Berkshire Hathaway sells half of its Apple shares

American holding company Berkshire Hathaway, led by Warren Buffett (pictured), sold nearly half of its Apple stocks in the first half of 2024 alone. The company’s cash holdings reached a record high of 276.9 billion dollars.

According to publicly disclosed information and second quarter performance report released by Berkshire Hathaway on Aug 3(local time), the value of Berkshire Hathaway's Apple shares as of the end of June was 84.2 billion U.S. dollars, down by half from 174.3 billion dollars as of the end of last year. The Financial Times reported that the company appears to have sold about 390 million shares, or about half of the Apple shares it held. Berkshire Hathaway previously announced in its first quarter disclosure that it sold approximately 115 million shares of Apple. It continued to maintain its strategy in the second quarter.

The market is paying attention to Buffet’s selling of Apple shares as Buffet is known for value investing. Buffet said at the annual general shareholders' meeting in May that the sale of Apple stock in the first quarter was "for tax saving purposes." The Financial Times reported that this explanation lacked rationale as selling continued in the second quarter. Berkshire Hathaway also reduced its share of Bank of America stocks, which accounted for the second largest share in its investment portfolio after Apple, by about 8.8% during the first half of the year.

With the recent sale, Berkshire Hathaway's cash reserves reached a record high of 276.9 billion dollars. The Financial Times reported that this was because Berkshire Hathaway could not find a suitable investment source and reported that the company was actively investing in short-term government bonds. "We won't spend it unless we think they're doing something that has minimal risk and can make us a lot of money," Buffett said in May.


Ji-Sun Choi aurinko@donga.com