Investment guru Warren Buffett’s recent buying binge of Apple shares reportedly might have been greatest trade ever.
Berkshire Hathaway’s Apple stake — which is now 40% of its equity portfolio — is up a whopping $40 billion since the market bottom in March, CNBC explained.
Shares of Apple (AAPL) are up more than 10% in the past month alone, bringing its 2020 gains to more than 32%. Apple shares were at $388.41 early Friday, up $2.32, or 0.60%.
Berkshire bought its first 10 million Apple shares in May 2016 through one of Buffett’s lieutenants.
In the span of four years, the “Oracle of Omaha” ditched his usual aversion to tech and increased his bet to 245 million shares, now worth more than $95 billion, to become Apple’s second largest shareholder, only behind Vanguard, CNBC said. The stake cost Berkshire about $35 billion, or $141 per share, CNBC explained, citing estimates based on disclosures in its 2019 annual letter.
“Had he stuck to his guns and only bought value stocks, that portfolio would not have done as well,” Cathy Seifert, a Berkshire analyst at CFRA Research, told CNBC. “At the end of the day, shareholders are going to applaud this move.”
Meanwhile, Apple scored a major win on Wednesday as Europe's second-highest court rejected an EU order for the iPhone maker to pay 13 billion euros ($15 billion) in Irish back taxes, dealing a blow to the bloc's attempts to crack down on sweetheart tax deals.
In its order four years ago, the European Commission said Apple benefited from illegal state aid via two Irish tax rulings that artificially reduced its tax burden for over two decades - to as low as 0.005% in 2014, Reuters explained.
Apple welcomed the ruling, saying the case was not about how much tax it pays, but where it is required to pay it.
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