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There were a few surprises in wide-moat

Berkshire Hathaway's BRK.A BRK.B third-quarter 13-F filing.

While we expected to see buying activity, given the company's recent 10-Q highlighted $17.7 billion in purchases (offset by $5.2 billion of sales), our belief had been that much of that capital had been directed to narrow-moat

Apple AAPL , with Berkshire having already acquired an additional 86.6 billion shares in the technology firm during the first half of the year and CEO Warren Buffett noting in late August that Berkshire had bought more Apple shares during the quarter.

In reality, Apple ended up being one of the smallest purchases (523,000 shares for an estimated $107 million) for the insurer during the period, with Berkshire dedicating close to $14 billion to the purchase of stocks of financial services firms--namely narrow-moat

Bank of America BAC (198.2 million shares for an estimated $5.7 billion), narrow-moat

JPMorgan Chase JPM (35.7 million shares for around $3.9 billion), wide-moat US Bancorp (24.3 million shares for about $1.3 billion), narrow-moat

Goldman Sachs GS (5.1 million shares for an estimated $1.1 billion), no-moat

PNC Financial PNC (6.1 million shares for around $826 million), wide-moat

Bank of New York Mellon BK (13.0 million shares for about $685 million), and narrow-moat

Travelers Companies TRV (3.5 million shares for some $447 million). Of those names, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Financial and Travelers were new to Berkshire's equity portfolio.

Other purchases included a new $2 billion stake in wide-moat

Oracle ORCL , and smaller purchases of additional shares of

Delta Air Lines DAL and

General Motors GM . These purchases were offset in part by the elimination of Berkshire's stakes in

Walmart WMT and

Sanofi SNY , as well as sales of shares of

Phillips 66 PSX (which netted an estimated $2.2 billion),

Wells Fargo WFC ,

United Continental Holdings UAL ,

American Airlines Group AAL ,

Southwest Airlines LUV and

Charter Communications CHTR (some of which were ongoing adjustments to keep Berkshire's total ownership stake below 10%).