Famous investor Warren Buffett cut his company's shares in Apple by 13% in the first quarter of 2023, as the consensus among analysts was that the iPhone saw declining demand.
As first noted by CNBCHowever, Berkshire Hathaway's own first-quarter earnings report shows that this is the case scale back his stake at Apple by 13% over the period. Apple remains Berkshire Hathaway's largest holding, valued at about $135.4 billion.
During the first calendar quarter of 2024, analysts have consistently downgraded Apple's rating, mainly due to declining demand for iPhones in China.
JP Morgan, for example, lowered its price target and said that While Apple will get a boost from the introduction of AI features on the iPhone, this won't happen until 2025. iPhone 15. Morgan Stanley insisted it remained bullish on Apple, but also cut its stock price.
Apple's May 2, 2024 earnings report did confirm that iPhone sales are especially downwards in China – but not nearly as bad as the drop to 25% predicted by some. Partly due to poor sales estimates from analysts who factor losses into the stock ahead of earnings reports, Apple's stock price risen sharply after the earnings report, based on the company's resilience with a mix of hardware and software, and the promise of AI features coming soon.
As a result, most analysts have done the same their views reversed whether investors should buy Apple stock. Morgan Stanley was the first to raise its price target again, although the new figure of $216 is still lower than earlier this year.
However, there are signs that Warren Buffett's strategy towards Apple may not be related to short-term problems with the stock, but part of the company's move to pivot away from technology companies. The first calendar quarter of 2024 was the second quarter in a row in which Berkshire Hathaway sold Apple shares.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, the investor sold 10 million Apple shares. At the time, this was estimated at approximately 11% of the total interest.
Buffett has also downgraded Apple shares before, albeit in 2021 he said a recent round of stock selling had been “probably a mistake.”