Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc sold most of its shares in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) and some major U.S. banks in the last quarter of 2022, while increasing its stake in Apple Inc, a regulatory filing showed.
Buffett’s Berkshire dumps most of TSMC and bank stocks
Berkshire reduced its holding in TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, by 86.2% to 8.29 million sponsored American depositary shares, after buying more than $4.1 billion worth of the stock in the third quarter.
TSMC shares fell 4% in U.S. after-hours trading on Tuesday and dropped 3.3% in Taiwan on Wednesday. The company, which did not comment on the filing, has seen its shares soar almost 32% this year, closing at $97.96 on Tuesday.
Berkshire made a small profit on TSMC, according to CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert, who estimated that Berkshire bought the stock for about $68.5 and sold it for $74.5.
Berkshire has occasionally reversed course on some of its multi-billion dollar investments, such as selling nearly all of its $8.3 billion stake in Verizon Communications Inc in early 2022 after buying it in late 2020.
TSMC has faced a global chip shortage and weak consumer demand for electronics and expects its revenue to decline by 5% in the first quarter. The company has said it expects market conditions to improve in the second half of the year.
Berkshire also slashed its stakes in US Bancorp by 91.4%, to 6.7 million shares, and in BNY Mellon by about 60%, to 25.1 million shares. The two sales were worth nearly $5.5 billion at current prices.
Berkshire still owns shares in Citigroup Inc, Bank of America, and Jefferies, among other banks.
Berkshire boosted its bet on Apple by 5.5%, to 1.1 billion shares, worth about $170 billion at current prices. Apple is Berkshire’s largest stock holding and has surged more than 40% this year, closing at $152.64 on Tuesday.
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