Warren Buffett increases Apple ownership despite selling some shares

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s may have sold some Apple Inc. shares during the third quarter, but the technology giant's stake actually increased as the value of the investment swelled by more than $ 6 billion. [19659002] Apple stock

AAPL, + 0.90%

rose 0.6% in midday trading on Friday. The stock has set six record highs this month, last November 13, at $ 264.47.

In a 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Thursday, Berkshire

BRK.B, -0.04%

BRK.A, -0.09%

disclosed what constitutes a rebalancing of the Apple investment, as the number of shares it owned fell with 750,650 to 248,838,679 shares as of September 30, from 249,589,329 shares as of June 30.

However, Apple's outstanding shares fell to 4,443,265,000 from 4,519,180,000 shares, so Berkshire's stake increased to 5.60% from 5.52%.

And since Apple's shares rose 13% during the quarter, the value of Berkshire-owned shares increased by more than $ 6 billion, to $ 55.73 billion as of September 30, from $ 49.40 billion as of June 30.

The value of Apple's ownership represented 26.0% of the total value of Berkshire's shareholding, which was $ 214.67 billion on September 30, compared to 23.7% of its total on June 30.

Apple's stock has risen 68% the year before, making it the best performer this year of the components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average

DJIA, + 0.63%

which reached 20% in 2019.

Berkshire remained Apple's second largest shareholder, behind Vanguard Group Inc., according to FactSet.

Vanguard's 13F filings showed that the fund sold 3,981,157 shares in Apple during the third quarter to lower its stake to 331,132,509 shares as of September 30, but the share increased to 7.45% of outstanding shares from 7.42%.