Warren Buffett is one of the most renowned investors in the world. The ‘Oracle of Omaha’ has managed to outperform the markets on a consistent basis. However, his approach isn’t based on timing or taking risky bets — Buffett prefers to play the long game, and as he has stated many times, his preferred holding period is ‘forever’.
The billionaire’s approach aligns most closely with the tenets of value investing. Buffett’s business, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) seeks out companies that are trading at attractive valuations and have strong management. In addition, where and when possible, he prefers to invest in companies with an economic moat — some type of long-lasting competitive advantage.
Throughout 2024, Buffett and Berkshire have been net sellers — the amount of stocks they buy pales in comparison to how much they have been selling. Along with this, the billionaire is sitting on a record-breaking cash position — perhaps awaiting an opportune moment after a downturn to re-invest it in equities.
Picks for you
With all of that in mind, this makes instances where Buffett does go long even more notable than they would usually be.
Data retrieved from Finbold’s insider trading radar has revealed a recently-publicized SEC filing showing that the billionaire invested in an old-school tech company.
Receive Signals on SEC-verified Insider Stock Trades
This signal is triggered upon the reporting of the trade to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Buffett increased his stake in Verisign
From December 26 to December 30, Berkshire Hathaway executed 11 transactions — all of which were Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) stock purchases. In total, Buffett acquired 76,487 VRSN shares.
These transactions were executed at prices ranging from $201.74 to $206.03 apiece. In total, the billionaire invested approximately $15,574,537 in the company.
Verisign has been in business since 1995 — it operates and maintains two of the Internet’s thirteen root nameservers, which serve as registries for top-level domains such as .com and .net. That fits the bill of lasting competitive advantage quite nicely — and the business is under contract to manage such domains at least until the end of the decade.
Buffett began investing in the company way back in Q4 of 2012. In early 2020, he slightly trimmed his stake in the business — and made no new purchases until December of 2024.
On a year-to-date (YTD) basis, Verisign stock has seen prices increase by just 5.14% and was trading at $211.91 at press time — having spent a majority of the year deep in the red and only recovering after Buffett’s new purchases were already revealed.
Together with the 139,930 Verisign shares purchased earlier in December, Buffett has now increased his stake in the business to roughly 13.3 million shares in total. The stock is trading at an attractive forward price-to-earnings (PE) ratio of 22.97, and readers should note that the company’s last quarterly report included a strong earnings beat.
Featured image via Shutterstock
