Both are substantial investments in Berkshire's portfolio. The Bank of America investment is one of the largest, with a $34 billion market value representing a 9.99% stake in the megabank. Ally is a smaller bank, but Berkshire owns 9.5% of it, an investment worth just over $1 billion.

Six blue-chip stocks aggressively backed by Warren Buffett are on sale on Wall Street as the year draws to a close, mainly due to broad economic factors and stock market fashion. That makes them worth a look,

Geico, and pension plans of other Berkshire Hathaway units bought nearly $30 million of shares of domain-name registry firm VeriSign.