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Securities Times reporter Chen Xiachang

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has continued to reduce its holdings of Apple shares this year. In the second quarter, the company slashed its holdings of Apple shares from 789 million shares in the first quarter to about 400 million shares, with a market value of about $84.2 billion, a significant decrease from $174.3 billion at the end of the first quarter.

Berkshire Hathaway has continued to increase its holdings of Apple shares since it began buying the company's shares in 2016. Apple has long been the company's largest holding, bringing in more than $100 billion in returns.

In the first quarter of this year, Berkshire Hathaway reduced its holdings of Apple by about 13%, and hinted at the company's annual meeting in May that this was for tax reasons. Buffett pointed out at the time that if the US government wants to make up for the rising fiscal deficit and increase capital gains taxes, then "selling a small amount of Apple" will benefit shareholders in the long run. At the same time, he also believes that holding Apple is not just holding stocks, but treating it as a business, just like holding Coca-Cola and American Express.

Surprisingly, the company continued to significantly reduce its holdings in Apple in the second quarter, which led the market to speculate about the motives behind it.

Judging from Apple's latest financial report, although the company is no longer growing at a high rate, it remains stable and is a typical blue chip stock with good performance. From the perspective of stock valuation, both the static P/E ratio and the dynamic P/E ratio are over 30 times. From past history, Buffett tends to invest in companies with a P/E ratio of no more than 15 times, from See's Candies, Coca-Cola to Apple. Buffett also emphasizes that companies must have high certainty of growth. He believes that a good investment target should be better than it is now in five years, and this certainty of growth is something Buffett values ​​very much.

In addition, large US technology companies have recently released their latest financial reports. From what has been disclosed, the second quarter results of Tesla and Google's parent company disappointed the market. Intel's stock price even fell 26% in a single day because its performance did not meet expectations, causing an uproar in the market.

In the past two years, a new round of AI revolution has triggered the market's pursuit of large technology stocks. The rise in the share prices of related companies has driven the US stock market to new highs. However, many people also question to what extent AI-related businesses can improve company performance? Recently, the Nasdaq index has fallen for three consecutive weeks, and the correction is significantly greater than the S&P 500 index, indicating that the market has a strong negative sentiment towards technology stocks.

Buffett's reduction of Apple's holdings may be due to the tax reasons he mentioned, or it may be that it no longer meets his investment standards. It also reminds investors that they need to stay sober in a market that continues to rise sharply.