Does the fact that Buffett/Berkshire was not adding to the position when it got to $50/share recently give you any pause with regards to buying OXY?

It gives me some pause.

We don't know why Buffett has stopped - it could be that he just decided to go up to a certain percentage, or a certain round number of shares, although I don't see anything round in the current numbers, which are 255,281,524 shares and warrants to buy another 83,858,848.81 shares for $5b, for a total of 339.2m shares. This would represent 33.91% of Occidental shares, also not a round number.

Or it could be that he has some formula based on current oil price and expected future oil prices, and the drop in oil prices from about $80 at his last purchase in June to under $67 a few days ago (although back up to $74 in the last few days) has reduced the attractiveness of OXY shares.

Or maybe he is just shifting the cash accumulation strategy into high gear, as a major correction looks more and more likely.

Or one of a million other reasons, including he has just changed his mind about whether this is an investment he wants to make into a big bet.

However, the one thing that does seem clearer is that he is not aiming to take a majority stake in the company, or even make a purchase bid for all the shares. If that were his strategy, one would think that he would have taken advantage of the lower price and bought as much as he can. So if a take-private scenario was part of your investment rationale, as it was part of mine, then I think that part has become less likely.

dtb