Warren Buffett sells 36M Apple shares, picks up major drug stocks

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in General Discussion
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sold about 36 million shares of Apple in the third quarter of 2020, trimming its stake in the company by some 3.7%, according to regulatory filings.

Credit: Warren Buffett
Credit: Warren Buffett


A 13-F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday reveals Buffett's holding company shed about $4 billion worth of Apple shares in the September quarter.

Along with the change to Apple's position in the portfolio, Berkshire Hathaway also made some other major changes, including buying sizable stakes of drug companies such as AbbVie (21.3 million shares), Merck (22.4 million shares), and Pfizer (3.7 million shares). Buffett's firm also appears to have picked up about 2.4 million shares of T-Mobile in the last quarter, CNBC reported.

Additionally, the holding company reduced its stake in major bank stocks. Berkshire Hathaway, for example, reduced its holding in JP Morgan by 96% and pared back its stake in PNC Financial by 64%.

As of the end of the third quarter of 2020, Berkshire Hathaway still held roughly $111.7 billion worth of AAPL shares, based on the market price that day. The holding company held about $91.3 billion worth of shares in July 2020, based on the market value of each share then. Together with Bank of America, American Express, and Coca-Cola, the four major stocks represented about 70% of the holding company's total value.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    carnegiecarnegie Posts: 1,078member
    Berkshire also sold about 2.4 million Apple shares from the pool that gets reported on New England Asset Management’s 13-Fs.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    The huge tech bubble is going to lose at lot of steam soon.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    The huge tech bubble is going to lose at lot of steam soon.
    Tech bubble?
    razorpit
  • Reply 4 of 9
    Guess he smells the fortune to be made from a vaccine for COVID-19. Wild guess. 
  • Reply 5 of 9
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    gilly33 said:
    Guess he smells the fortune to be made from a vaccine for COVID-19. Wild guess. 
    Not that wild. 
    chemengin1JanNL
  • Reply 6 of 9
    Most mortals play Monopoly with fake money. I bet a game at the Buffett  home would need deeds to your house.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    The huge tech bubble is going to lose at lot of steam soon.
    He sold about 4.4% of his Apple holdings. That’s not relevant to factors of a tech bubble, regardless if there is one or not.  

    He could be moving his money around not only to make gains in new stocks, but also as a tax strategy. He needs to pay some capital gains tax, spread out over the years— he won’t do it all at once.

    He could buy back some AAPL next year and I would not be surprised — or he could sell more. If anyone could predict a tech bubble, there’d be a whole lotta shorting going on.
    randominternetperson
  • Reply 8 of 9
    3.6 million shares sounds like a major sell off.

    Until you read that that's less than 4% of their Apple holdings.  In which case it's a minor adjustment.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,282member
    Hmmm... buy low, sell high. Interesting strategy!
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