Subject: Re: Even more OXY
Nola is right, of course.

Careless reporting from sites like Barron's and Gurufocus say that Berkshire just bought 80m+ shares on one day at the end of December, despite the fact that only about 10m shares are traded a day.

This is what yesterday's 13G actually says:

SHARED VOTING POWER

327,574,652.81 shares of Common Stock (83,858,848.81 of which represent shares underlying the Berkshire Warrants (as hereinafter defined))

In other words, there are 327,574,652.81-83,858,848.81=243,715,804 actual shares owned, and warrants to buy another $5b worth at about $57. The warrant price is gradually increasing, as it is adjusted downwards based on dividends paid out. Thge warrants were originally issued on August 8, 2019, for 80,000,000 million shares at an exercise price of $62.50 per share (80m*62.50=5000), but the number of warrants keeps changing, as the exercise price decreases, which accounts for some (not all) of the confusion in how it's reported.

It is true that it is a nightmare trying to figure out what is happening with recent purchases, from the archaic SEC documents and from Occidental's and Berkshire's minimal disclosures. And it is true that Buffett has been buying shares, in addition to owning these warrants, usually at prices near below $60 or just above. But there has not been a big jump upwards in the number of shares, and it is not 34%, even if the warrants were exercised (if they were exercised, the denominator of the number of Occidental shares would have to be adjusted, to, and their total shares would go up from about 880,370,837 to 880,370,837+83,858,848.81, in other words almost 10%.

dtb