| More selling than buying as stock prices rallied this spring Berkshire Hathaway was doing a lot more selling than buying of stocks this spring as the benchmark S&P 500 stock index rallied by more than 8%.
The company's SEC filing showing the publicly-traded U.S. stocks in its portfolio as of June 30, when compared to its holdings three months earlier on March 31, reveals Berkshire reduced or eliminated 11 positions worth $2.8 billion, while adding or increasing only four names for a total of $0.6 billion. (Those calculations are based on the June 30 closing prices.)
But none of the moves were all that big by Berkshire standards.  The $679 million reduction for drugmaker Merck was the largest by dollars, and the 49% cut in the number of shares was the biggest percentage drop during the quarter for a stock remaining in the portfolio.
Health care was a theme, with Berkshire selling 15% of its Bristol-Myers Squibb stake ($317 million), 10% of its Abbvie holdings ($264 million), and all of its relatively small Biogen stake ($223 million).
(Biogen's shares soared 38% on June 7 after the FDA approved Aduhelm, the company's Alzheimer's drug. But then it lost ground as the agency's chief called for an investigation into that approval amid concerns over contacts between the company and FDA staff members, with critics saying the drug is too expensive and may not be very helpful to patients.)  Berkshire completely eliminated its 13.9 million share stake of Axalta Coating Systems, which would have been worth $423 million at the end of the quarter.
It sold 10% of its General Motors shares, a $414 million reduction, based on the June 30 price. The only increase worth more than $100 million was for Kroger, the supermarket company. (MarketWatch points out it's not a Wall Street favorite.)
Berkshire increased its shares by 21% to 61.8 million. Those new shares were worth $411 million as of the end of Q2, bringing the stake's total market value to just under $2.4 billion on June 30.
Since then, it's soared more than 22% to an all-time high today, bringing the value of Berkshire's stake to $2.9 billion. That gain includes a jump of almost 5% on the day after the Q2 buying was revealed.  The only new position created during the quarter was a very small stake in Organon, worth $47 million as of June 30.
It's now valued at more than $51 million. Shares of the new Merck spin-off focused on women's health gained 3% on the day after Berkshire's filing.
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BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
  BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - Aug 20, 2021
 Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly-traded U.S. stocks by market value, based on today's closing prices.
Holdings are as of June 30, 2021 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway's 13F filing on August 16, 2021, except for Apple, Bank of America, and U.S. Bancorp, which also include shares held as of June 30, 2021 as disclosed in New England Asset Management's 13F filing on August 16, 2021.
In addition to U.S. stocks, shares held as of December 31, 2020 of China's BYD, as listed in Buffett's 2020 letter to shareholders, are included. The price of those shares in U.S. trading is used to approximate the current market value of the position. The value of the stake as a percentage of the company's market value is fixed at what was listed as of December 31, 2020 in the letter.
The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
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-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
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