Warren Buffett’s stock moves for the first quarter are out: Net seller of equities during the first quarter.

Warren Buffett slashed stake in Goldman Sachs, exited Travelers

Julia La Roche
Correspondent
Yahoo Finance
May 16, 2020


Warren Buffett’s stock moves for the first quarter are out.

According to a regulatory 13-F filing for the first quarter ended March 31, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B)

• trimmed its stake in Goldman Sachs (GS) in the quarter, selling around 10 million shares to last hold 1.92 million shares. 
• Berkshire also slightly reduced its position in JPMorgan Chase (JPM), selling 1.8 million shares, to last hold 57.7 million shares.

Elsewhere, Berkshire exited its stakes in

• Travelers (TRV), selling 312,379 shares, and 
• Phillips 66 (PSX), selling 227,436 shares.

Buffett added to Berkshire’s position

• in PNC (PNC), snapping up 526,930 shares to last hold 9.19 million shares in the regional bank.

Net Seller of Equities; cash pile grew to $137.3  billion

During the first quarter, Buffett was a net seller of equities during the first quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the economy. Meanwhile, Berkshire’s massive cash pile grew to $137.263 billion, up from $127.997 billion, but Buffett said Berkshire hasn’t acted “because we don’t see anything that attractive to do. That could change very quickly or it may not change,” Buffett said during Berkshire’s annual shareholders’ meeting in early May.






Berkshire Hathaway AGM


Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, speaks to the press as he arrives at the 2019 annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, May 4, 2019. (Photo by Johannes EISELE / AFP) (Photo credit should read JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images)

During the annual meeting, Buffett also confirmed that after the first quarter Berkshire sold all of its stakes in airlines, including

• American Airlines (AAL), 
• Delta (DAL), 
• United Continental Holdings (UAL), and 
• Southwest Airlines (LUV).

“I wouldn’t normally talk about it, but I think it requires an explanation,” he said on Saturday. “We were not disappointed at all in the businesses that were being run and the management, but we did come to a different opinion on it,” he said at the time.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, airlines are among the industries being hurt by an exogenous shock “far beyond their control,” Buffett said. He later added that if Berkshire owned airlines now, “it would be a tough decision to decide whether to sustain billions of dollars in operating losses when you don’t know how long it’s going to happen or occur.”

Julia La Roche is a Correspondent at Yahoo Finance.