Buffett cuts Apple's holdings in half! Berkshire Hathaway liquidates Snowflake in the second quarter, increases holdings in Occidental Petroleum

As shown in the financial report, "Stock God" Buffett significantly reduced his biggest bet on the technology industry - Apple in the second quarter. Recent regulatory filings show that in the same quarter, he also completely cleared his position in the cloud computing star Snowflake, which he acquired nearly four years ago through rare participation in IPOs, while increasing his holdings in Occidental Petroleum, which he has been buying for two months.

On Friday, August 14th, Eastern Time, Berkshire Hathaway, led by Buffett, submitted a 13F filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), disclosing that in the second quarter of this year, Berkshire Hathaway reduced its holdings in five stocks by the largest margin. The top one is Apple (AAPL), with a reduction of over 389 million shares in the quarter, worth approximately $82 billion, a decrease of 49.3% in holdings compared to the first quarter, with the proportion in the portfolio dropping by more than 10 percentage points to 30.52%.

The above data is consistent with the second-quarter data released by Berkshire earlier this month. After Berkshire released its financial report, Wall Street CN mentioned that Berkshire's Apple holdings were "halved" in the second quarter, dropping from 789 million shares in the first quarter to approximately 400 million shares, a decrease of nearly 50%. This means that Berkshire has accelerated its reduction of Apple holdings this year, with a 13% decrease in the first quarter.

Buffett hinted at the Berkshire annual meeting in May that the reduction in Apple holdings was due to tax reasons. He pointed out that if the U.S. government wants to offset the rising fiscal deficit by increasing capital gains tax, then "selling a small amount of Apple" this year will benefit Berkshire shareholders in the long term.

Snowflake (SNOW) is the second largest stock that Berkshire reduced its holdings in the second quarter, following Apple. Berkshire completely cleared its total of 6.12 million shares held at the end of the first quarter, worth approximately $840 million. However, this portion of the stock is relatively small in Berkshire's investment portfolio, accounting for only 0.03%.

In terms of the value of reduced holdings, Chevron (CVX) is the third largest stock that Berkshire reduced its holdings in the second quarter. Berkshire reduced its holdings by approximately 4.37 million shares in the quarter, worth about $680 million, a decrease of 3.55% in holdings compared to the previous quarter, with the number of shares reduced exceeding the 3.11 million shares in the first quarter.

In terms of the value of reduced holdings, the financial holding company Capital One Financial (COF) is the fourth largest stock that Berkshire reduced its holdings in the second quarter. Berkshire reduced its holdings by 2.65 million shares in the quarter, worth approximately $367 million, a decrease of about 21.3% in holdings compared to the previous quarter. T-Mobile (TMUS) is the fifth largest stock that was reduced, with a reduction of 570,000 shares in the quarter, worth approximately $100 million, a decrease of 10.9% in holdings compared to the previous quarter.

Among the stocks that Berkshire increased its holdings in, in terms of the value of increased holdings, the stock that Berkshire increased the most in the second quarter was Occidental Petroleum (OXY). Berkshire increased its holdings by 7.26 million shares in the quarter, worth $458 million, an increase of 2.9% in holdings compared to the previous quarter, with the number of shares increased by nearly 70% more than the 4.3 million shares in the first quarter. Wall Street CN previously mentioned that in the first month of the second quarter in June, Berkshire Hathaway accumulated approximately 7.3 million shares of Occidental Petroleum in the nine trading days ending on June 17, with a purchase price around $60 per share, totaling over $400 million invested.

In the second quarter, Berkshire Hathaway's second largest increase in holdings after Occidental Petroleum was Chubb Ltd, with an increase of nearly 1.11 million shares, valued at around $283 million, representing a quarter-on-quarter increase of about 4.3%. Chubb Ltd was a new addition to Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio in the first quarter.

The fourth largest increase in holdings in the second quarter was Sirius XM Holdings Inc., with an increase of approximately 96.2 million shares, valued at around $272 million, representing a 262.2% increase in holdings. The fifth largest increase in holdings in the second quarter was a new addition - Ulta Beauty Inc., with Berkshire Hathaway establishing a position of 690,000 shares, valued at around $266 million.

In addition to Ulta Beauty, Berkshire Hathaway also entered the aerospace company HEICO Corporation in the second quarter, establishing a position of 1.04 million shares in HEICO. Apart from Snowflake, Berkshire Hathaway also completely sold off its 7.53 million shares in Paramount Global (PARA) in the second quarter.

As of the end of the second quarter, Apple remained Berkshire Hathaway's highest holding, with the rankings of the other top ten holdings remaining the same as in the first quarter, including Bank of America (BAC), American Express (AXP), Coca-Cola (KO), Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, Kraft Heinz (KHC), Moody's (MCO), Chubb Ltd (CB), and Davita Inc (DVA).

By the end of the second quarter, Berkshire Hathaway's total holding value decreased from $332 billion to $280 billion. Due to net sales of $75.5 billion in the quarter, Berkshire Hathaway's cash holdings rose to a record $276.9 billion, a significant 46.5% increase from the $189 billion in the first quarter. Berkshire Hathaway has sold more stocks than it has bought for seven consecutive quarters.