Berkshire's market value tops $700 billion as stock hits new highs

Both classes of Berkshire Hathaway's shares closed today at new all-time highs, pushing the company's market value up to around $715 billion.

They're been rallying since last month, with the more-widely held Class B shares up 16.3% from their near-term closing low on December 1. They ended the day at $319.78.

The Class A shares are up 15.5% over the same period, finishing today at $480,000.

CNBC Pro (subscription) quotes Cathy Seifert, Berkshire analyst at CFRA Research, as saying the rally "reflects a rotation into value, industrial, cyclical names with an added catalyst of improved insurance pricing."

At Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Meyer Shields, says, "I think people see it as a good cyclical play. You’ve got the (positive) double-whammy of positive equity market performance boosting both its book value and its price-to-book multiple. Just about all of its insurance businesses are working, and most of its businesses are now raising prices."

As Apple hit $3 trillion, Berkshire's paper profits grow

Gains for its equity holdings are also helping Berkshire's stock price.

Apple is Buffett's biggest winner in years.

This week, it became the first U.S. company to reach $3 trillion in market value, although it backed off its high later in the week.

Berkshire has a paper profit on the stock of more than $120 billion and also collects dividends that average around $775 million annually.

Its 907.6 million shares are worth $156.3 billion at today's close.  That's Berkshire's biggest stock holding by far, accounting for 44.6% of the portfolio's total market value.

Bank of America is second, with 1.0 billion shares worth $50.8 billion, 14.5% of the portfolio.

Buffett has called the iPhone a "sticky" product, and Berkshire has been buying Apple shares since 2016.

Even though Berkshire trimmed its stake slightly in 2020, Apple's repurchases of its own stock have increased Berkshire's stake as a percentage of the company's outstanding shares to 5.6%.

Munger doubles Alibaba stake

Charlie Munger's Daily Journal increased its Alibaba holdings by 99% during the fourth quarter.

As of December 31, it held 602,060 American depository shares of the Chinese internet giant, worth around $78 million at today's close.

It also doubled its holdings during last year's third quarter.

Munger's company starting building the stake during the first quarter of last year, reporting it held 165,320 shares as of March 31.

Alibaba's stock is down almost 43% over the past 12 months amid a crackdown on technology companies by the Chinese government.

Munger has been a fan of Chinese stocks for several years. At the 2018 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, he said "American investors are missing China," in part because the market is too difficult to understand.

And in a CNBC special (subscription) taped this year, Munger praised the Communist Chinese government's moves to reduce what he sees as "excess" speculation, specifically mentioning how it "just called in (Alibaba co-founder) Jack Ma and said, 'You aren't going to do it, sonny.'"

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BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH

BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - Jan. 7, 2022

Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly-traded U.S. stocks by market value, based on today's closing prices.

Holdings are as of September 30, 2021 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on November 15, 2021, except for Apple, Bank of America, and U.S. Bancorp, which also include shares held as of September 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