Berkowitz Paring Financials: Berkshire Cut, Goldman Eliminated

Bruce Berkowitz’s Fairholme Capital pared back some bets on financial stocks including eliminating a holding in Goldman Sachs and slashing stakes in Citigroup and Berkshire Hathaway.
Berkowitz maintained hardly moved his stakes in American International Group and Bank of America, two stocks he has defended over the past year as being oversold. But his bets on other bank stocks were trimmed, according to the filing.
A stake of 21,300 shares in Goldman, which would have been worth over $2 million at Tuesday’s close, no longer appears.
His stake in Berkshire Hathaway A shares was pared by 2,449 shares, a sale that would amount to some $300 million. About another $141 million in Berkshire Hathaway class B shares were sold.
And about $48 million of Citigroup, at Tuesday prices was eliminated as well.
Fairholme was also trimming financial stocks last quarter.
Two new stocks did appear in Fairholme’s filing: auto insurer Mercury General and home-improvement retailer Orchard Supply Hardware Stores.  The stake in Mercury General would be worth about $3.2 million as of Tuesday’s close while the Orchard Supply stake is worth about $14.3 million.