BNSF a Good Value Even to Buffet

Once the economy starts to improve, we may see shipping improve for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE:BNI).  As the economy improves, one should expect shipping of hard goods to increase as well, which translates to sales for BNSF.  And you know what?  Apparently Warren Buffet thinks so as well since through Berkshire Hathaway he holds a massive stake of $6.4B in the company which has $28.5B in market capitalization.  Yes, folks, that is a 22% stake in Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

BNI is still trading down well down from its 2008 highs, but like the rest of the market has posted strong improvement since its March  lows.  The stock’s price has been bucking its downward trending MACD that started in August, and posted  slightly over a 4% increase to diverge from the MACD trend (generally a positive sign).  BNSF has a forward P/E of 15 with an EPS of 5.83.  The MSN CAPS community has graced the stock with its highest rating of 5 stars.  It sure seems that in terms of investing, this stock has a lot of solid backing considering its top-rating at MSN CAPS and financial stake by Warren Buffet.

BNSF is a holding company that through its subsidiaries is engaged primarily in the freight rail transportation business. BNSF Railway, the primary subsidiary, operates various facilities and equipment to support its transportation system, including its infrastructure and locomotives and freight cars. It also owns or leases other equipment to support rail operations, including containers, chassis and vehicles. Support facilities for rail operations include yards and terminals throughout its rail network, system locomotive shops to perform locomotive servicing and maintenance, a centralized network operations center for train dispatching and network operations monitoring.

Disclosure: No positions in BNI at the time of this writing.