Berkshire Hathaway trimmed Apple shares slightly to 249.6 million shares in Q418

“Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc said it has trimmed its stake in iPhone maker Apple Inc, though none of the selling was Buffett’s, and added positions in Canada’s Suncor Energy Inc and software company Red Hat Inc.,” Jonathan Stempel reports for Reuters. “Berkshire also appeared to have shed a $2.13 billion stake in database software company Oracle Corp after having first disclosed it in November. It is rare for Berkshire, which owns some stocks for decades, to unwind an investment so fast.”
“The changes were disclosed in a Thursday regulatory filing detailing Berkshire’s U.S.-listed stock portfolio as of Dec. 31, which shrank $38 billion in the quarter to $183.1 billion amid a broad selloff in stocks,” Stempel reports. “Berkshire said in the filing that its Apple stake shrank to 249.6 million shares in the quarter from 252.5 million, reducing its reported stake to below $40 billion as Apple’s share price slid 30 percent.”
“Buffett, though, had nothing to do with the selling,” Stempel reports. “‘One of the managers other than Warren had a position in Apple and sold part of it in order to make an unrelated purchase,’ Buffett’s assistant Debbie Bosanek said in an email. ‘None of the shares under Warren’s direction have ever been sold.'”
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MacDailyNews Take: Berkshire, for the most part, and Buffett staying pat through the wild overreaction on AAPL is good news for Apple.