For those that are curious, Berkshire's 20m share sale of AAPL in Q2 was at an average price of $201.80 / share.

For those who are even more curious, the cost basis was around $34.25 per share, so profit of $167.54 per share, tax of $35.18 per share, net proceeds from that sale $166.62 per share. So one might infer that Mr Buffett would rather have $166.62 of cash than a share of Apple today. More specifically, he'd rather the firm had an incremental $3.332 bn in after-tax cash than those 20 million Apple shares.

I don't like to read too much into such things, but given how much cash is already in hand, that's almost a bit insulting to poor old Apple : )

Of course, the price is more than twice the average valuation level accorded by the market in the 2010s. It might not be a good enough reason to sell a "forever holding", but it's no doubt a contributing factor, or at least a very nice consolation.

Jim

Berkshire Hathaway FAQ

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