S&P's New "Buy 'Em Like Buffett" Stock Screen

Jason Decrow

The new Apple iPhone is seen Friday, June 29, 2007 in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

Twice each year, Standard and Poor's runs a stock screen, designed to find stocks that Warren Buffett might find attractive based on his general investment philosophy.

Howard Silverblatt of Standard & Poor's Equity Research writes that the screen looks for:

• Free cash flow of at least $250 million
• Net profit margin of at least 15%
• At least 15% return on equity in the previous quarter and in each of the past three years
• Dollar's worth of retained earnings creating at a dollar of shareholder value of previous five years
• Market value at or above $500 million
• Projected cash flow per share above current stock price over next five years

The S&P screen results carry a very important reminder: "These are not stocks that Buffett has purchased or announced plans to purchase. They are simply stocks that meet the criteria that Buffett has emphasized in the past."

The new list is shorter than February's screen results. Among the stocks that didn't make the cut this time around: Apple .. which didn't seem like a Buffett-style stock to begin with given his tech aversion. Microsoft and Oracle, however, remain.

Here are the other stocks that also made the list:

• Alcon
  
  
  
• ASML Holding
  
  
  
• Autodesk
  
  
  
• Bard (C.R.)
  
  
  
• Baxter International
  
  
  
• Becton Dickinson
  
  
  
• BG Group
  
  
  
• Brown-Forman
  
  
  
• Canadian National Railway
  
  
  
• Charles Schwab
  
  
  
• Franklin Resources
  
  
  
• Freeport-McMoRan Copper
  
  
  
• Garmin
  
  
  
• Genentech
  
  
  
• Grupo Televisa
  
  
  
• Halliburton
  
  
  
• Infosys Technologies
  
  
  
• Intercontinental Hotels
  
  
  
• Johnson & Johnson
  
  
  
• Lam Research
  
  
  
• McDonald's
  
  
  
• MEMC Electronic Materials
  
  
  
• Microsoft
  
  
  
• Mobile Telesystems
  
  
  
• National Semiconductor
  
  
  
• Novo-Nordisk
  
  
  
• Occidental Petroleum
  
  
  
• Oracle
  
  
  
• Partner Communications
  
  
  
• Philadelphia Cons.
  
  
  
• Philippine Long Distance
  
  
  
• Qualcomm
  
  
  
• Research in Motion
  
  
  
• Reynolds American
  
  
  
• SAP
  
  
  
• Satyam Computer Services
  
  
  
• Schlumberger
  
  
  
• SEI Investments
  
  
  
• Sigma-Aldrich
  
  
  
• Stryker
  
  
  
• Taiwan Semiconductor
  
  
  
• TD AmeriTrade
  
  
  
• Telefonica
  
  
  
• Tenaris
  
  
  
• T. Rowe Price
  
  
  
• Turkcell Iletisim
  
  
  
• Vimpel Communications
  
  
  
• Wipro
  
  
  
• Wolters Kluwer
  
  

Current Berkshire stock prices:

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Class B:

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