Warren Buffett cuts Apple stake as he raises cash to new record
Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, FT Editor, picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Warren Buffett continues to cut his stake in Apple as part of a sell-off that has seen his Berkshire Hathaway sell $166 billion worth of shares over the past two years, while Oracle of Omaha finds few other opportunities to pursue on the US stock market.
The sprawling industrial and investment conglomerate revealed Saturday that it reduced its ownership position in Apple by $69.9 billion in the third quarter, suggesting it shed another 100 million shares over the three-month period. .
In just over a year, Buffett has sold nearly two-thirds of his stake in the technology company, which at its peak in 2023 accounted for $178 billion of the company’s stock portfolio. .
The stock sale is a significant shift for Buffett, who described Apple in 2022 as one of Berkshire’s “big four,” accounting for the majority of the company’s value.
Buffett also reduced Berkshire’s stake in Bank of America and during the three months through September he sold $36.1 billion in shares.
He found nothing else that would lure him into the US stock market when he bought just $1.5 billion worth of stocks. The 94-year-old has been selling stocks at a remarkable rate, with Berkshire being a net seller for eight straight quarters.
Buffett, in turn, converted the proceeds from those sales back into short-term Treasury bills, pushing the company’s cash position to a record $325.2 billion.
This is a developing story
