Fear or Greed?
In the second quarter of this year, Berkshire Hathaway liquidated almost exactly half of its holdings in Apple, Inc., amounting to about 389 million shares. This action followed the sale of about 116 million shares, another 13%, in the first quarter. Apple’s share price began the year at about $185 and ended the second quarter at about $217, so Berkshire was selling into an up market, providing over half a billion shares of liquidity into a stock that traded about 63 million shares per day thus far this year. Warren Buffett has famously said that he’s fearful when others are greedy, but there may have been other reasons behind the decision to reduce exposure to Apple.
