Yahoo TV

STORY: Shares of Citigroup, the newly named Paramount Global and Texas-based specialty materials company Celanese all soared on Tuesday.

What do these three, very different companies have in common?

They all got a vote of confidence from Warren Buffett, after his Berkshire Hathaway revealed new investments in the first quarter, taking advantage of a slumping stock market to put $51 billion to work that had largely been sitting in cash.

A regulatory filing describing Berkshire's equity investments as of March 31 showed the Oracle of Omaha invested nearly $3 billion in Citigroup.

The filing also showed Berkshire took new stakes in Ally Financial, insurance holding company Markel and drug distributor McKesson. Shares of those three companies also jumped on the news.

But while the billionaire giveth, he also taketh away.

Berkshire said it sold nearly all of an $8.3 billion stake in Verizon that it had amassed in late 2020.

The conglomerate also finally exited Wells Fargo, a 33-year-old investment that Buffett soured on after finding it too slow to address revelations that employees had mistreated customers, including by opening unwanted accounts.

On April 30, Buffett said investors were too focused on flashy stocks, causing markets at times to resemble a casino, allowing him to focus on stocks he understands and which add value.

The filing also showed that more than three-fourths of Berkshire's $390 billion equity portfolio was in American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Chevron, Coca-Cola and Kraft Heinz.