Legendary investor Warren Buffett has been on a selling spree lately, unloading $2 billion in stocks from Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings for the 4th quarter in a row, according to an article in Yahoo! Finance. Most of the recent sales come from banks, insurance and financial investments, as opposed to previous sales from General Motors and pharmaceuticals.
Berkshire Hathaway has dumped $7 billion worth of shares over the last 9 months, but that only accounts for 2.2% of their stock portfolio, leaving plenty of shares to play with. And thanks to those sales, the company’s cash reserves have grown to an all-time high of $149.2 billion. Buffett is known to look for deals and he could be setting that cash aside to scoop up a choice acquisition in the future.
The last time Berkshire Hathaway unloaded so much stock was in 2008, just before the global economy crashed, the article details. So is this current selling spree a sign that Berkshire Hathaway sees a weakness in the market? That’s possible—although it could be simply that the company has struggled like many others to find a good bargain with the market at an all-time high. But Buffett is nothing if not a shrewd investor, and when he makes a move, the market always notices.
