Berkshire Hathaway once again keeps new stock purchase secret, trims giant Apple stake

Published Wed, Feb 14 20244:50 PM ESTUpdated Thu, Feb 15 20247:56 AM EST

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway asked regulators to keep its new stock purchase secret for a second quarter in a row, while the conglomerate trimmed its massive Apple stake slightly in the fourth quarter, according to a new regulatory filing. Berkshire requested that the Securities and Exchange Commission keep the details of one or more of its stock holdings confidential. Many speculated that the secret purchase could be a bank stock as the 10Q filing for the third quarter suggested that Berkshire had purchased "banks, insurance, and finance" stocks for $1.2 billion. Requesting such a treatment is relatively rare for Berkshire. The last time it kept a purchase confidential was when it bought Chevron and Verizon in 2020. Apple, Chevron The Omaha-based conglomerate sold about 10 million Apple shares last quarter, the filing showed. At the end of 2023, Berkshire still owned 905,560,000 shares of the iPhone maker, worth more than $174 billion. Berkshire also added to its big Chevron holding last quarter, making the bet worth nearly $19 billion and the firm's fifth biggest holding. The conglomerate has been adjusting the energy stake for a few quarters. Chevron has been underperforming after a stellar 2022. The stock sold off 17% last year and it's up only 1% in 2024. HP, Paramount Berkshire significantly reduced its stake in Paramount , holding about 63.3 million shares at the end of December, or 32% fewer shares than the number in the previous quarter. Paramount Global shares got a boost recently after reports of a potential takeover offer , but the media company could still prove a rare losing bet for Berkshire . The conglomerate first acquired its nonvoting stake in Paramount in the first quarter of 2022. Meanwhile, Buffett's firm continued to sell down its stake in HP, reducing the number of shares by 78% to just 22.8 million in the fourth quarter. Berkshire initially bought the tech hardware stock in April 2022. Many Buffett watchers had already suspected the Oracle of Omaha's intention to dump the stake entirely. Other moves Elsewhere, Berkshire exited its positions in Brazilian fintech StoneCo , homebuilder D.R.Horton and financial firms Markel and Globe Life . Over the past month, Berkshire continued to buy Liberty Media's tracking stock for New York-based satellite radio company SiriusXM in a likely merger arbitrage play. The move, which is relatively small for Berkshire, could come from the billionaire's investing lieutenants, either Ted Weschler or Todd Combs. Meanwhile, Berkshire kept adding to its already-large stake in Occidental Petroleum in the new year, now owning almost 30% of the Houston-based energy producer.