio manager rather than Buffett.

Despite its name, the energy infrastructure company is based in the Netherlands.

(Read More: Buffett: Right Now, Stocks Are Good, Bonds Are Bad)

Berkshire added to one bank stake while shedding shares of another. It cut its BNY Mellon holding by 3.5 percent to 18.9 million shares while increasing its stake in Buffett favorite Wells Fargo by 4.2 percent to 458.2 million shares. As of today's close, Berkshire owns $18 billion worth of the bank's stock, its largest single stake.

(Read More: Warren Buffett: Berkshire Will Be the 'Same' Without Me)

Berkshire increased its stake in DirecTV by 9.5 percent to 37.3 million shares, and in Wal-Mart by 3.7 percent to 49.2 million shares.

There are two big percentage moves by Berkshire. It cut its stake in Mondelez International by 45.1 percent to 7.05 million shares while increasing its National Oilwell Varco stake by 41.4 percent to 7.48 million shares.

Berkshire's stake in Kraft Foods fell 4.0 percent to 1,602,061 shares.

Berkshire more than doubled its stake in Verisign, taking it to 8.2 million shares from the 3.7 million it reported for the end of the fourth quarter.

A 5.6 million shares stake in Starz is a new Berkshire stake. The company was created by Berkshire holding Liberty Media in a January spin-off.

An increase for DaVita Healthcare Partners to 14.97 million shares had been previously disclosed by Berkshire.

The total market value of Berkshire's disclosed holdings topped $85 billion as of March 31. That's an increase of 12.9 percent from $75.3 billion at the end of December.