Berkshire May Have Left $50 Billion on Table. Apple Is Why.

Signage outside an Apple store in New York City. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg)

Key Points

• Berkshire Hathaway’s sale of two-thirds of its Apple stake in 2024 and 2025 resulted in an estimated $50 billion in foregone profits.
• Berkshire sold nearly 400 million Apple shares in the second quarter of 2024, reducing its holding to 280 million shares by June 30 this year.
• Potential reasons for the sale include corporate taxes and Apple’s stake exceeding 40% of Berkshire’s equity holdings.

Warren Buffett made one of his best investment decisions in buying Apple stock for Berkshire Hathaway from 2016 to 2018, but he erred in unloading the bulk of the holding in 2024 and continuing the sales this year.

Buffett’s decision to sell two-thirds of the Apple stake has cost Berkshire about $50 billion in unrealized gains with Apple shares rising 4% to close at a record $262.24 Monday, Barron’s estimates. Apple jumped on renewed optimism about the iPhone, sending the stock to an intraday record of $264.38.

Berkshire didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Berkshire held 280 million shares of Apple stock on June 30, down from 906 million shares at the end of 2023. The bulk of its sales came in the second quarter of 2024, when it unloaded nearly 400 million shares.

Here are some of the numbers. Berkshire bought the stake, which originally totaled about one billion shares, mostly from 2016 through 2018, at an average price of $35 a share, based on a disclosure in Buffett’s 2021 shareholder letter.

Barron’s estimates that Berkshire has received an average of about $185 per share for the Apple stake, resulting in a pretax gain of more than $90 billion last year and about $6 billion so far in 2025. With the stock now trading nearly $80 higher than our estimated average sales price, that translates into about $50 billion of foregone profits.

To top it off, Berkshire had to pay corporate income taxes on the Apple sale. We estimate those taxes at nearly $20 billion, or about $30 per Apple share. That would have cut its net proceeds to about $155 a share.

Why did Buffett sell the Apple stock? He suggested in May 2024 at the Berkshire annual meeting that the possibility of higher corporate taxes was an issue.

Some Berkshire watchers believe Buffett cut the holding because the Apple stake got too big and accounted for over 40% of the company’s equity holdings. Apple now accounts for closer to 25% of Berkshire’s roughly $300 billion equity portfolio.

There also has been speculation that Buffett wanted to raise cash and fortify Berkshire’s already formidable balance sheet ahead of his retirement as CEO at the end of 2025. Berkshire was sitting on more than $330 billion in cash on June 30.

It is possible that Buffett may have cut the Apple stake even further in the third quarter from 280 million shares on June 30, taking advantage of the strength in the stock. That data will be released in mid November.

The Apple stock sales have come as a mild surprise because Buffett described the stake in a 2021 shareholder letter as one of four pillars that accounted for the bulk of the Berkshire’s value, along with its insurance operations, utility business, and the railroad BNSF. This suggested that Apple might be a “forever” stock for Berkshire like American Express and Coca-Cola appear to be.

Our estimates of Apple’s gains and taxes are consistent with what Berkshire has disclosed about its capital gains and taxes paid last year. Berkshire said its total after-tax realized gains were nearly $80 billion last year and that it paid almost $27 billion in total federal income taxes last year. The income taxes were paid on its operating earnings and realized investment gains.

Berkshire has left more money on the table with its sales of Bank of America stock over the past year. Berkshire has sold about 400 million shares of the big bank, or roughly 40% of its holding, cutting its stake to just over 600 million shares now worth over $30 billion.

Barron’s estimates that Berkshire got a price in the low $40s for its Bank of America stock, against a closing price Monday of $52. That is another $4 billion left on the table.

Berkshire’s Class A stock, which finished at $740,600 Monday, is up about 9% in 2025, behind the S&P 500’s 16% total return. The Apple sale probably hasn’t helped.

Imagine if Berkshire still owned more than $230 billion of Apple stock, rather than less than $75 billion on June 30. It’s a good bet the stock would be higher now.

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com