Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[From the East Bay]

Buffett and PTR - PTR ranks 7th in Berkshire's top 10 holdings.
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=1600811415&tid=ptr&sid=1....

[from the New York Times]

"His top 10 holdings accounted for nearly 90% of the portfolio's assets. Those stocks were Coca-Cola, American-Express, Gillette, Wells-Fargo, Moody's, the Washington Post Company, PetroChina, H&R Block, HCA, and Wesco Financial. Mr. Munger, the vice-chairman of Berkshire, is also the chairman of Wesco, which is also a holding company with assets in insurance and an eclectic group of businesses like furniture rental.

"Perhaps the most intriguing - and most telling - part of his portfolio was the addition to the Berkshire portfolio was PetroChina, the integrated oil and natural-gas company that operates 29 refineries in China. At the end of 2003, Berkshire's shares in PetroChina were worth more than $1.3 billion, nearly 3 times what the company paid for them. (Most of that investment traded in Hong Kong, while the rest was in American depository recepits.)

"In fact, PetroChina stands out in Mr. Buffett's portfolio. In 2003, as investors bid up shares of many stocks that stand to benefit from China's economic growth. That type of spike is not what would be expected in a steady-as-she-goes Buffett stock.
This is a long way from home for a guy who doesn't tradionally
invest overseas," Mr Neenan said. But that may be an indication of how hard it has been recently for Mr. Buffett to find undervalued large capitalization stocks in the United States market."