Saturday, July 9, 2016

Battle of the Berkshire Stock Holdings: Wells Fargo Downgrades Phillips 66 (BRK; WFC; PSX)

Wells Fargo is far and away Berkshire Hathaway's largest equity holding at around $25 billion while PSX is Berkshire's sixth biggest, $5.5 billion.
From Barron's Stocks to Watch:

Wells Fargo Cuts Phillips 66 To Hold: ‘Cruel Summer’ Ahead
Phillips 66 (PSX) is higher Friday, but Wells Fargo downgraded the stock to Hold after what the firm sees as a rocky second quarter.

Analysts Roger Read and Lauren Hendrix cut their rating on the stock from Outperform to Market Perform, writing that while it’s not quite true that Murphy’s Law—anything that can go wrong will—governed the second quarter, there were no shortage of headwinds for the group.

Given this, they lowered their expectations for the quarter, as well as the rest of the year and 2017 (with the exception of Western Refining (WNR)), as they see the bumpy start to the third quarter as “rapidly eroding” hopes for a strong summer. However, the believe that 2017 still holds hope for refiners’ earnings and cash flows to recover....MORE
Although not as mirth provoking as S&P putting Moody's on Credit Watch (negative) just before the financial crisis or Citigroup slashing Bank of America après le déluge, there is some humor in the WFC downgrade.