What can Buffett buy?

Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) has too much money. Its chief, Warren Buffett, says he might buy something for $40 to $60 billion, if he can find something cheap. Overspending is against his principles.

Berkshire is in so many businesses that it is hard to determine what it might buy next. The company owns jet rental operation NetJets, but also owns Benjamin Moore, General Re and The Buffalo News.

It may be helpful to have a glance at industries that Buffett is buying into. He may not own entire companies, but he is testing the waters. One such industry is railroads. The board over at CSX (NYSE: CSX) is in the process of buying back $3 billion in stock and has just raised the company's dividend by 25%. Board members must think it is a pretty good business.

Buffett also says he would not buy Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE: DJ) -- maybe no one but Rupert Murdoch would if the price is $60 a share. Buffett has indicated he is unlikely to buy further into the newspaper industry. Then again, why should he tell investors what he is thinking? All it does is raise stock prices at potential targets. He did have big stakes in both CapCities and The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO). If he does buy a newspaper company, a couple of them are bargains now. McClatchy (NYSE: MNI), for one, is down 49% in the last year. If Buffett thinks prices for newspapers have dropped too low, MNI is available for under $3 billion. Gannett (NYSE: GCI), the largest player in the industry, would fetch under $20 billion.

Finally, if Mr. Buffett wants to spend more than he has, and perhaps borrow a little money, he could buy Pepsi (NYSE: PEP). He loves Coke (NYSE: KO), but that might be too expensive. Pepsi is probably a $125 billion nut.

Or, he could just buy back $50 billion in Berkshire shares. It has a $167 billion market cap, so that would push up EPS nicely.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.