Warren Buffet recalibrated the holdings of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc, slashing its holdings of Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC, as well as various banks, while boosting its stake in Apple Inc
According to a regulatory filing, Berkshire slashed its holdings in Taiwan Semiconductor manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) by 86.2%, to 8.29 million sponsored American depository shares.
It offloaded the shares just three months after it was revealed the holding company had purchased over $4.1 billion worth of TSMC stock, which had sent the share price of the stock skyrocketing.
Depository receipts for TSMC dropped 4% in after hours trading in the US on Tuesday. The stock opened down 3.3% in Taiwan, as Asian markets opened trading.
Depository shares in TMSC have risen by nearly 32% this year, closing at $97.96 on Tuesday.
Cathy Seifert, a CFRA Research analyst noted, “Berkshire made a small profit on TSMC. It was not a huge, huge win for Berkshire.” She added that by her calculations, Berkshire bought the shares for about $68.50 and sold them for $74.50.
Although it is rare for Berkshire to make a multi-billion dollar investment in a company’s stock, only to quickly reverse its move and exit the position, it is not entirely without precedent. Berkshire had previously amassed an $8.3 billion stake in Verizon communications in late 2020, only to offload nearly all of it in the first quarter of 2022.
Last month TSMC said it was likely first quarter revenues would dip by about 5% due to a global downturn in the chip sector as consumer demand for electronics softens due to the macroeconomic forces. Executives at the company have noted they do not expect market conditions to improve until the second half of the year.
Looking past TSMC, Buffet divested 91.4% of the company’s US Bancorp shares, to 6.7 million shares. He diminished his stake in BNY Mellon by about 60%, to 25.1 million shares. Both cuts combined were worth roughly $5.5 billion at current prices.
Berkshire also trimmed positions in several US listed companies including Chevron, Activision Blizzard, and Kroger.
Apple, which Buffet has said he views as more of a consumer products company, was among the few additions noted in the filing. Berkshire purchased an additional 20.8 million shares, worth $3.2 billion which raised the holding company’s overall stake to about 5.8%.
Apple shares have surged almost 18% this year.
Berkshire also picked up a new stake of about $84 million in Louisiana-Pacific Corp., a building materials company.
