Alex Wong / Getty Images
- Warren Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has long been known as a value investor.
- "Value" can be measured many different ways - from "price-to-book" to "price-to-earnings" - to gauge a stock's valuation.
- Wells Fargo published a list of 12 stocks that it says Buffett, by a handful of valuation measures, might be interested in now.
- Markets Insider has listed them here, with a breakdown of the measures Wells Fargo analyzed to come up with its collection.
Warren Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, is known for many things - his fast-food-heavy diet, his philanthropy, his business acumen as one of the wealthiest people in the world, and his investing style.
Buffett has long been known as a value investor. In other words, he likes to invest in companies with underlying fundamentals he finds strong, and can hold for the long-run. He might find those qualities in Apple, since the iPhone giant is Berkshire Hathaway's largest company holding.
His style is in contrast with growth investors, who tend to invest in companies showing signs of above-average growth, even if the stock price appears to be expensive or classic "value" metrics are high.
In a new note examining several valuation measures that Buffett might utilize, Wells Fargo came up with 12 names he might be interested in now. Here's a breakdown of the different indicators Wells Fargo considered.
- Five-year average return on equity (ROE) greater than 15%
- Five-year average return on invested capital (ROIC) greater than 15%
- Debt-to-equity (D/E) less than or equal to 80% of the industry average
- Five-year average pretax profit margin (PM) 20% higher than the industry average
- Current price-to-earning ratios (P/E) below ten-year historical and industry average P/E ratios (by consensus)
- Current price-to-book value multiples (P/B) below historical and industry multiples
- Current price-to-cash flow (P/CF) ratios below the industry average
And here are the 12 companies that Wells Fargo believes Buffett could target, based on these qualifications: