On Wednesday, September 24th local time, the latest disclosure from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed that Berkshire Hathaway, owned by Warren Buffett, sold approximately 21 million shares of Bank of America common stock between September 20th and September 24th, with a cash flow of approximately $863 million.
Since July, Berkshire Hathaway has cumulatively reduced its holdings of approximately $8.952 billion in Bank of America stocks.
Berkshire Hathaway has recently reduced its holdings of Bank of America stocks. SEC
After this reduction, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's shareholding in Bank of America's circulating shares has dropped to 10.5%. According to relevant regulations, if the shareholding ratio exceeds 10%, the transaction must be disclosed within 2 days; If the shareholding ratio does not exceed 10%, there is no need to disclose the trading situation as soon as possible. Usually, it may take several weeks to disclose in each quarterly report.
In July, Berkshire Hathaway began a large-scale reduction in its holdings of Bank of America stocks. Throughout July, the company sold approximately $3.825 billion worth of Bank of America stock.
From August 15th to 19th, the company sold approximately $550 million worth of Bank of America stock. Subsequently, from August 23rd to 27th, approximately 981.9 million US dollars worth of stocks were sold. From August 28th to 30th, Berkshire Hathaway further sold approximately 21 million shares of Bank of America stock, cashing out approximately $848 million.
Entering September, Berkshire Hathaway's divestment activity continues. From September 3rd to 5th, the company sold approximately $760 million worth of Bank of America stock. From September 6th to 10th, approximately $229 million was sold on a smaller scale. From September 17th to 19th, approximately 896 million US dollars were sold. According to documents announced on Wednesday, Berkshire Hathaway further sold approximately 21 million shares of Bank of America common stock for a cash transfer of approximately $863 million.
In summary, from July to September, Berkshire Hathaway had a total cash flow of approximately $8.952 billion. In addition, Berkshire Hathaway sold $896 million worth of Bank of America stock between September 17 and September 19, which means that without considering the impact of taxes, Buffett's total proceeds from selling Bank of America stock since mid July plus dividends earned since 2011 have exceeded the $14.6 billion he spent on purchasing Bank of America shares.
In recent months, Buffett has significantly reduced his holdings of various stocks.
According to the report, Berkshire Hathaway reduced its holdings of Apple by over 389 million shares in the second quarter, with a market value of approximately $82 billion (approximately RMB 580 billion). Its holdings decreased by 49.3% compared to the first quarter, and its proportion in the investment portfolio decreased by more than 10 percentage points compared to the previous quarter.
Berkshire also liquidated 6.12 million shares ($840 million) of cloud computing star Snowflake; Reduced 4.37 million shares ($680 million) of Chevron; Reduced holdings of 2.65 million shares ($367 million) in COF, a financial holding company
It is worth noting that Buffett has sold stocks net for seven consecutive quarters, resulting in a decrease in the overall size of his US stock holdings. As of the end of June, Berkshire Hathaway's cash reserves were close to $277 billion (approximately RMB 1.95 trillion), mainly from the sale of a large number of stocks, especially Apple stock.
Even Buffett is unwilling to buy more of his own stocks. Berkshire Hathaway disclosed in August that after a large number of repurchases in previous quarters, stock repurchases have slowed down significantly in recent times. According to the documents, Berkshire Hathaway repurchased approximately $345 million worth of stocks in the second quarter, the smallest quarterly repurchase scale since 2018.
Aash Shah, investment director and senior portfolio manager of Summit Global Investments, said: "In a word, Buffett seems to think that the best investments at present are cash and treasury bond bonds."
Previously, at the 2024 annual shareholders' meeting, Buffett made it clear that holding a large amount of cash is "quite attractive" compared to the available funds in the stock market and conflicts around the world. We are willing to spend money, but it must be something that (the acquiring or investing company) is doing with minimal risk and can earn us a lot of money