Another $250 million in BYD sales bring Berkshire's stake below 18%

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is still selling BYD shares but the pace of that selling has slowed.

A filing today with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange shows that as of Tuesday, Berkshire owned 196.8 million shares. That's a stake of 17.9% in the Chinese electric car maker.

The previous filing before this week had Berkshire owning 207.1 million shares as of September 1, down from 218.7 million on August 24.

Hong Kong's rules only require a filing when a stake percentage crosses a whole number, as it did when Berkshire's stake fell below 18%, but the filing only reports the size of the sale that triggered the filing.

So, headlines reporting a sale of stock worth $71 million are accurate but don't tell the whole story.

Since the September filing triggered by Berkshire's stake going below 19%, Berkshire has sold 10.4 million shares worth almost $253 million at today's price. That's an average of 170 thousand per day.

By contrast, Berkshire sold 11.6 million shares, an average of 1.4 million shares per day, between its August 24 filing reporting the stake had dropped below 20% and the September 1 filing.

In total, Berkshire has sold 28.2 million shares this year, 12.5% of the 225 million shares it purchased in 2008 for around $230 million, and that it reported was still in its portfolio as of December 31, 2021.

The current value of the shares it still owns is $4.8 billion. 

Berkshire's Q3 results due tomorrow

Berkshire Hathaway says it will post its third quarter earnings release and 10-Q quarterly report on its website, BerkshireHathaway.com, tomorrow (Saturday) morning at around 7 a.m. Central Time (8 a.m. Eastern).

Barron's expects the company's "stock buybacks, equity purchases, and losses from Hurricane Ian and other storms will get more attention" than the bottom line.

It says Edward Jones analyst James Shanahan expects $3 billion of Berkshire buybacks, and "anything above $4 billion likely would be viewed favorably."

BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET

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• Investor's Business Daily: Warren Buffett Stocks: Two Big Holdings Soared This Week — Besides Apple

• The Motley Fool on MSN: Apple, Bank of America, and Chevron Earnings Show the Warren Buffett Way Still Works

• Business Insider: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has scored about a $13 billion gain on Chevron and Occidental - and now the 2 energy stocks rank among its biggest bets

• Reuters: Geico must face California class action claiming it overcharged on car insurance

• Investing.com: Buffett Keeps Buying: An Updated Overview Of The Oracle Of Omaha's Portfolio

• Barron's (subscription): Buffett’s Berkshire Chases Musk’s Tesla on Market Value

• Morningstar: What We’ve Learned From Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH

BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - Nov. 4, 2022

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

Holdings are as of June 30, 2022 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on August 15, 2022, except for:

• Apple, Bank of America, Chevron, and U.S. Bancorp, which also include shares held as of June 30, 2022 as disclosed in New England Asset Management’s 13F filing on August 15, 2022
• BYD, which is as of November 1, 2022
• Occidental Petroleum, which is as of September 28, 2022

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