Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Cuts Apple Stake by Almost Half

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Bloomberg Aug 4 23:37 · 11.1k Views

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has slashed its stake in Apple Inc. by almost 50%. That's part of a massive second-quarter selling spree that boosted Warren Buffett’s cash pile to a record $276.9 billion. Katherine Doherty reports on Bloomberg Television.

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Transcript

  • 00:00 How much is the unloading of Apple shares but also Bank of America for example, have to do with just profit taking?
  • 00:07 Or could it be about confidence in these companies?
  • 00:12 So on Saturday,
  • 00:13 Buffett
  • 00:14 reported that his conglomerate
  • 00:16 has cut almost half of its position in Apple.
  • 00:20 That was during the second quarter.
  • 00:22 But it's not the first time that they have revealed
  • 00:26 a
  • 00:26 selling of Apple's shares.
  • 00:28 Earlier,
  • 00:29 during the annual meeting for Berkshire, they talked about selling Apple.
  • 00:34 It was a release that they signaled as a reduction, as a concentration of risk.
  • 00:40 And they also referenced that it was
  • 00:42 trimming the position to balance out the holdings
  • 00:45 and that it was also related to some sort of tax management.
  • 00:49 So it it wasn't a
  • 00:50 complete surprise.
  • 00:51 However, this does this latest announcement
  • 00:55 does come amid a broader concern about the potential for an economic downturn.
  • 01:01 So that's where Bank of America,
  • 01:03 Berkshire has cut its stake in the bank by 8.8% in just in July
  • 01:10 through August 1st.
  • 01:12 So that is drawing more concern about a possible reflection that Berkshire and Buffett
  • 01:19 are are showing investors saying that
  • 01:23 there could be some potential headwinds to come with the economy.
  • 01:28 So there's some concerns about the US consumer, of course, but also
  • 01:32 what are the expectations that they'll do with that pile of cash, right?
  • 01:35 Because even
  • 01:36 buybacks seem to be too expensive now.
  • 01:40 That's correct.
  • 01:41 So
  • 01:41 Berkshire has said that this is an issue that the firm is having,
  • 01:45 that they're in no rush to
  • 01:47 just put that money to work.
  • 01:49 They're struggling to find ways to deploy their mountain of cash.
  • 01:54 This is as prices are rising, deal activity has stagnated.
  • 01:58 So Buffett has said, again, they're in no rush
  • 02:01 to spend it unless they think there's something that has little risk and can make them a lot of money.
  • 02:07 So they're waiting for that.
  • 02:09 And that
  • 02:10 potential
  • 02:11 opportunity to put their money to work.