Bill Gates' Latest Stock Buys And Sells

 | Aug 26, 2013 03:26AM ET

Today I'm looking at Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates' latest stock buys and sells. Bill Gates founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust which has a current portfolio value of around USD 17.8 billion.

The trust owns only 21 stocks, of which around half of the value comes from the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Warren Buffett's insurance company.

Financial service is a big theme for Bill Gates. Other industries he prefers are defensive consumer stocks and industrials. All three sectors combined represent around 80.7 percent of Bill Gates's full asset allocation.

Bill Gates has a similar investment style to that of his friend Warren Buffett. He is a passive, long-term investor but with some different ideas and views about stocks and earnings growth. Why should it be otherwise? He’s a old tech guy.

Last Quarter, Bill Gates made only one stock purchase and sold six companies. Five of them were closed completely. The biggest impact on the portfoli was the reduction of the current Berkshire stake which impacted the portfolio by 3.59 percent.

Caterpillar (CAT) has a market capitalization of $54.33 billion. The company employs 122,402 people, generates revenue of $65.875 billion and has a net income of $5.708 billion. Caterpillar’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) amounts to $12.167 billion. The EBITDA margin is 18.47 percent (the operating margin is 13.01 percent and the net profit margin 8.66 percent).

Financial Analysis: The total debt represents 44.92 percent of Caterpillar’s assets and the total debt in relation to the equity amounts to 228.97 percent. Due to the financial situation, a return on equity of 37.36 percent was realized by Caterpillar. Twelve trailing months earnings per share reached a value of $6.34. Last fiscal year, Caterpillar paid $2.02 in the form of dividends to shareholders. The CAT position was increased by 4.87 percent last quarter and is now down around 1 percent.

Market Valuation: Here are the price ratios of the company: The P/E ratio is 13.23, the P/S ratio is 0.82 and the P/B ratio is finally 3.13. The dividend yield amounts to 2.86 percent and the beta ratio has a value of 1.89.