Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway fell to its lowest price in five years in New York trading amid concern about possible losses on bets the billionaire has taken on world stock markets.

Berkshire Class A shares, the most expensive on the New York Stock Exchange, slipped $1,600, or 2 percent, to $77,000 in Big Board trading, the lowest since October 2003.

The stock of the Omaha, Neb.-based firm has declined for six straight days and plunged 46 percent in the past 12 months, compared with the 43 percent drop of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

Most of the top holdings in Berkshire’s US stock portfolio, valued at $51.9 billion as of Dec. 31, declined this year.

Coca-Cola, Berkshire’s top holding, dropped about 5.4 percent since Dec 31. Wells Fargo lost 63 percent. American Express plunged 30 percent.

Berkshire cut its stake of Johnson & Johnson, the world’s largest maker of health-care products, by half in the fourth quarter and also sold shares of Procter & Gamble and US Bancorp as equity markets plunged.

Buffett is negotiating private deals to shore up companies that have fewer alternative sources of capital amid the global credit crunch.

Berkshire agreed in the past six months to purchase $8 billion in preferred shares of General Electric and Goldman Sachs Group.

Buffett also made deals to buy debt of wallboard manufacturer USG Corp., motorcycle-maker Harley-Davidson Inc., luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co. and Sealed Air Corp., the maker of Bubble Wrap shipping products. The yields are as high as 15 percent.