Billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) continues to boost its stake in oil and gas giant Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY). With the recent purchases between October 23 and 25, Buffett’s conglomerate raised its stake to 25.8% from 25.1% in Occidental stock.
In an SEC filing, Berkshire disclosed its purchase of over 3.92 million additional shares of Occidental in multiple transactions in the past three days. These transactions were made at prices ranging from $62.69 to $63.05, reflecting an average price of $62.82 per share. The transaction’s total value stands at about $246.4 million.
It is worth highlighting that the Oracle of Omaha‘s Berkshire now owns 228.05 million shares of Occidental, worth nearly $14.4 billion, based on Wednesday’s closing price. It also owns $8.5 billion of Occidental preferred stock with an 8% dividend and about 83.9 million warrants to buy OXY common shares at $59.62 apiece.
Interestingly, Buffett has the permission to purchase up to a 50% stake in Occidental. Moreover, at Berkshire’s annual meeting held in May 2023, Buffett disclosed plans to not take control of OXY entirely but to continue buying the stock.
Berkshire Hathaway – A Top-Rated Insider
Berkshire is one of the Top-rated insiders. TipRanks tracks and measures the performance of several financial experts and ranks them based on three key factors – success rate, average return, and statistical significance.
As per the data collected by TipRanks, Berkshire has had a 62% success rate in its 85 transactions in the past year, with an average return of 5.4% per transaction.
Interestingly, TipRanks offers daily insider transactions as well as a list of top corporate insiders. It also provides a list of hot stocks that boast either a Very Positive or Positive insider confidence signal.
Is OXY a Good Stock to Buy?
Wall Street analysts are cautiously optimistic about Occidental. It has a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on seven Buys, six Holds, and one Sell. The average OXY stock price target of $70.71 implies 11.8% upside potential.
