Billionaire activist Dan Loeb bought more Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE:COF) in the second quarter, even as Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK) sold most of its stake.
Capital One is a Virginia-based bank holding company and credit card issuer.
Wall Street’s Most-Watched Investors Split
According to Berkshire’s 13F filing, a quarterly holdings report that must be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 45 days of the end of each quarter, the company reduced its Capital One stake by 4.15 million shares. The filing, made public last week, showed that Berkshire now holds 3 million shares worth $601.9 million, representing a roughly 58% reduction.
The move was part of a broader pullback from consumer credit stocks.
Berkshire also reduced its Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) holdings by 30.2 million shares and cut its Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE:ALLY) stake by 2 million shares.
George Soros‘ Soros Fund Management similarly trimmed its Capital One stake by roughly 18%.
Loeb’s Third Point LLC took the opposite approach, contradicting the playbook of the prominent institutional investor, by adding 685,000 Capital One shares. The fund now holds 825,000 shares valued at $165.5 million, nearly six times its previous position.
Discover Integration Fuels Loeb’s Bull Case
Capital One’s post-acquisition results could support the bullish case.
In May 2025, the company acquired Illinois-based digital banking and payment services company Discover Financial Services, giving it control of the Discover Global Payment Network.
The proprietary card-processing network competes with the payment networks operated by Visa (NYSE:V) and Mastercard (NYSE:MA). The deal represents a shift for Capital One from being mainly a card issuer to becoming a full-stack payments company.
Q2 Results Back The Bet
In late July, Capital One reported second-quarter results that beat Wall Street estimates, helped by early cost savings from its Discover deal, the company said. Domestic card revenue rose 30% from a year earlier, largely due to Discover. Excluding the acquisition, domestic card revenue still increased 9.5%, driven by higher purchase volume and loan growth.
Total purchase volume rose 26%, partly reflecting Discover’s contribution for part of the quarter.
Adjusted earnings came in at $5.81 per share, above the consensus estimate of $4.77, while revenue reached $15.85 billion.
The divergence caps a quarter of broader repositioning at Third Point, which exited its entire stakes in Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) while building a new, roughly 11%-of-portfolio stake in Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD).
Trading Metrics
Capital One Financial has a market capitalization of $135.41 billion, a 52-week high of $259.64 and a 52-week low of $174.24.
The large-cap stock has gained 2.80% over the past 12 months but is down 10.97% year to date.
With strong Momentum in the 53rd percentile, Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that COF has a positive price trend across all time frames.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Credit: USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
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