Weekly Wrap: Buffett's Still Got It

It was a choppy week for stocks as earning seasons mostly wraps up and focus begins to turn to the coming budget and debt ceiling battle in Washington.

Reports emerged this week that

Regardless of who takes the helm next, Chevron's strategy is unlikely to change. We expect the next CEO to keep the focus on dividend growth while restricting capital to high-return base reinvestment, Permian growth, and only select international major capital projects. Despite its history of cost overruns in Australia, we continue to see Chevron's management focused on cost and disciplined with capital while prioritizing shareholder returns and steady dividend growth. These priorities shouldn't change with a new CEO.

Warren Buffett lost his bid to take over Oncor this week. Analyst Gregg Warren doesn't see this as a sign that the Oracle has lost his magic touch.

Katz also thinks

Supported by the positive economic fundamentals supporting housing turnover (driving new furniture purchases), we think the portfolio of brands under the Williams-Sonoma umbrella still has the broadest income and age demographic reach of many of the operators in the home furnishing set, providing the firm with a trove of knowledge on consumer spending behavior over a life cycle. This should allow for best-in-class merchandising and strategic marketing, facilitating rising brand awareness and equity with its consumer base. Brand comps of 2.8% in the second quarter mark the second sequential quarter of an upswing (after rising 0.1% in the first quarter), with Pottery Barn, PB Kids, West Elm, and Pbteen all delivering rising brand comp performance on a sequential basis, a factor that implies merchandise is resonating well with consumers.

We continue to believe the secular headwinds facing both of HP's core businesses (personal systems and printing) will ultimately prevent material growth over the next several years, and we believe competition in these markets reinforces our no-moat rating.

On the other hand, Nelson sees a bright future for