Occidental Petroleum Corp. shares OXY, +3.95%, gained 3.6% in Tuesday afternoon trade, enough to keep pace with the SPX of the S&P 500, -0.42% energy sector gainer after the oil and natural gas company announced that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRK .B, +0.15% increased its stake in Occidental to over 20%. Occidental announced late Monday that Berkshire Hathaway increased its investment in Occidental by 6.68 million shares for $390.72 million to 188.37 million shares, or 20.2% of the outstanding shares. At current prices, Berkshire Hathaway’s common stock holding is valued at $11.72 billion. The shares were bought in a series of trades from Aug. 4-8 at a weighted average price of $58.4763, according to a MarketWatch analysis of the submitted data. This price is 6.0% below the current level. The purchase further removes Berkshire Hathaway as Occidental’s largest shareholder, as the second-largest shareholder is Dodge & Cox with 10.75%, according to FactSet data. Occidental’s stock is up 114.6% year-to-date, while the SPDR Energy Select Sector ETF XLE is up 34.3%, +1.76%, and the S&P 500 SPX is up 13.5%, up -0.42% % has fallen.
