Source: Gelonghui
What signal?
On February 14, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's position report for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2023 (also known as the 13F file).
The report shows that the company has reduced its holdings$Apple (AAPL.US)$, Paramount Global,$HP Inc (HPQ.US)$The shares of the three companies were reduced by 1%, 32%, and 78%, respectively; in addition, the holdings of 3 stocks were increased, including the American Broadcasting Corporation$Sirius XM (SIRI.US)$, Occidental Petroleum, and Chevron; and liquidated 4 stocks, including American homebuilder D.R. Horton.
Reduced Apple stock holdings by 10 million
According to information, 13Filings (13Filings) is an overview of the latest quarterly transactions disclosed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by equity asset agencies that manage assets of at least 100 million US dollars.
By looking at the highest shareholding positions of these investment institutions, investors can understand the stocks, industries, and trends favored by well-known Wall Street investment institutions.
Among them, the 13F document submitted by Berkshire Hathaway received particular attention.
According to reports, Berkshire reduced its Apple stock holdings by 10 million shares in the fourth quarter of last year, by about 1%.
As a result, Apple's share of assets also declined from 50.19% in the third quarter to 50.04%.
Despite the decline in share, Apple remains the largest stock in Berkshire's Hathaway portfolio, holding more than 905 million shares.
Industry insiders believe this move can be interpreted as a strategic adjustment rather than a loss of confidence in the tech giant.
Apple shares are down 4.35% so far this year. Over the past year, the company's stock price has risen 20%.
Not long ago,$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$The market capitalization once reached 3.12 trillion US dollars, surpassing the highest market capitalization of 3.09 trillion US dollars set by Apple on July 31, 2023, to become the largest company in the world by market capitalization.
Meanwhile, Apple has recently faced a major challenge. Less than two weeks until its latest MR headset, Vision Pro, went on sale, this product was met with a wave of negative reviews, and some buyers said they wanted to return the $3,499 device. Another user complained: “The head display is too heavy!”
In addition to reducing Apple's shareholding ratio, Berkshire also reduced its holdings of Paramount Global and HP shares by 32.44% and 77.71%, respectively.
As of December 31 of last year, the company held approximately 63.32 million shares of Paramount Global shares and 22.85 million shares of HP shares.
Media giant Paramount Global recently revealed news of layoffs. The company said on Tuesday that it will fire some “very valuable colleagues” and that about 800 employees will be affected, accounting for about 3% of the company's total number of employees.
Earlier, Paramount had warned employees about upcoming layoffs in an internal memorandum on January 25, but did not disclose the exact scale of the layoffs at the time. The company's CEO Bob Bakish said at the time that Paramount needed to “streamline operations and reduce expenses.”
Increase holdings in energy stocks, clearance construction stocks, and financial insurance stocks
It is worth noting that in the fourth quarter of last year, Berkshire bought 15.84 million Chevron shares, holding a total of 126 million shares of the company's shares, and the market value of its holdings reached 18.8 billion US dollars. At the same time, Berkshire also increased its stock holdings in Occidental Petroleum, another energy giant.
Furthermore, Berkshire significantly increased its shares in the American Broadcasting Corporation Sirius XM, increasing its holdings by 315.60%. Currently, Berkshire holds a total of 40.24 million shares of the company.
On the other hand, Berkshire cleared American homebuilder D.R. Horton, life insurance company$Globe Life (GL.US)$, insurance company$Markel Group (MKL.US)$As well as Brazilian fintech companies$StoneCo (STNE.US)$etc. 4 stocks.
As of the fourth quarter of last year, the number of shares held by Berkshire fell to 41. Earlier last year, the company cleared$General Motors (GM.US)$ ,$Procter & Gamble (PG.US)$,$Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.US)$Shares of other companies.
Currently, the top ten major stocks of the company are$Apple (AAPL.US)$,$Bank of America (BAC.US)$,$American Express (AXP.US)$,$Coca-Cola (KO.US)$,$Chevron (CVX.US)$,$Occidental Petroleum (OXY.US)$,$The Kraft Heinz (KHC.US)$,$Moody's (MCO.US)$,$DaVita (DVA.US)$,$Citigroup (C.US)$.
Notably, Berkshire did not disclose any new investments in the fourth quarter of 2023, and the company has obtained permission from the SEC for the second consecutive quarter to temporarily keep one or more of its shares confidential.
It is reported that when the company makes major investments and does not want the market to know, Berkshire occasionally asks the SEC to keep it private.
edit/lambor