Warren Buffett Says He's Been Buying More American Express or Wells Fargo
By: Alex Crippen | Executive Producer
Warren Buffett tells our Becky Quick that he has been adding recently to one of the two stakes Berkshire Hathaway already has in a pair of financial stocks: American Express and Wells Fargo .
But, in keeping his custom of not revealing too much, he won't say which one. Even so, investors are bidding up the price of both stocks this morning.
Buffett also sees better opportunities now in the stock market that he did a year ago. That's really no surprise given the big decline in stock prices over that time.
They are just two of the many comments Buffett made during a series of live appearances with CNBC's Becky Quick throughout this morning's three hours of Squawk Box following last night's premiere of an anti-deficit documentary that includes comments from Buffett.
Among the highlights:
- Berkshire has no direct currency plays right now, including no bets against the U.S. dollar
- Repeats his belief the U.S. economic downturn will be longer and deeper than many people think
- The economy won't be better five months from now, but will rebound within the next five years
- Fed has a very tough job fighting inflation, which he expects will continue to rise
- No immediate interest in making an investment in Canadian oil sands, although he did find his tour of northeastern Alberta this week very interesting
- In retrospect, he made a mistake when he sold a large chunkof his Anheuser-Busch stake before the brewer agreed to a friendly deal with InBev. Buffett said he wasn't sure the deal would go through given Anheuser's initial resistance to InBev's offer
- Made a $500 million bid for a Chinese asset that was rejected, but won't say what it was
- Expects government action to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , although there's a "reasonable chance" shares of the two GSEs will eventually go to zero
- Urges contributors to the John Edwards presidential campaign to file a class-action suit seeking the return of their money because Edwards "misled" them about his extra-marital affair
Current Berkshire stock prices:
Class A:
Class B:
Questions? Comments? Email me at buffettwatch@cnbc.com
