Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway loads up on Apple, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Goldman Sachs

Warren Buffett, arguably the best investor of all time, announced his first quarter portfolio on Tuesday evening. The most significant buys included Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Israeli generic drug company Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE:TEVA) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS).

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A) which filed an update on its US stock portfolio with the Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed it held nearly 252 million Apple shares at the end of June, up from 239.57 million in March.

Buffett’s big bet on Apple was first disclosed in a CNBC interview when the “Oracle of Omaha” revealed Berkshire Hathaway bought 75 million more shares of the iPhone maker in the first quarter and dumped all its shares in computer giant IBM (NYSE:IBM).

Buffett, who earlier in his career famously steered clear of tech stocks because he didn’t understand them, told CNBC the tech giant’s earnings prowess was a major reason why he took an even bigger bite of Apple.

Apple recently won the race with Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) to become the first US company to reach a market value of US$1tn, and its shares have surged 23% this year.

“According to data compiled by Bloomberg, Berkshire Hathaway’s average cost-basis has been US$141.18 per Apple share. That means Berkshire has seen paper gains of more than US$17.2 billion on its position, according to our calculations,” reported Yahoo Finance.

The 13-F second quarter filing showed that the Teva Pharmaceutical investment which was just disclosed earlier this year expanded to 43.2 million shares from 40.5 million in the first quarter.

Berkshire also upped its holdings of Goldman Sachs by 21%, Delta Air Lines Inc (NYSE:DAL) by 18.8% and Southwest Airlines Co (NYSE:LUV) by 18.7%, while cutting its investments in airline and banking companies, such as American Airlines Group Inc (NASDAQ:AAL) and US Bancorp (NYSE:USB).

Besides investments, Berkshire owns more than 90 companies, including insurance, retail, manufacturing, railroad and candy companies.

Contact Uttara Choudhury at [email protected]

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Story by ProactiveInvestors