On Friday, the S&P 500 was down 0.3% and Toronto was down 0.7%.
Most stocks were down but there were some gainers:
American Express was up 6.3% on reports that an activist investor company had taken a large position. I’d prefer it to be up on earnings. I am not sure that AmEx has anything wrong with it that could benefit from an activist. I considered reducing my position after the gain on this news but decided to hang tight.
Stantec was up 4.1% bouncing back from the 11% decline the previous day.
Berkshire Hathaway released earnings after the close on Friday. Earnings declined mostly due to volatile gains as there was a large gain last year in Q2. The auto insurance profits were down somewhat. Most of Berkshire’s businesses showed gains and to me the earnings report looked reasonably good. Shares were down in “after-hours” trading on Friday but that would be trades done ahead of any detailed look at the results.
There are reports that Berkshire is in talks to buy a company called Precision Castparts in a $30 billion deal, it’s largest ever (Though Burlington Northern was nearly that large).
It’s unusual for Buffett’s deals to be leaked. He positively HATES leaks. There may not actually be a deal. Anyone close enough to the deal to really know would be an absolute fool to incur Buffett’s wrath by leaking it.