US equity markets retreated on Friday (11 March), with the losses accelerating into the close and all three major benchmarks booking another week of losses, after President Joe Biden called for a suspension of normal trade relations with Russia as part of sanctions designed to economically isolate Moscow for its unprovoked attack in Ukraine - Dow fell -265-points or -0.69%, relinquishing modest opening gains. Nike Inc (down -2.70%) and Apple Inc (-2.39%) were among the key index drags. The broader S&P500 -1.30% to 4,204.31. Communication Services (-1.88%), Information Technology (-1.80%) and Consumer Discretionary (-1.79%) led all eleven primary sectors lower. Oracle Corp rose +1.53% despite releasing a mixed third quarter result after the close of last Thursday’s (10 March) session. A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing late Friday (11 March) revealed that Berkshire Hathaway Inc (up +0.41%) spent more than US$1.5B last week to buy a further 27.1M shares in Occidental Petroleum Corp (down -0.31%), lifting the company’s stake in the energy company to 118.3M shares worth more than >US$6.9B - or ~12% of the outstanding shares. The latest purchases made Occidental Petroleum the 9th largest reported holding of Warren Buffet’s investment vehicle’s holdings of publicly-traded U.S. shares. Separately, Berkshire Hathaway on Friday (11 March) urged the rejection of four shareholder proposals recommending that it replace Warren Buffett as chairman, report on its plans to handle climate risk and reduce greenhouse gases, and improve diversity. The Nasdaq shed -2.18%. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 lost -1.59%. Ride share and food delivery company Uber Technologies (up +1.15%) announced that it is imposing a temporary fuel surcharge (ranging from US$0.45c to US$55c that will be in effect for two months) that will go directly to drivers to help mitigate the impact of soaring gas prices (which hit a record high of US$4.43 per gallon last week, up US$0.79 in the past two weeks).
