Morningstar

Berkshire Adds Ulta Beauty and Heico, Exits Snowflake and Paramount

The firm has also trimmed Chevron and Capital One.

The logo for Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is displayed at a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Aug. 30, 2023.
Securities In This Article
Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class A
(BRK.A)
Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B
(BRK.B)

Morningstar Key Stats for Berkshire Hathaway

Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A/BRK.B reported both major and minor changes for its equity investment portfolio in the second quarter, with net sales coming in at $75.5 billion (relative to $17.3 billion in the first quarter), based on the insurer’s most recent 13F and 10-Q filings.

The biggest change was the sale of an additional 389.4 million shares of Apple AAPL for an estimated $75 billion. This followed Berkshire’s sale of 116.2 million shares of the tech giant’s common stock in the March quarter for around $20 billion. By our calculations, the gains on the two major sales were about $16 billion and $60 billion, respectively.

Berkshire also eliminated its stakes in Snowflake SNOW (6.1 million shares for an estimated $910 million) and Paramount PARA (7.5 million shares for an estimated $83 million) during the quarter. On top of this, the insurer trimmed holdings in Chevron CVX (selling 4% of its stake), Capital One Financial COF (21%), T-Mobile TMUS (11%), Floor & Décor (17%) FND, Louisiana-Pacific LPX (10%), and Liberty Live Group LLYVA/LLYVK (2%).

While not present in the 13F filing for the second quarter, we know Berkshire has also been selling shares of Bank of America BAC since the start of July 2024, offloading 9% of its stake and raising $3.8 billion in the process. The insurer still holds 942.4 million shares of Bank of America, leaving it with a 12.1% stake.

Unlike in the first quarter, when Berkshire unveiled that it had over three quarters amassed 25.9 million shares in Chubb CB (reflective of a 6% stake in the property-casualty insurer), purchases were either limited to additions to existing holdings—Occidental Petroleum OXY, Sirius XM Holdings SIRI, Chubb, and Liberty—or new money purchases of Ulta Beauty ULTA (690,106 shares for an estimated $315 million) and Heico HEI (1 million shares for $215 million).

Berkshire Hathaway Stock Price

Source: Morningstar Direct. Data as of .

The author or authors do not own shares in any securities mentioned in this article. Find out about Morningstar’s editorial policies.

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About the Author

Greggory Warren, CFA

Strategist
More from Author

Greggory Warren, CFA, is a strategist, AM Financial Services, for Morningstar*. He covers the traditional US- and Canadian-based traditional asset managers, as well as the alternative asset managers and Berkshire Hathaway. Over the course of his career, Warren has covered not only financial services names but companies from the consumer staples and consumer cyclicals sectors, and been involved in portfolio stock selection and management.

Prior to joining Morningstar in 2005, Warren worked as a buy-side equity analyst for more than eight years, covering consumer staples and consumer cyclicals. Before assuming his current role at Morningstar in 2017, Warren covered the financial-services sector as a senior analyst since late 2008. Prior to that time, he covered the non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers and distributors, packaged food firms, food service distributors, and tobacco companies.

Warren holds a bachelor's degree in accounting and English from Augustana College. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation and is a member of the CFA Society of Chicago.

During 2014-19, Warren was selected to participate each year on the analyst panel at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, asking questions directly of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. The analyst panel was disbanded ahead of Berkshire’s 2020 annual meeting. Warren also ranked second in the investment services industry in The Wall Street Journal’s annual “Best on the Street” analysts survey in 2013, the last year the survey was conducted.

* Morningstar Research Services LLC (“Morningstar”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc

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