This from Jason:

“I’ve been buying American stocks,” Buffett said in an editorial in The New York Times. “This is my personal account I’m talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds… If prices keep looking attractive, my non-Berkshire net worth will soon be 100% in United States equities.”

As the world’s richest man, Buffett offers a kind of comfort that few others can.  And it couldn’t come at a better time. The fourth quarter of 2008 was the worst quarter for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index in more than two decades, as the closely watched stock-market benchmark tumbled 23%.

It’s likely that even Buffett took the same bath as the average investor.

In separate filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A, BRK B) said it spent $9.45 billion on equity securities in the first nine months of last year, Bloomberg News reported. Among the purchases:

• Berkshire bought a majority stake in U.S. Bancorp (USB) over a period of time that never saw the bank’s share price drop below 29.09, according to Bloomberg News. That stock is currently trading at less than $15 a share.

• Berkshire increased its Ingersoll-Rand Co. (IR) stake six-fold last year when the shares never fell below $36.54. That company’s stock has lost about half its value since Buffett made those purchases.

• And Berkshire stocked up on shares of Eaton Corp. (ETN) between July and September  – a stretch in which the stock never fell below $52.32.  Eaton closed yesterday (Wednesday) at $44.36 a share.

With such ill-timed purchases, some analysts are beginning to think that “Warren” has lost his touch.

“People like to second guess Warren Buffett, but it’s not just a flip question to ask if he should have kept his powder dry a bit longer,” Jeff Matthews, author of “Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett’s Omaha” and founder of Ram Partners LP, told Bloomberg. “He’s paid dramatically higher prices than where some of them are now trading at, so you have to wonder if he was too quick on the trigger.”

But, as a long term investor who has said that his favorite time to hold a stock is “forever,” Buffett sees things differently.

“Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month – or a year – from now,” said Buffett.  “What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.”

To support this claim, Fortune points to a long-revered Buffett metric: Total U.S. stock value versus gross national product (GNP). According to Buffett, stocks are a logical investment when their total market value equates to 70%-80% of GNP. And right now, it does.

In late January, total stock value equated to just 75% of GNP, down from a record peak of nearly 200% in March 2000. Indeed, for most of the past decade, the ratio of stock value to GNP has ranged from 150% to 190%. That makes now an ideal time to buy. And Buffett continues to do just that.

What Warren’s Buying

In addition to taking healthy stakes in U.S. Bancorp, Ingersoll-Rand, and Eaton, Buffett also committed $4.7 billion to Constellation Energy Group Inc. (CEG), $5 billion to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), and $3 billion to General Electric Co. (GE) last fall.

Buffett has also spent the past few years stocking up on railroad stocks, especially Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (BNI). Berkshire’s most recent purchase of 2.6 million shares took its stake to more than 76 million shares – in excess of 20% – of the nation’s second-largest railroad.

And last week, Berkshire threw in a few surprises.

After buying 3% of Swiss Re (OTC: SWCEY) in January 2008, Berkshire last week poured another $2.6 billion into the world’s second-largest reinsurance company. Swiss Re has lost about three-quarters of its market value since Buffett’s original investment – further evidence that the investing icon remains undaunted by his losses.

Berkshire agreed to buy $300 million of corporate debt issued by motorcycle icon Harley Davidson Inc. (HOG). The senior unsecured notes purchased by Berkshire offer a 15% annual interest payment, making it one of Buffett’s many recent fixed-income investments.

Buffett agreed to buy $300 million of debt from USG Corp. (USG) in November, and his preferred shares of Goldman Sachs offer a 10% yield. The $2.6 billion he put into Swiss Re was accompanied by a 12% yield.

“He’s got cash coming in faster than most people would have a ready place to put it,” Frank Betz, a partner at Carret Zane Capital Management, which holds Berkshire shares, told Bloomberg. “This economy is certainly providing him with opportunities.”

With about $30 billion in cash on hand at Berkshire Hathaway, analysts are wondering where Warren’s going to strike next.

There is some speculation that if Berkshire shares continue to slide, Buffett could order a share buyback.

In the past, Buffett has said a company must meet two conditions to warrant buybacks of its stock: “First the company has available funds – cash plus sensible borrowing capacity – beyond the near-term needs of the business and, second, finds its stock selling below its intrinsic value, conservatively calculated,” he said.

Shares of Berkshire are down 37% in the past year and there’s little doubt that Buffett has the money.

Of course, Buffett also said last month in an interview with PBS that he would notify shareholders of his intentions before engaging in a buyback program.

“If I ever name a number, I’ll name it publicly,” Buffett said. “I mean, if we ever get to the point where we’re contemplating doing it, I would make a public announcement.”

The last time Buffett made such an announcement was nine years ago.

Another possibility is that Berkshire will invest in energy companies with large holdings in oil sands – notably Calgary-based Nexen Inc. (NXY).

Buffett, along with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) mogul Bill Gates visited the Athabasca Oil Sands region in northeastern Alberta last August.

“The world will be using more oil 15 or 20 years from now,” Buffett told the Financial Post in an interview. “We are on a course that cannot be changed. It would surprise me if the world doesn’t want to use 100 million barrels a day in 15 or 20 years.”

“You need some … elephant fields [of oil to meet looming demand] and we haven’t found any elephant fields in the last 15 or 20 years,” he added. “So the sands are huge.”

However, some analysts remain skeptical.

“Seems there is a rumor that Berkshire is interested in Nexen – no one can give me comfort that this is indeed the case – they haven’t bought into [exploration and production] names before … but stranger things have happened,” investment bank Scotia Capital wrote in a note to clients.

What Buffett will do next remains unclear, but there is one certainty: He won’t be sitting on the sidelines and hoarding cash.

“Today, people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t,” Buffett wrote back in October. “They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value,” Buffett said in October.

“Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree. Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been’.”

Source: Buffett Bargain Hunting Despite 2008 Losses

Not even Warren Buffett was immune to the stock market’s rampant first-half gyrations, as Berkshire Hathaway Inc. notched its worst first half in 18 years, with the shares skidding more than 16%. But only a fool would count out the great Oracle of Omaha, who has spent the past several months restructuring his company’s portfolio and is now ready to come out swinging for the year’s second half.

As Money Morning’s Horacio Marquez noted in his most recent “Buy, Sell, or Hold” feature, Berkshire Hathaway has had a tough start for the year.

The company’s net earnings for the first half were $3.8 billion – a 33% decline from the $5.7 billion reported for the same period last year. But even though the second quarter was weak – especially by Buffett’s standards – it showed marked improvement from the first three months of the year.

Berkshire reported about $1.6 billion in unrealized losses from derivatives in the first quarter. But after warning that derivatives contracts will often “swing wildly,” the company posted $689 million in derivatives gains in the second quarter.

Berkshire’s revenue actually rose 10% to $30.09 billion for the quarter.

But that’s not enough for Buffett, who has set about restructuring his company’s holdings. In the past few months, Berkshire has reduced its investments in Anheuser Busch Cos. (NYSE:BUD) and Trane Inc., and added positions in NRG Energy Inc. (NYSE:NRG), Ingersoll-Rand Co. Ltd (NYSE:IR), and Sanofi-Aventis (ADR:SNY).

According to filings with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), Berkshire in June reduced its stake in Anheuser Busch to 13.85 million shares, less than half the 35.56 million shares it held as of March 31. It’s likely the company received a tidy sum for its shares, as earlier that month InBev SA (PINK: INBVF) offered $65 a share for the American icon. Buffett admits to bailing on the Bud brand before InBev raised its offer to $70 a share, but AB was trading at close to $62 a share on June 30, much higher than the $47 a share the company was valued at in late March.

Also in March, Berkshire dumped its 10.9 million shares of Trane Inc. That stake was valued at more than $500 million as of March 31.

After unloading in the spring, Buffett treated Berkshire Hathaway to a $4-billion shopping spree over the next several months. By the end of the second quarter, Berkshire’s stake in French drug maker Sanofi Aventis had shot up 317,200 shares to reach 3.9 million. Berkshire also added 5 million shares of Ingersoll-Rand, and announced new holdings in NRG Energy, the second-biggest power producer in Texas. Berkshire had 3.24 million NRG shares as of June 30.

Even more interesting, in a move that highlighted Buffett’s bullishness on railroad stocks, Berkshire doubled its stake in Union Pacific Corp. (NYSE:UNP), taking its holdings from 4.45 million shares at the end of March to 8.91 million shares as of June 30.

Last year, Buffett and Berkshire road the rails hard. Buffett made his first move on Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (NYSE:BNI) last April, acquiring nearly 40 million shares – or close to 11% – of the railroad. He then moved on to snap up 10.5 million shares of Union Pacific Corp., and 6.4 million shares of Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE:NSC).

Later in August, Berkshire went shopping again, loading on an additional 3.3 million shares of Burlington and another 6,000 in September. But Buffett didn’t stop there: He added yet another 10,300 shares of Burlington over the two-week period ending Jan. 22, bringing Berkshire’s total stake in the company to 18.2%.

Berkshire’s second-quarter acquisitions, which were disclosed in an SEC filing last week, are only a fraction of the $3.98 billion Berkshire spent on stocks in the April-June period.

Even if Buffett bought the shares at their highest second-quarter prices, which he almost certainly did not, the total cost would only have been about $260 million. That means more than $3.5 billion went into smaller amounts of unnamed stocks the company was not required to disclose.

Where that money went is anybody’s guess, but Buffett indicated in a recent interview with CNBC that a portion of it went into one of two stocks: Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC) or American Express Co. (NYSE:AXP).

Wells Fargo stock has plummeted 22% in the past year, while American Express is down more than 37% in that time. However there may be some clues as to which stock Buffett really believes will rebound in some earlier comments he made.

“We’ll say at American Express… they are experiencing credit deterioration and they’re experiencing it sort of in all segments,” Buffett said earlier on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “So they’re seeing the rich customers slow down in payments, slow down in purchases.

“And American Express can describe that rather than I,” he added, “but I pay a lot of attention to that sort of thing. And incidentally, it will get cured at some time in the future, but right now the situation is getting worse and I would say that I don’t see any early end to that.”

That assessment doesn’t seem particularly favorable, particularly compared with comments Buffett made with regards to Wells Fargo just a few months ago.

“Wells Fargo stock was down last year,” Buffett said, “I don’t think the intrinsic business value shrunk. In fact, I said I thought it probably increased a touch.”

Berkshire already owns considerable stakes in both companies.

Source: Buffett Reignites Berkshire Hathaway with a $4 Billion Spending Spree