Buffett's Holdings Beat the S&P 500 One Month After Meeting

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway BRK BRK held its annual shareholders meeting on Saturday.

While Berkshire has a number of private companies that it holds (Burlington Northern, Dairy Queen) it also has large stakes in publicly traded companies. Should investors consider taking stakes in these companies?

Maybe--at least on a swing-trading basis.

Some of Berkshire's major holdings include Coca-Cola KO, Wells Fargo WFC, American Express AXP, Procter & Gamble PG, Kraft Foods KFT, Johnson & Johnson JNJ, Walmart WMT, ConocoPhillips COP, and US Bancorp USB.

In the previous four years, a basket of these holdings beat the S&P 500 one month following the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders' meeting.

In 2008, they averaged a 2.57% return, much greater than the 0.18% return given by the S&P. In 2009, those names averaged a return of 11.46% compared to a return of only 5.70% in the S&P 500. In 2010, Buffett's holdings lost 9.48% in the month following the meeting, but the S&P did worse, losing 10.50%. Last year, Buffett's stocks returned 2.25% while the S&P lost 0.47%.