Berkshire Hathaway: Here are the shares Warren Buffett and Co. bought and sold
Berkshire Hathaway eliminated its equity investments in Bank of New York Mellon, US Bancorp, Taiwan Semiconductor and RH during the first quarter, according to a filing late Monday.
Berkshire (ticker: BRK.A, BRK.B) also initiated a position in Capital One Financial (COF), buying a stake of 9.9 million shares worth about $900 million. Shares in the firm rose nearly 6% in after-hours trading.
Berkshire had held about 25 million shares in Bank of New York Mellon ( BK ) worth more than $1 billion, 8.9 million shares in Taiwan Semiconductor ( TSM ) worth $700 million, nearly 7 million shares in US Bancorp ( USB ) worth less than $300 million, and about 2.4 million shares in RH (RH), the furniture chain, worth $600 million.
CEO Warren Buffett told shareholders at Berkshire̵[ads1]7;s annual meeting that he has been a seller of bank stocks because he has fallen out of love with the industry.
Berkshire also reduced its stake in Activision Blizzard ( ATVI ) by 3.3 million shares to 49.4 million shares, a stake worth about $3.3 billion.
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Berkshire reduced its interest in General Motors (GM) by 10 million shares in the first quarter to 40 million shares, a stake now worth about $1.2 billion.
Buffett said at the annual meeting that the auto industry is “too tough” and that “I don’t think I can tell you what the auto industry will look like 5 or 10 years from now.” Berkshire’s stake in GM is believed to have been initiated by either Todd Combs or Ted Weschler, who together control about 10% of the company’s $350 billion stock portfolio.
Buffett typically does not list which stock holdings are his, which are from Combs and Weschler, and which may be joint. Buffett runs 90% of the portfolio and as CEO is responsible for it all.
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Berkshire’s 13-F filing is complicated this quarter by the inclusion of holdings that were reported separately by New England Asset Management, a unit of Berkshire’s General Re insurance division.
These holdings are now included in Berkshire’s 13-F filing. The result is that Berkshire’s holdings in a group of stocks, notably Apple ( AAPL ), Bank of America ( BAC ), Chevron ( CVX ) and HP ( HPQ ), are higher as reported in the 13-F versus the fourth quarter of 2022, but have actually didn’t change. Berkshire revealed the change in a press release Monday afternoon.
Berkshire now owns 915.6 million shares in Apple, 1.03 billion shares in Bank of America, 132 million shares in Chevron and 121 million shares in HP. Apple’s stake is worth around $158 billion and makes up around 45% of the entire portfolio.
The Chevron stake was reduced by 35 million shares in the first quarter, a disclosure from Berkshire’s 10-Q earlier in May. Berkshire bought 17 million shares of Occidental Petroleum (OXY) in the first quarter, which had also been disclosed earlier. Berkshire owns 211.7 million shares in the oil and gas company.
Berkshire reduced its stake in Amazon.com (AMZN) by about 100,000 shares and now has 10.6 million shares in the online retailer. Berkshire cuts its investment in
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McKesson (MCK) by more than 500,000 shares and has 2.3 million shares outstanding.
Berkshire’s Coca-Cola (KO), American Express (AXP), Citigroup (C) holdings were essentially unchanged.
Foreign investments are not included in Berkshire’s 13-F. An early May filing from utility unit Berkshire Hathaway Energy indicated a roughly $1 billion sale of Chinese electric car maker BYD
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(1211. HongKong) in the first quarter. In addition, Buffett has said that Berkshire has lifted its stake in five Japanese trading companies, but he was not specific on the timing.
Corrections and enhancements: Berkshire Hathaway’s Apple stake is worth about $158 billion. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it was worth $158 million.
Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com
