Apple Stock Soars to New Heights Thanks to Warren Buffett's $44 Billion Vote of Confidence But not even the Oracle of Omaha makes the right call all the time.
By Nina Zipkin •
You win some and you lose some, even if you're as astute as Berkshire Hathaway owner and CEO Warren Buffett.
In the first quarter of 2018, Buffett bought 75 million shares of Apple, on top of the 165.3 million shares of the company that Berkshire Hathaway had in its possession at the end of last year.
"It is an unbelievable company," Buffett said in conversation with CNBC about the move. "If you look at Apple, I think it earns almost twice as much as the second most profitable company in the United States."
Buffett's holdings are worth nearly $44 billion and the boost from the Oracle of Omaha saw Apple' stock rise to a high of $183.65 per share.
Related: 5 Pieces of Hard-Won Wisdom From Billionaire Warren Buffett
Needless to say, Apple CEO Tim Cook is pleased with the turn of events, telling CNBC, that the company is "thrilled to have Warren and Berkshire as a major investor." Cook added, "On a personal level, I've always greatly admired Warren and have always been grateful for his insight and advice."
If Buffett is bullish on Apple's prospects, he is less so on IBM, to the point that he no longer has any shares in the veteran firm at all, according to a recent interview. At the close of 2017, Berkshire Hathaway owned a little more than 2 million shares of IBM after selling off almost 95 percent of the stake it did have.
But it seems that not all of the bets Buffett has made recently have paid off so well. The shares of the stock of a Chinese electric car company called BYD that Buffett invested in have lost roughly $9 billion over the past seven months.
Buffett will speak to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders tomorrow at the company's annual meeting.
