Investing

How Warren Buffett's Tech Holdings Performed in Q2

Paul Ausick

Published: July 2, 2021 9:11 am

Based on Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s (NYSE: BRK-B) federal filing at the end of the March quarter, the company’s portfolio includes just four stocks from the technology sector, yet they account for nearly 42% of the portfolio’s value. Unsurprisingly, the 800-pound gorilla among those stocks is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), accounting for just over 40% of Buffett’s entire portfolio.

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The other three — Snowflake Inc. (NYSE: SNOW), StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ: STNE) and VeriSign Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) — account for 1.7% of the portfolio’s value. Combined, the four tech stocks accounted for $14 billion of the portfolio’s $26.8 billion increase (52%) in the June quarter.

The value of Buffett’s Apple holding of 907.6 million shares increased by about 12.1% in the quarter, and its value on June 30 was $124.3 billion. The calculation is based on CNBC’s tracker of Buffett’s portfolio.

VeriSign, a software infrastructure company, contributed $370.8 million to Buffett’s portfolio growth last quarter. Buffett’s stake of 12.8 million shares increased in value by nearly 15% to $2.9 billion, as the share price rose by 14.5%.

Snowflake, an application software maker, posted a share price gain of 9.5% in the second quarter and added $76.7 million to the value of the portfolio. Buffet owns 6.1 million shares of Snowflake’s stock.

StoneCo, another applications software company, saw its share price rise by nearly 15%, and its value to Buffett’s portfolio rose by $115.3 million. Buffett owns 10.7 million shares of this stock.

Finally a note about Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). While many of us think of Amazon as a tech stock, it is categorized as a consumer cyclical stock. Buffett owns 533,300 shares of Amazon, which rose in value by about $184.6 million in the second quarter, about half as much as VeriSign’s increase. Consumer cyclical stocks comprise 2.4% of Buffett’s entire portfolio, most of which is represented by his stake in Chinese automaker BYD.