Berkshire exits telecom and cuts Apple holding by $9.2B

Berkshire Hathaway has now gone six full weeks without closing above its 200-day moving average, the longest stretch the stock has been underwater in nearly three years. This kind of technical weakness is rare for the company, especially when the stock market continues to push forward. Berkshire’s Class A shares haven’t been able to close above the long-term line since early July, and for a firm with a $300 billion equity portfolio, that’s not going unnoticed. The pattern is triggering questions about what exactly is going on inside Warren Buffett’s investment house. Turns out, there’s been plenty. Berkshire’s new 13F filing for Q2 shows a messy mix of decisions; some defensive, some risky, and others that suggest a straight-up shift in strategy. Berkshire exits telecom and cuts Apple holding by $9.2B One of the biggest moves was a sharp cut to Apple. Berkshire dumped 20 million shares, shaving $9.2 billion off the position’s value. That still leaves Apple as the portfolio’s biggest piece, but the trim is real. There’s no sugarcoating it. It’s a cut. Next up, Bank of America. Berkshire sold 26 million shares, taking its stake down to roughly 8%. This is one of Warren’s longest-standing bets in the finance industry, so reducing it like this screams caution. Then came the complete exit from T-Mobile US. Berkshire pulled every cent out of its $1 billion telecom investment. Done. Out. No leftovers. This isn’t shocking to people who follow Warren closely. He’s never been super into telecom. But killing the position entirely this quarter shows the skepticism never really went away. While Warren was exiting those positions, he also made some new bets. The filing shows Berkshire buying into Lennar, a major U.S. homebuilder. The housing market is a wreck right now; mortgage rates are sky high, affordability is garbage, and Trump’s White House has made the market even tougher for first-time buyers. But Berkshire still bought in. It’s unclear how deep the position is just yet, but it’s there, and it came at a time when the sector is still dealing with major obstacles. $1.6B UnitedHealth bet lands during Justice probe The biggest surprise in the filing? Berkshire went straight into UnitedHealth Group, buying over 5 million shares worth about $1.6 billion. That move hit the market like a flash grenade. Why? Because UnitedHealth is not doing great. The company’s been under federal investigation over how it handles Medicare billing. Its CEO, Andrew Witty, resigned in May, and just a month before this investment, UnitedHealth had to yank its annual earnings forecast, replacing it with a new one that missed Wall Street’s expectations. This was not a low-risk buy. Shares had already been down nearly 50% for the year before Berkshire’s announcement that made UnitedHealth’s stock shoot up by 9.6% after hours, eventually ending the day up 12%, its biggest daily gain since March 2020. That bounce helped push the Dow Jones to an all-time intraday high the same day. George Hill, a healthcare analyst at Deutsche Bank, told clients the investment could act like a short-term floor for the entire managed care sector. He said: “Given Berkshire’s investment track record, it could serve as a near-term bottom and rallying point for other investors that the space is safe to invest in again.” Despite all that, UnitedHealth is still under the Justice Department’s microscope, still facing backlash over rising healthcare costs, and still trying to earn back trust after a year of missed targets and executive chaos. Yet Berkshire made the buy. But that’s just Warren, unpredictable as ever. Want your project in front of crypto’s top minds? Feature it in our next industry report, where data meets impact.