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The biggest change in the September quarter was the sale of an additional 100.0 million shares of Apple AAPL for $23 billion. This followed Berkshire’s sale of 505.6 million shares of the tech giant’s common stock in the first half of 2024 for $94 billion. By our calculations, the gains on this year’s sales of Apple were about $95 billion.
Berkshire has been selling shares of Bank of America BAC since the start of July 2024, offloading 23% of its stake in the third quarter and raising close to $10 billion in the process (and locking in a $6 billion gain). Even with additional shares since the start of the fourth quarter, Berkshire still holds 766.3 million shares of Bank of America, equal to a 10.0% stake in the bank.
Berkshire also eliminated its stake in Floor & Décor FND (4.0 million shares for an estimated $440 million), nearly eliminated its stake in Ulta Beauty ULTA (0.7 million shares for an estimated $275 million), and trimmed holdings in Charter Communications CHTR (selling one-fourth of its stake for an estimated $315 million), NU Holdings NU (19% for an estimated $275 million), and Capital One Financial COF (7% for an estimated $100 million).
Purchases were either limited to additions to existing holdings—Heico HEI.A (adding 5,445 million shares for an estimated $1 million)—or new money purchases of Domino’s Pizza DPZ (1.3 million shares for an estimated $605 million) and Pool POOL (0.4 million shares for an estimated $140 million).
The insurer ended September 2024 with $266.4 billion of reportable equity holdings in its second-quarter 13F filing, down 4.9% from reportable equity holdings of $280.0 billion at the end of the second quarter.
BRK Portfolio Beats the S&P 500
Adding back the Apple and Bank of America shares that were sold during the quarter, the portfolio was up 6.8% during the September quarter, relative to a 5.9% gain for the S&P 500 TR index.
As for portfolio dynamics, the top 5 stock positions in the 13F portfolio at the end of the June quarter—Apple (26.2%), American Express (15.4%), Bank of America (11.9%), Coca-Cola (10.8%), and Chevron (6.6%)—accounted for 70.9% of the insurer’s stock holdings (down from 73.0% at the end of the June quarter and 80.6% at the start of the year).
Berkshire’s top 10 holdings—which included Occidental Petroleum (4.9%), Moody’s (4.4%), Kraft-Heinz (4.3%), Chubb (2.9%), and DaVita (2.2%)—accounted for 89.7% of the insurer’s stock holdings at the end of the September quarter.
The company’s equity investment portfolio remains fairly concentrated in its largest holdings, though, with its top 25 positions accounting for 99.2% of the portfolio (which had a total of 37 different holdings, with Class A and Class B shares, as well as S&P 500 Index ETFs, counted as one combined holding, at the end of the third quarter of 2024).
From a sector allocation perspective, given the market rally this year and all the transaction activity Berkshire has engaged in over the past year, the financial services sector accounted for 35.0% of the portfolio at the end of the September quarter (up from 22.5% at the end of 2023 and 19.9% at the end of the year-ago period).
Technology stocks stood at 27.2% of the portfolio at the end of the third quarter (down from 50.8% at the end of last year and 51.8% at the end of September 2023), leaving financial services and technology as not only the insurer’s two largest sector bets, accounting for 62.2% of the reported 13F portfolio at the end of the third quarter, but being much closer to equally weighted.
Further down the list at the end of the September quarter were consumer defensive names at 16.2% (up from 10.8% at the end of the fourth quarter of 2023 and 11.3% at the end of the year-ago period). Energy holdings, meanwhile, were at 11.5% at the end of the third quarter (up from 9.5% at the end of last year and 10.5% at the end of September 2023).
The rest of the $266.4 billion 13F equity portfolio consisted of holdings from the industrials (4.8%), healthcare (2.2%), communication services (2.0%), and consumer cyclical (1.2%) sectors, as defined by Morningstar.
The author or authors do not own shares in any securities mentioned in this article. Find out about Morningstar’s editorial policies.
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