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Berkshire Hathaway's Apple stake now worth over $50 billion

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Apple remains the most valuable company in the portfolio of Warren Buffett's company, which has been gradually increasing its Apple stake since 2016.

Berkshire Hathaway, the firm controlled by mega-investor Warren Buffett, owned approximately 246.5 million shares of Apple as of the end of June, a slight increase from three months prior, according to a 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and cited by Business Insider..

The shares valued the company's Apple stake at just under $50 billion as of June 30, but Apple's stock is trading at $209.25 a share as of Tuesday morning. That means Berkshire's stake, if they still own the same number of shares today, is now worth over $51.5 billion.

Apple, since February, has been the most valuable company in Berkshire's portfolio. Berkshire Hathaway remains Apple's third-largest shareholder, behind only Vanguard and BlackRock.

"I would love to own 100 percent"

Throughout April, Apple's stock was taking a beating based on analyst speculation about soft iPhone demand. But two events in early May helped calm investors' nerves. First, the company announced better-than-expected second quarter earnings. And then, Buffett disclosed that he had upped his stake in Apple.

On May 3, Buffett announced that Berkshire had bought 75 million shares in the first quarter of the year. Buffett had never invested in Apple until 2016, but his company has gradually bought more and more of Apple's stock throughout the last two years.

In February, after one such purchase, Buffett praised the iPhone and "sticky," and confirmed that Berkshire had bought more of Apple in 2017 than any other company.

Following the big Q1 purchase, Buffett discussed his Apple strategy in a CNBC interview, in which he famously said he'd love to own 100 percent of Apple.

"We're not buying a stock when we buy Apple, in our minds," Buffett said. "We're buying 5 percent of a business. We buy 100 percent of some businesses, and when they're publicly held we buy 5 percent, but we bring the same thinking to it. We like very much the economics of their activities. And we like very much their management, and the way they think, and the way they act."

Buffett's stake is now up to about 5.1 percent of Apple's shares, according to the SEC filing.

Apple's stock has continued to rise in the months since Buffett's big purchase, hitting a pair of milestones last week. The stock hit the $200 mark on August 1, and the following day Apple became the first company in history to reach a trillion-dollar valuation.



15 Comments

franklinjackcon 10 Years · 612 comments

Hopefully this has paid him back for any losses he made on IBM. 

nunzy 6 Years · 662 comments

I enjoy knowing that with every Apple product purchased, Warren Buffett gets richer.
Apple is owned primarily by institutional investors on Wall Street.  they are the ones who primarily benefit when Apple products are purchased.

jdgaz 9 Years · 406 comments

It just took Buffett a little longer than most to figure out that he should put some cash into Apple. But now that he is there I will hold my shares until he decides to lighten up.

randominternetperson 8 Years · 3101 comments

nunzy said:
I enjoy knowing that with every Apple product purchased, Warren Buffett gets richer.

Apple is owned primarily by institutional investors on Wall Street.  they are the ones who primarily benefit when Apple products are purchased.

You realize that the people who own the assets managed by "institutional investors" are people like you and me, right?  Vanguard, Fidelity, pension plans, etc.  Sure, the super rich own more shares than I do, but all my retirement funds are managed by "institutional investors."  Whether they are managed funds or index funds, a very large number of them have big stakes in AAPL.  So when Apple does well, I do well (because of my direct AAPL holdings and indirectly because of Apple's influence on the larger market).