Skip to main content

Buffett, Icahn ride the rails

News out on Tuesday revealed that investors Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn were increasing their stake in railroad investments.

SEC filings from earlier in the week showed that Icahn held a 2.7 million share stake in CSX Corp, as well as a 29 percent stake in American Railcar Industries.

Meanwhile, filings from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway showed that the company had added to its rail holdings, with holdings in Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern rounding out Berkshire's recently announced stake in Burlington Northern.

More on the recently disclosed railroad investments from Bloomberg:

``The rail group has attracted a lot of attention in a year and a half that could've led to a lot of smart people looking into it,'' Tony Hatch, an independent rail analyst based in New York, said yesterday in an interview.

``This group has clearly changed in many ways and has been stronger about talking about how it's changed.''

CSX and companies such as Union Pacific Corp. and Burlington Northern Sante Fe Corp. are benefiting from a tightening in rail capacity starting in 2003 and rising Asian import volume, Hatch said. Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway's chairman, said earlier this month that higher fuel prices and deregulation are making rail carriers attractive investments.

``As oil prices go up, higher diesel fuel raises costs for rails, but it raises costs for its competitors -- truckers -- roughly by a factor of four,'' Buffett, 76, said at the company's May 5 annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.

See Berkshire Hathaway's recent 13F filings for latest public holdings info.

Popular posts from this blog

Nasdaq credit rating junked.

S&P cut Nasdaq's credit rating to junk status citing debt burdens and its questionable strategy to buy a controlling interest in the London Stock Exchange. Financial Times reported that the exchange's counterparty credit & bank loan rating were lowered fromm BBB- (lowest investment grade rating) to BB+. The change will increase Nasdaq's borrowing costs should it wish to pursue aquisition targets. For an earlier look at the exchange consolidation trend that brought about Nasdaq's push for a stake in the LSE, please see "Exchange fever" .

Clean Money - John Rubino: Book review

Clean Money by John Rubino 274 pages. Hoboken, New Jersey John Wiley & Sons. 2009. 1st Edition. The bouyant stock market environment of the past several years is gone, and the financial wreckage of 2008 is still sharp in our minds as a new year starts to unfold. Given the recent across-the-board-declines in global stock markets (and most asset classes) that have left many investors shell-shocked, you might wonder if there is any good reason to consider the merits of a hot new investment theme, such as clean energy. However, we shouldn't be too hasty to write off all future stock investments. After all, the market declines of 2008 may continue into 2009, but they may also leave interesting investment opportunities in their wake. Which brings us to the subject of this review. John Rubino, author and editor of GreenStockInvesting.com , recently released a new book on renewable energy and clean-tech investing entitled, Clean Money: Picking Winners in the Green Tech Boom . In Clean ...

Jesse Livermore: How to Trade in Stocks (1940 Ed. E-book)

If you've been around markets for any length of time, you've probably heard of 20th century supertrader, Jesse Livermore . Today we're highlighting his rare 1940 work, How to Trade in Stocks (ebook, pdf). But first, a brief overview of Livermore's life and trading career (bio from Jesse Livermore's Wikipedia entry). "During his lifetime, Livermore gained and lost several multi-million dollar fortunes. Most notably, he was worth $3 million and $100 million after the 1907 and 1929 market crashes, respectively. He subsequently lost both fortunes. Apart from his success as a securities speculator, Livermore left traders a working philosophy for trading securities that emphasizes increasing the size of one's position as it goes in the right direction and cutting losses quickly. Ironically, Livermore sometimes did not follow his rules strictly. He claimed that lack of adherence to his own rules was the main reason for his losses after making his 1907 and...