Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett just dumped half his Apple stock — getting out before another 5% drop Monday. And that leaves four other investors holding the bag.
Vanguard Group and BlackRock, two of the largest providers of ETFs and mutual funds, are now the top two largest holders of cratering Apple stock. Together those two firms control about 16% of Apple, says an Investor's Business Daily analysis of data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Meanwhile, another ETF giant, State Street Global Advisors, plus Geode Capital Management are the fourth and fifth largest Apple shareholders with another roughly 6% ownership of the company.
Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway still owns 789 million shares of Apple, or 5.2% of its shares outstanding. But that's roughly half where its ownership stake was before the sale. Berkshire Hathaway is now only the third largest owner of Apple.
And that's looking like a good thing now.
Apple's Big Implosion
Shares of Apple are now in a correction as they've fallen more than 11% from their recent high in mid July. And that's more painful than usual given the company's massive size. More than $410 billion in market value has vanished from Apple in the sell-off. That's not too far behind the $593 billion lost by AI stock Nvidia in that period.
Buffett is raising cash amid what many have warned is a dangerously overvalued S&P 500, especially among the widely held giant tech stocks like Apple. And that's leaving many of the passive funds holding the bag.
Meet Apple's New Top Owners
Apple is now mainly Vanguard's problem. It is the big dog when it comes to Apple ownership. The investment firm alone owns 1.3 billion shares valued at just south of $290 billion. It owns nearly 9% of the company. And then there's BlackRock, which owns a billion shares worth $228 billion. The ETF giant holds 6.8% of Apple.
The funny thing is this: Apple is still Berkshire Hathaway's top holding. Its 789 million shares are valued at roughly $173.6 billion. That's much larger than its No. 2 position: Bank of America at $35.4 billion.
CFRA's Angelo Zino cautions investors from reading too much into Buffett's sale. He just had too much of a good thing, Zino says. "Although we don't want to conclude the reason for the stake sales, concentration risk to AAPL (for Berkshire Hathaway) is high," he said.
Top Holders Of Apple Stock
| Holder | Common stock held | % outstanding | Market value ($ billions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vanguard Group | 1,318,859,614 | 8.6% | $289.9 |
| BlackRock | 1,040,523,406 | 6.8 | 228.8 |
| Berkshire Hathaway | 789,368,450 | 5.1 | 173.5 |
| State Street Global Advisors | 588,590,779 | 3.8 | 129.4 |
| Geode Capital Management | 307,720,852 | 2.0 | 67.6 |
