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on wednesday, the stock price of berkshire hathaway, owned by warren buffett, rose by more than 1%, and its market value exceeded the $1 trillion mark for the first time, making it the first non-technology american company to join the "trillion-dollar club."

currently, the world's largest companies by market value are dominated by technology companies, including apple, nvidia, microsoft, google's parent company alphabet, amazon, and meta. only saudi arabia's national oil company saudi aramco is a non-tech company with a market value of more than $1 trillion.

this year, berkshire's strong insurance performance and the federal reserve's expected rate cut at its september meeting have boosted the market's optimism about the economy, boosting berkshire's stock price. the company has risen by about 30% so far this year, significantly outperforming the u.s. stock market, with the s&p 500 index rising by about 18% over the same period. this year is also one of berkshire's best annual starts in a decade.

this year alone, berkshire's market value has increased by more than $200 billion, setting a record for the company itself, although this increase is still in stark contrast to nvidia's crazy market value growth of nearly $2 trillion. however, compared with the popular seven technology sisters in the us stock market, berkshire's year-to-date growth is not far behind.

it should be noted that from the perspective of technical analysis, indicators such as the rsi relative strength index have shown that berkshire has entered a technically overbought area.

buffett has spent much of his life building berkshire hathaway from a struggling textile manufacturer into a sprawling business empire. he shaped the company alongside longtime business partner charlie munger, who died in november at the age of 99.

from 1965 to last year, berkshire's market value grew by about 20% annually, nearly twice the annual return of the s&p 500 over the same period. this has made buffett one of the richest men in the world. berkshire's annual shareholder meeting has become a "pilgrimage" for the investment community.

bloomberg quoted steve check, founder and chief investment officer of check capital management, which manages about $2 billion in assets and has berkshire as its largest holding, as saying:

berkshire is slower but more certain. it is harder to make money the traditional way.

berkshire's apple stake was so large that it had become a concern, and reducing that exposure was a smart move. this eliminates a lot of risk.

some industry insiders also mentioned the headwinds berkshire faces in the future, including that the fundamental prospects of its core business may not necessarily be brighter; and that berkshire has significantly reduced its holdings in apple, bank of america and other holdings and hoarded a large amount of cash, but as the federal reserve cuts interest rates, lower interest rates may affect the returns on its accumulated record cash reserves.

the latest news shows that in a document submitted to us regulators by berkshire hathaway on tuesday evening local time, the company again sold bank of america shares on august 23, 26 and 27, with a total sales of us$982 million.

berkshire hathaway began to intensively sell off bank of america shares, which was then its second largest holding, in july this year. during this period, the company suspended the selling when the u.s. stock market plummeted in august, and then resumed the selling of bank of america shares as the u.s. stock market rebounded.

since mid-july, berkshire has reduced its holdings of bank of america by nearly 13% through a series of sales transactions, cashing out a total of $5.4 billion. based on tuesday's closing price, berkshire still holds 903.8 million shares of bank of america, worth $35.9 billion.

the wall street journal previously pointed out that, judging from recent situations, berkshire hathaway did not sell bank of america shares when they were below about $39. buffett's latest move also conforms to this rule.

buffett has remained silent on the reasons for reducing his holdings in bank of america, apple and other companies. the market generally believes that his continued reduction of holdings is to prepare for the "hard days" in the future and to retain enough ammunition.