Warren Buffett speaks at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting on May 4, 2024 in Omaha, Nebraska.
CNBC
Berkshire Hathaway pour more Bank of America Warren Buffett’s group reduced its stake in the bank for six consecutive sessions this week.
The Omaha, Neb.-based holding company sold an additional 18.9 million shares in trading on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at an average price of $42.46, raising $802.5 million. New supervision filing show.
In the past six trading days, Berkshire sold 52.8 million shares of Bank of America shares, worth $2.3 billion, reducing its shareholding ratio to 12.5%. Berkshire still holds 980.1 million shares of Bank of America, with a market value of $41.3 billion, far behind its $172.5 billion holdings of Apple shares.
When the stake in any company exceeds 10%, Berkshire must disclose the stock change within two business days after it occurs.
Buffett may be scaling back his bets on valuation concerns after Charlotte-based Bank of America outperformed the market this year. The bank’s shares are set to rise more than 25% by 2024, compared with the S&P 500’s gain of nearly 14%.
This is the first time Berkshire has reduced its stake in Bank of America since the fourth quarter of 2019. In 2011, the Oracle of Omaha purchased $5 billion worth of preferred stock and warrants in the bank to bolster confidence in the bank as it battled losses related to subprime mortgages following the financial crisis.
Just last year, Buffett praised Bank of America’s leadership even as he sold shares of other financial companies. In 2022, Berkshire exited a number of long-term banking positions, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank.
“Years ago, I invited myself in and they got us a very decent deal,” Buffett said in 2023. “I liked Brian Moynihan very much, but I just didn’t want to, I didn’t want to sell it.” Owned by Bank of America.
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