Warren Buffett’s loyal watchers will hear from the investment guru at Berkshire Hathaway ‘s annual meeting this weekend, where the 93-year-old icon may explain some of the recent moves in his giant equity portfolio. This year’s so-called “Woodstock for Capitalists,” held in Omaha, Nebraska, will be exclusively broadcast and livestreamed by CNBC. Our special coverage will begin Saturday at 9:30 a.m. ET. Trimming Apple One surprising move from the conglomerate was selling about 10 million Apple shares (just 1% of its massive stake) in the fourth quarter. At the end of 2023, Berkshire owned 905,560,000 shares of the iPhone maker, worth more than $174 billion and taking up more than 40% of the portfolio. The move took many by surprise because Apple has been Buffett’s favorite stock for years, and he even called the tech giant his second-most important business after Berkshire’s cluster of insurers. The last time Buffett trimmed the Apple stake slightly was in the fourth quarter of 2020, and the Oracle of Omaha admitted then that it was “probably a mistake.” While only Buffett can tell us what prompted the move, here are some possible explanations: Firstly, Apple’s stock was getting too expensive. It gained a whopping 48% in 2023 as megacap tech shares led the market rally. At its peak, Apple ballooned in Berkshire’s equity portfolio, taking up 50% of it. Secondly, it could be Buffett’s investing deputies Todd Combs and Ted Weschler who trimmed the stake to fund other purchases. A regulatory filing revealed a similar move in late 2018, and Buffett’s assistant Debbie Bosanek explained that “one of the managers other than Warren had a position in Apple and sold part of it in order to make an unrelated purchase.” Berkshire began buying Apple stock in 2016 under the influence of one of his managers. Secret bank stock? There’s a chance that Buffett at the annual meeting will reveal the identity of the mystery bank stock that Berkshire has been buying for two quarters straight . In the third and fourth quarters of 2023, Berkshire requested that the Securities and Exchange Commission keep the details of one or more of its stock holdings confidential. Many speculated that the secret purchase could be a bank stock as the conglomerate’s cost basis for “banks, insurance, and finance” equity holdings jumped by around $2.37 billion. It’s relatively rare for Berkshire to request such a treatment. The last time it kept a purchase confidential was when it bought Chevron…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Investing…
