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Warren Buffett

Berkshire Hathaway Powers Ahead with Rising Profits, Stock Buy-Back

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Berkshire Hathaway’s operating profits soared in the third quarter of 2018, as quarterly operating profit was almost double from 2017.

For the 9 months of 2018 the net earnings attributable to Berkshire shareholders reached $29.413 as compared to $12.389 billion for the first 9 months of 2017.

Insurance underwriting income was one of the drivers of the growth, generating $441 million in the third quarter, versus a loss of $1.4 billion in the year-ago period.

The company also posted strong revenues in its railroad, utilities and energy, and its other businesses.

Berkshire’s enormous minority positions in a slew of leading corporations, including Apple, Southwest Airlines, General Motors, Bank of America, American Express, and Wells Fargo, grew by almost $12 billion.

Berkshire also reported that its insurance float had grown to $118 billion, an increase of $2 billion over the end of the second quarter.

The conglomerate also revealed that Warren Buffett had Berkshire repurchase over $928 Million in Berkshire Stock.

The move was the first buy-back since 2012 and confirms Buffett’s position that the shares are undervalued.

© 2018 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Categories
Richline Group

Richline Group Brings its Lab-Grown Diamond to JCPenney

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Berkshire Hathaway’s Richline Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, today announced its new jewelry brand, Grown with Love, is now available inside select JCPenney fine jewelry departments and at JCPenney.com.

Richline Group is touting the product as conflict-free lab-grown diamonds, Grown with Love is aimed at ethically-minded shoppers that still want diamond jewelry or an engagement ring.

“By partnering with JCPenney, a leading retailer with one of the most renowned fine jewelry departments in the industry, we’ll be able to introduce Grown with Love to shoppers across the country,” said Michael Milgrom, Senior Vice President, Product of Richline Group. “By choosing a lab-grown diamond, future bridal and fashion customers now have a new, conscious choice, and can get a larger or higher quality stone for the same price. And with the most popular season for proposals – and shopping – just around the corner, this partnership is destined to shine.”

As the name implies, these diamonds are grown in a lab and are chemically, physically and optically identical to mined diamonds. The stones are, by nature, conflict-free and made with clean technology. Lab-grown diamonds follow the same grading standards as mined diamonds and are evaluated based on cut, color, carat and clarity. Now, customers have a fifth “c” to consider when purchasing a diamond – choice.

Grown with Love features a curated collection of bridal jewelry including solitaire and halo engagement rings, wedding bands and bridal sets as well as a small selection of non-bridal items including diamond earrings and necklaces. All diamonds in the Grown with Love line are certified by the International Gemological Institute, which uses a scientific system to evaluate a diamond’s cut and then issues a certificate documenting the characteristics of the stone. The fine jewelry professionals at JCPenney will receive dedicated diamond training on the integrity, grading and analysis of these precious lab-grown stones. Sale prices for this collection range from $500 to $10,000.

“By bringing Grown with Love into the JCPenney fine jewelry department, we are filling a void in our assortment for lab-grown diamonds. These unique diamonds are growing in popularity and by offering her this option for bridal jewelry, we are appealing to a new customer base,” said Pam Mortensen, senior vice president of merchandising for JCPenney. “Grown with Love fits nicely within our larger Modern Bride concept that offers today’s bridal customer an expansive assortment of engagement jewelry for any budget.”

Shoppers will find Grown with Love displayed in all-new vignettes within the JCPenney fine jewelry department along with new signage and graphics to educate customers about the difference between lab-grown and mined diamonds. Grown with Love will be promoted via JCPenney direct mail, email, social and digital marketing channels.

© 2018 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Categories
BNSF

Lithium-Ion Battery-Electric Locomotives in Development in BNSF/GE partnership

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

GE and BNSF Railway Company are hoping to demonstrate a battery-powered locomotive paired with diesel locomotives in a “consist” (railroad jargon for a sequence of connected locomotives) to power a freight train along a stretch of rail in California’s Central Valley between Stockton and Barstow.

If successful, the fuel savings could have a big impact on BNSF and other railroads. And the environmental benefits could also help BNSF advance one of its major capacity-building projects.

BNSF will run the pilot program with help from GE Transportation, which is developing the locomotive. The railroad hopes to have the first locomotive running within two years.

GE notes that adding even one battery-powered locomotive to the train could reduce the consist’s total fuel consumption by up to 15 percent, according to Alan Hamilton, general manager of systems engineering at GE Transportation.

“It’s a big deal,” Hamilton says. “Fuel costs are typically the largest component in a rail operator’s costs.”

The leap to battery power is not as big of one as it may at first seem. Diesel-electric locomotives like the machines GE builds are already essentially power plants on wheels. They use a powerful diesel engine to generate the electricity that drives the electric motors that spin the wheels.

GE believes that a battery-powered locomotive is the perfect complement to its diesel-electric brethren. The battery will hold 2,400 kilowatt-hours of energy, meaning it’s able to maintain full horsepower for roughly 30 minutes on a given charge. Then the operator can decide how to use that power.

For example, the operator could slash emissions from the diesel-powered locomotives by drawing heavily on the battery to start up the train. This would be especially desirable if the train were pulling out of a city rail yard, close to populated areas. Using the battery power also cuts down on noise. The train operator may also choose to “graze” on battery power — or even recharge the battery — when the train is cruising through open landscape, saving hundreds of gallons of diesel.

Each battery locomotive also has a brain, in the form of an onboard supervisory control system. The rail operator can input data about the train’s journey into the system — such as how much weight it’s hauling, the types of locomotives in the consist, and its rout — to allow the computer to make decisions about the best way to use the battery before the train even pulls away. “The trip-optimizing software can look ahead and predict the most efficient way to generate and use that energy,” Hamilton says.

Imagine a battery-enhanced train making a 500-mile trip across sparsely populated terrain — meaning fuel economy is the name of the game. The software will calculate the optimum ratio of battery power to diesel usage for such a journey and decide on the most favorable balance for the hybrid locomotive consist. The software can then pinpoint the exact moments to draw on the battery, thus sparing diesel. GE’s flexible solution will give rail operators several new options for optimizing their network, says Dennis Peters, executive product manager at GE Transportation.

The new locomotive will use a battery cell similar to what you might find under the hood of an electric car. It is a lithium-ion energy storage unit with cells that contain a combination of nickel, manganese and cobalt. In terms of scale and packaging, however, “this train battery is a different animal,” Peters says.

A standard electric-car battery usually holds a few hundred storage cells — each around the size of a mini tablet computer. But the prototype of the new locomotive will have a battery with approximately 20,000 cells, and future versions may have as many as 50,000 cells. The cells also must be able to weather the heavy-going environment of a locomotive, with all its jolts and shocks.

To build the demonstration model, workers will strip out the engine and cooling systems from a diesel locomotive to make way for the battery under the hood. But from the outside, the battery-powered locomotive won’t look much different from its diesel counterparts.

The impact on BNSF could be huge, not only in fuel cost-savings, but if it could use battery-powered locomotives in urban areas, such as the Port of Long Beach, it might be able to overcome the opposition to its long-stalled Southern California International Gateway plan, which has been held up due to environmental concerns tied to diesel emissions.

© 2018 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.