“Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Tuesday said it has more than doubled its investment in generic drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, and confirmed it has become Apple Inc’s second-largest shareholder,” Jonathan Stempel reports for Reuters. “Berkshire also shed an investment dating to the mid-1970s that reflected Buffett’s longstanding love for newspapers, selling its stake in Graham Holdings Co, the former publisher of the Washington Post.”
“The changes were disclosed in a regulatory filing [late Tuesday] detailing Berkshire’s U.S.-listed stock holdings as of March 31,” Stempel reports. “Berkshire owned about $173 billion of equities, as well as dozens of businesses in the railroad, insurance, energy, chemical, food and retail and other sectors.”
“Berkshire said much of the $14.8 billion it invested in equities during the quarter went to Apple, and said it owned 239.6 million shares worth more than $40 billion,” Stempel reports. “That gave Berkshire a roughly 5 percent stake in the iPhone maker, surpassing BlackRock Inc and trailing only Vanguard Group, according to Reuters data… Berkshire shed a more than six-year-old investment in International Business Machines Corp that Buffett has admitted was not his best.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Only 95 percent more to go! 😉
SEE ALSO:
Warren Buffett hints Berkshire Hathaway’s Apple stake could get even bigger – May 8, 2018
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway not finished buying Apple, ‘would love to own 100 percent’ – May 7, 2018
Apple and Buffett saw value, and acted by scooping up millions of shares – May 7, 2018
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought 75 million more Apple shares during the first quarter – May 4, 2018
Why was iPhone X so successful at $999 despite a slew of fake news? – May 2, 2018
Uh, yeah, about those iPhone X ‘concerns’ from analysts: Never mind – May 1, 2018
Apple beats Street with best Q2 ever – May 1, 2018
The confidence Mr Warren has shown to Apple has certainly boosted the value of Apple shares, and silenced the doom and gloomers
“Institutional investors haven’t been this skeptical on Apple Inc. since at least the financial crisis.
They reduced their holdings in the iPhone maker by about 153 million shares in the first three months of the year, an analysis of 13F filings showed. That’s the biggest decrease since at least the first quarter of 2008 when Bloomberg started tracking the data. It’s also the most among any S&P 500 stock in the first quarter.
Source: Bloomberg
Data based on 4,097 13F filings
The drop in holdings is the third such reduction in the last four quarters, with the outlier being an 8.6 million share increase in the last three months of 2017. Investor enthusiasm for Apple has somewhat lessened this year amid concern about whether the company will be able to sustain its pace of iPhone unit sales, though the stock is up 10 percent year-to-date.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-15/investors-cut-apple-holdings-by-most-since-at-least-2008?in_source=video_page
Interesting article, but I read with questions and suspicion (thanks to Bloomberg).
Total sales in a 3 month period–biggest decrease since ’08.
There’s been concern about Apple maintaining iPh sales since ’07. Is this really a statement with weight, Bloomberg?
Buffett’s purchase in the same period was almost double the decrease reported.
Again, interesting report, but it’s not w/o peculiarities.
“skeptical”, where does Bloomberg get that, or did they just make it up? You can sell shares without being “skeptical”.
Apple’s share price increased 51% in 2017, from about $116 to $175. 2017 was likened to 2014, when shares increased from $78 to $110, a 41% increase, when Apple released the bigger form factor iPhone 6+. The year after, Apple shares lagged, dropping about 5%.
Also, when the threat of a trade war with China first reared its head in mid-March, Apple may have been caught in the crosshairs. I sold half my position, mid-March, at $178.33, because of the uncertainty, only to buy back most of my position at a lower price a month later, after the fiscal quarter close, but before earnings. I didn’t have to be “skeptical” to do that.
Was not implying I agreed with it, but Berkshire is going against the grain with his purchases.
Following the crowd is the worst strategy in investing.
Well he will hold onto apple for a long time. So as long as the cash cow is still being milked Apple stock price should become less volital.