Which Stocks Did Warren Buffett Sell Apple For?

Berkshire Hathaway, led by Warren Buffett, significantly reduced its Apple holdings in the second quarter of this year while adding shares of cosmetics retailer Ulta Beauty and aircraft parts manufacturer HEICO to its portfolio.

According to Yonhap News on the 14th (local time), Berkshire disclosed that it purchased approximately 690,000 shares of Ulta Beauty and 1.04 million shares of HEICO in the second quarter. Based on the closing prices that day, these amounts correspond to about $227 million (approximately 308.9 billion KRW) and $247 million (approximately 336.1 billion KRW), respectively.

It is not known whether Buffett was directly involved in these investments, and although the data is from the end of June, following the disclosure, buying interest surged, causing Ulta Beauty and HEICO shares to rise about 13% and 3%, respectively, in after-hours trading.

Oil company Occidental Petroleum and insurance company Chubb were also among the companies whose stakes Berkshire increased in the second quarter.

However, overall, Berkshire focused more on cash accumulation than new investments in the second quarter.

Berkshire sold stocks worth $77.2 billion (approximately 105 trillion KRW) in the second quarter while purchasing only about $1.6 billion (approximately 2.1 trillion KRW). Berkshire's cash holdings increased from $189 billion (approximately 257.2 trillion KRW) at the end of March to $276.9 billion (approximately 376.8 trillion KRW) at the end of June.

Notably, during the earnings announcement on the 3rd, Berkshire revealed that it sold about $50 billion (approximately 68 trillion KRW) of its Apple holdings in the second quarter, retaining $84.2 billion (approximately 114.6 trillion KRW) worth of shares.

In the second quarter, Berkshire also sold all or reduced its stakes in Snowflake, Chevron, Capital One, T-Mobile, and Paramount Global.

Entering the third quarter, Berkshire disposed of its Bank of America (BofA) shares, selling more than $3.8 billion (approximately 5.2 trillion KRW) worth of BofA shares over 12 consecutive trading days since mid-last month.

Meanwhile, Pershing Square Capital, a hedge fund led by Bill Ackman, known as the "Baby Buffett," invested in sportswear company Nike in the second quarter.

As of the end of the second quarter, Pershing Square held about 3 million shares of Nike, valued at approximately $229 million (about 311.6 billion KRW).

Nike's stock price plunged 19.98% to $75.37 on June 28 due to weak earnings but later recovered to $78.52. Following Pershing Square's investment disclosure, the stock rose about 3% in after-hours trading.

Scion Asset Management, led by Michael Burry?the real-life model for the movie "The Big Short" and famous for predicting the 2008 global financial crisis?halved its stock portfolio in the second quarter but purchased Alibaba shares.

Additionally, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (NBIM), recorded profits of 1.48 trillion kroner (approximately 188 trillion KRW) in the first half of this year, thanks to the strong performance of technology stocks amid the AI boom. The return was about 8.6%.