Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. climbed to its highest level since the depths of the 2008 financial crisis after the Federal Reserve said it would embark on another round of quantitative easing.
Berkshire Class A shares rose 2.1 percent to $132,851 at 4:07 p.m. Thursday in New York, the highest since October 2008. U.S. stocks rallied after Fed policy makers, led by Chairman Ben Bernanke, said the central bank will expand its holdings of long-term securities with open-ended purchases of $40 billion of mortgage debt a month to boost growth and reduce unemployment.
Buffett, 82, has expanded Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire in the years since the credit crisis with acquisitions including the 2010 purchase of railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $26.5 billion. Berkshire’s chairman and largest shareholder also added to the company’s investment portfolio, buying more than $10 billion in International Business Machines Corp. stock and purchasing $5 billion in preferred shares and warrants in Bank of America Corp.
“They’re more diversified now” than they were four years ago, said Tom Lewandowski, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co. who advises clients to buy the stock. “Anything that you see positive economically is going to be reflective in Berkshire’s share price.”
Berkshire rose 1.2 percent to $131,739 at 2:05 p.m. It has climbed about 15 percent this year.
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