Warren Buffett sent shockwaves through the investing world over the weekend by slashing his big Apple stake by half, causing the tech stock to crater on Monday amid the intensifying global sell-off.
Berkshire Hathaway disclosed in its earnings filing that its Apple holding was valued at $84.2 billion at the end of the second quarter, indicating that the Oracle of Omaha dumped a little more than 49% of the tech stake.
Shares of Apple dropped more than 7% in premarket trading Monday. Global stock markets are on the brink of a major correction, triggered by concerns of an economic slowdown.
The 93-year-old legendary investor has been on a massive selling spree, offloading more than $75 billion in equities in the second quarter and raising Berkshire’s cash pile to a whopping $277 billion, an all-time high for the conglomerate. Buffett also started selling his second biggest holding Bank of America in July.
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Buffett had already sold 13% of his Apple stake in the first quarter and he indicated previously that it was a tax-saving move as he expected the the U.S. government to raise the rate to fund a burgeoning fiscal deficit. However, the magnitude of the second-quarter sale could mean tax was not the only motivating factor.
Berkshire began buying the stock in 2016 under the influence of Buffett’s investing lieutenants Ted Weschler and Todd Combs. Over the years, Buffett grew so fond of Apple that he increased the stake drastically to make it Berkshire’s biggest and called the tech giant the second-most important business after his cluster of insurers.
Berkshire’s Apple holding grew so big that it once took up half of its equity portfolio, so the selling could also be out of portfolio management concerns.
Shares of Apple climbed 23% to a record high in the second quarter amid renewed optimism surrounding its artificial intelligence capabilities.