Buffett Ends $3.7 Billion Exxon Investment Amid Oil Plunge

Jon Economy, Energy, Market Commentary

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. exited a $3.7 billion investment in Exxon Mobil Corp. amid a slump in oil prices.
Crude has fallen by about half since June as U.S. production surged and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries resisted output cuts. The decline has ravaged oil company profits and forced major producers and drillers to slash spending and fire thousands of workers.
Berkshire has “not really had the hot hand in energy,” Fadel Gheit, an analyst for Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, said in a phone interview. “The whole energy sector obviously is now traded in completely different circumstances.”
Buffett built Berkshire into the fourth-biggest company in the world through acquisitions and by picking stocks like Coca-Cola Co. and the former Washington Post Co. that multiplied in value in the years after he bought them. Still, he’s had a mixed record when it comes to investing in energy companies.

This post was published at bloomberg