Hillman Capital Management recently disclosed its portfolio updates for the fourth quarter of 2020, which ended on Dec. 31.

Mark Hillman (Trades, Portfolio) is the president, CEO and chief investment officer of the firm, which he founded in 1998. The firm's strategy is to invest in companies with distinct competitive advantages that have fallen temporarily out of favor with investors due to short-term, non-recurring issues. Hillman considers factors such as cash flow, dividends, sales, earnings, book value and projected growth rates when valuing a business.

Using the criteria above, the firm's most notable buys for the quarter

Tweedy Browne (Trades, Portfolio) recently disclosed its portfolio updates for the fourth quarter of 2020, which ended on Dec. 31.

The firm was established in 1920 by Forest Birchard Tweedy as a dealer in closely held and inactively traded securities. Over its 100-year history, it has evolved into an investing company that seeks long-term capital growth in companies around the globe. Its Benjamin Graham-style value investing approach focuses on investing in undervalued securities that have strong growth potential, above-average dividend yields and established dividend history.

Based on the above criteria, the firm's top buys for the quarter

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 31,430.70 on Thursday with a loss of 7.10 points or -0.02%. The S&P 500 closed at 3,916.38 for a gain of 6.50 points or 0.17%. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 14,025.77 for a gain of 53.24 points or 0.38%. The VIX Volatility Index was lower at 21.25 for a loss of 0.74 points or -3.37%.

Thursday's Market Movers

U.S. stocks closed mostly higher Thursday after two down days. Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continued to show improvements in the U.S. President Biden reported a deal on Thursday for more vaccine doses. Some retail locations

Market Perspectives
The market's resiliency through a year of both heightened economic and political uncertainty has been remarkable. Investors should be selective and employ active management to navigate the current environment.

The year 2020 was defined by the global pandemic, whose effects remain very much still with us and which will remain a challenge in all likelihood well into 2021. While the attention of the world has been appropriately devoted to the various stresses caused by COVID-19, what is remarkable is the market's incredible resiliency through a year of both heightened economic and political uncertainty.

Early in the year,

As investors continue searching for Christmas bargains, five undervalued, predictable companies in Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio)'s third-quarter equity portfolio are Biogen Inc. (BIIB), The Kroger Co. (KR), Globe Life Inc. (GL), M&T Bank Corp. (MTB) and Bank of New York Mellon (BK) according to advanced current portfolio statistics, a Premium feature of GuruFocus.

U.S. markets remain significantly overvalued based on Buffett's market indicator

On Thursday, Buffett's favorite market indicator stood at 181.9%, close to an all-time high.

GuruFocus launched this week a new, modified Buffett Indicator that takes

Third-quarter 13-F filings of major investment management companies have been hitting the market over the last couple of weeks.

Investors monitor these regulatory filings not only to find lucrative investment ideas that are loved by gurus but also to gauge a measure of market sectors that are going out of favor among the best brains in the industry.

From my analysis of the recently-submitted documents that I have read, many gurus have divested large portions of their holdings in the financial services sector during the third quarter. The notable guru sells that I want to highlight are listed below:

Value focused investors may want to consider the following stocks, since their share prices are trading at a discount to the intrinsic value calculated by GuruFocus' earnings-based discounted cash flow calculator.

Sell-side analysts on Wall Street have also issued optimistic ratings for these companies, indicating that their share prices are foreseen to trade higher over the months ahead.

Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc

The first stock that qualifies is Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc (BIO), a Hercules, California-based manufacturer and marketer of devices for clinical diagnostic and life science research organizations in North America and internationally.

The stock closed at a price of

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK)

Bank of New York Mellon has been hurt by the Fed's zero rate policies which compresses their net interest margin. With $35 trillion in assets the bank will do much better as the economy recovers and interest rates rise. It sells at one of the lowest valuations in over twenty years.

From [url=https://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=Jeff+Auxier]Jeff Auxier[/url] ([url=https://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=Jeff+Auxier]Trades[/url], [url=https://www.gurufocus.com/holdings.php?GuruName=Jeff+Auxier]Portfolio[/url])'s Auxier Asset Management fall 2020 market commentary.

The world's largest custody bank, Bank of New York Mellon (BK) has been challenged by the persistently low-rate environment. While custody tends to be a wide-moat business, revenue generation is highly sensitive to net interest margins. Low rates have also hurt Bank of New York's other primary line of business—investment management—as it has been forced to waive fees on its money market funds to preserve their net asset value.

From [url=https://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=First+Eagle+Investment]First Eagle Investment[/url] ([url=https://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=First+Eagle+Investment]Trades[/url], [url=https://www.gurufocus.com/holdings.php?GuruName=First+Eagle+Investment]Portfolio[/url])'s Global Value Team's third-quarter 2020 commentary.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 28,606.31 on Friday with a gain of 112.11 points or 0.39%. The S&P 500 closed at 3,483.81 for a gain of 0.47 points or 0.01%. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 11,671.56 for a loss of 42.32 points or-0.36%. The VIX Volatility Index was higher at 27.41 for a gain of 0.44 points or 1.63%.

For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.1%, the S&P 500 gained 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.8%. For the year, the Nasdaq is up 30.55%, the S&P 500 is up 7.83% and the Dow Jones

Bank of NY Mellon (BK) acts as a custodian to asset managers and owners, is the trustee for bond issuances and depository receipts and operates a clearing business for brokers, dealers and RIAs. It incurs little credit risk for a "bank" of its size—a trait well-illustrated in Bank of NY Mellon's supervisory stress test where the Federal Reserve officials modeled that it would earn more than $4 billion in pre-tax profits in the "severely adverse" scenario. The majority of its revenues are fee-based, but it also earns approximately one-fifth of its revenue from interest income on the approximately $250

Please provide your perspective on financials in the current environment:

The S&P Financials Index declined −21% in the first seven months of 2020, and the KBW Bank Index fell even further at −33%, underperforming the broad market indices. The industry has suffered from a one-two punch of anticipated credit losses resulting from the COVID-19-induced recession and declining interest rate expectations that pose a headwind to its primary source of revenue, interest income.

While this recession will weigh on banks' earnings for a time, we feel that the market's reaction has overdiscounted the magnitude of the impact. In times of fear,

Steven Cohen (Trades, Portfolio)'s Point72 Asset Management manages a $15.33 billion equity portfolio composed of 778 stocks as of the quarter's end. The firm sold shares of the following stocks during the second quarter.

Micron Technology

The firm's Micron Technology Inc. (MU) position was trimmed by 98.19% The portfolio was impacted by -2.08%.

The company, which provides DRAM for PCs and servers, has a market cap of $49.57 billion and an enterprise value of $48.14 billion.

GuruFocus gives the company a profitability and growth rating of 8 out of 10. The

Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio)'s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) filed its 13F report for the second quarter at the end of last week. The report revealed that the Oracle of Omaha made some significant changes to his equity portfolio during the period.

Investors should note that this filing only provides a snapshot of the portfolio at one point in time. It details the equity positions in the portfolio as of the end of June 2020. It does not include any cash or credit holdings, or any changes made after the quarter ended. We will have to wait for

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 27,433.48 on Friday with a gain of 46.50 points or 0.17%. The S&P 500 closed at 3,351.28 for a gain of 2.12 points or 0.06%. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 11,010.98 for a loss of 97.09 points or -0.87%. The VIX Volatility Index was lower at 22.21 for a loss of 0.44 points or -1.94%.

For the week, the Dow Jones gained 2.9%, the S&P 500 gained 1.7% and the Nasdaq gained 1%. For the year, the Nasdaq has a gain of 23.8%, the S&P 500 has a gain of 3.73% and the

Bank of NY Mellon (BK) acts as a custodian to asset managers and owners, is the trustee for bond issuances and depository receipts and operates a clearing business for brokers, dealers and RIAs. It incurs little credit risk for a “bank” of its size—a trait well-illustrated in Bank of NY Mellon’s supervisory stress test where the Federal Reserve officials modeled that it would earn more than $4 billion in pre-tax profits in the “severely adverse” scenario. The majority of its revenues are fee-based, but it also earns approximately one-fifth of its revenue from interest income on the approximately $250

Please provide your perspective on financials in the current environment:

The S&P Financials Index declined −24% in the first half of 2020, and the KBW Bank Index fell even further at −33%, underperforming the broad market indices. The industry has suffered from a one-two punch of anticipated credit losses resulting from the COVID-19-induced recession and declining interest rate expectations that pose a headwind to its primary source of revenue, interest income.

While this recession will weigh on banks’ earnings for a time, we feel that the market’s reaction has overdiscounted the magnitude of the impact. In times of fear, it

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 25,812.88 on Tuesday with a gain of 217.08 points or 0.85%. The S&P 500 closed at 3,100.29 for a gain of 47.05 points or 1.54%. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 10,058.77 for a gain of 184.61 points or 1.87%. The VIX Volatility Index was lower at 30.37 for a loss of 1.41 points or -4.44%.

For the year, the Nasdaq is up 12.11%, the S&P 500 is down 4.04% and the Dow Jones is down 9.55%. In the second quarter, the Nasdaq gained approximately 34%, the S&P 500 was up 22% and the

Dividends play a major role in the performance of an investment portfolio. For this reason, many value investors tend to prefer dividend-paying companies in the hopes of generating a reliable source of income in the current period in addition to the expected capital gains in the future. The big banks in the United States have a history of returning billions of dollars to shareholders, so, for this reason, are adored by income-seeking investors. According to data from Eikon, the financial services sector yields 3.36% as of June 29, ranking fourth in the highest-yielding list. There is, however, an unpleasant reality

Finding value continues to prove tricky in this market, with the S&P 500 trading with an average price-earnings ratio north of 22.

One area of the economy that appears to offer plenty of value is the financial sector. In this article, we will look at five companies in the financial sector that are trading below their long-term average price-earnings ratios. Shareholders could be looking at significant gains if each respective stock were to eventually trade at its average valuation. Each of these stocks also offers a yield above that of the S&P 500.

Allstate

Of all the property and casualty