Here are 5 Warren Buffett stock moves that were made in the last quarter

Last week was one of those 4 times per annum we get to see some Warren Buffett stock moves. Berkshire Hathaway released its quarterly report in which it details some (but not all) of its buys and sells. Investors take moves he makes as a massive sign of confidence in the prospects of these companies, although of course, it doesn’t always go to plan. Let’s look at 5 notable moves he made in the last 3 months.

Overall, the firm sold US$77bn in shares and the portfolio finished the month of June at $285bn. And one of Berkshire’s moves was a sell-down of the company’s favourite investments.

5 Warren Buffett stock moves made in the last quarter

Buying Sirius XM

Hey Siri, what is SiriusXM? It is a Manhattan radio broadcaster that specialises in sport. Warren Buffett has been buying shares in this company for a while. In the September quarter last year, he bought 9.7m shares in Sirius, worth US$43.8m at the end of the period. He bought a further 96.2m shares in the June quarter of 2024, taking his total stake to $2.3bn.

This is a surprising buy because Sirius has performed poorly, down roughly 40% in the last year. But one of his most famous sayings is to be greedy when others are fearful, and he is putting his money where his mouth it.

Buying Chubb

Berkshire now owns 26m shares, worth over $6.5bn. We know he is a fan of insurance businesses, owning Geico and publicly naming it in a 1995 letter to shareholders as an example of ‘economic castles protected by unreachable motes,’ that he always looked for in investing. And of course, Berkshire Hathaway has its own insurance businesses too.

Chubb is both a large company in the US, and a global company with 40% of its business outside of America and in a total of 54 countries. It has a healthy income from its investments that have benefited from rising interest rates and a gross written premium of US$57.5bn.

Selling down Apple

This caught many investors’ eyes because it was a huge sell down – nearly 400m shares, representing a sell down of almost half of Warren Buffett’s stake and over $80bn. Buffett has commented to investors he was not afraid to trim Apple as the tech market ran hot, but still expected it to remain a top holding for years. It is still a top-holding, but selling half your stake in a company is not exactly ‘trimming’.

Beyond the broader tech market, Apple is in a peculiar situation. More than a decade since Steve Jobs’ passing, it has not just survived but thrived. But it remains to be seen whether it will just roll out incremental improvements to its phones or is preparing for some new revolutionary product, as well as which way AI will swing that pendulum.

Selling out of Paramount

This is one stock the Berkshire boss admitted he got it wrong on and lost a lot of money on it. ‘It was 100% my decision, and we’ve sold it all and we lost quite a bit of money’.

The streaming industry is an intensely-competitive, low-margin business. They have to race to the bottom to offer the lowest price while pay hundreds of millions of dollars for fresh and unique content. YouTube pays a lot less, and Meta (with Facebook and Instagram) don’t pay its users a single cent.

But Paramount did itself no favours by cutting dividends, missing earnings and seeing its CEO unexpectedly walk out. There have been rumours that Sony and Apollo are interested in acquiring the company, although clearly the $26bn price was not enough to appease Berkshire to stay around.

If nothing else, Buffett said the failed investment made him think more deeply about what people prioritise in their leisure time.

Buying Heico

Of the few companies Warren Buffett bought into for the first time during the quarter, Heico was the largest, with more than 1m shares being purchased. It is a maker of industrial parts.

While Buffett did not comment, Heico’s Co-President Eric Mendelson did comment saying,’ I assume that Berkshire is bullish on the aerospace industry as we are’. Buffett’s previous investments into aviation have not gone so well, but maybe this will be better because he is investing in a parts-maker rather than those that need to pay for parts.

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