Before Retiring, Warren Buffett Dumped $4.5 Billion Worth of 2 AI Stocks and Established a New Position in This 174-Year-Old Company
As Warren Buffett approached the end of his tenure as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA) (NYSE: BRKB), he went on a selling streak unlike any in history. He sold more stock than he bought in each of the last 13 quarters of his time in charge of Berkshire’s massive marketable equity portfolio. That led…
As Warren Buffett approached the end of his tenure as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway(NYSE: BRKA)(NYSE: BRKB), he went on a selling streak unlike any in history. He sold more stock than he bought in each of the last 13 quarters of his time in charge of Berkshire’s massive marketable equity portfolio. That led to an astounding cash pile of $373 billion at the end of 2025.
Buffett took the axe to some of Berkshire’s biggest positions, and last quarter was no different. He continued to trim its massive stake in Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL) and began selling Berkshire’s Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN) shares as well. Those sales totaled an estimated $4.5 billion. Meanwhile, Buffett started a new position in a company that’s been around since the 1850s.
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Buffett invested over $30 billion in Apple between 2016 and 2018, making it one of his largest-ever investments. And boy, did it pay off.
Berkshire’s shares approached nearly $200 billion in value in 2023 prior to Buffett’s decision to trim the position. At one point, the stock accounted for more than 50% of Berkshire’s marketable equity portfolio. Even after selling more than three-quarters of its shares, the position is still worth about $60 billion today.
Buffett has previously said he doesn’t mind a high concentration of his highest-conviction stocks in a portfolio, a sentiment echoed by new CEO Greg Abel in his first letter to shareholders. While Buffett may have been comfortable with 50% of Berkshire’s portfolio in a single stock, he probably wasn’t as comfortable with the valuation of that stock.
Apple’s trailing P/E climbed from around 10 when Buffett first started buying the shares to about 29 when he first started selling shares in 2023 and 34 at the end of 2025. The valuation remains elevated, even on a forward-looking basis, with the stock trading for 31 times analysts’ estimates for the next 12 months.
Even after selling a huge chunk of Apple shares, the stock remains its largest marketable equity position, accounting for about 19% of the total portfolio as of this writing. Abel said investors should expect “limited activity” with regard to Berkshire’s Apple stake in the future, so Berkshire may be done selling Apple stock.
The decision to sell Amazon comes after Berkshire has held roughly the same position since early 2019. Many believe the Amazon position was established by Todd Combs, who left the company last quarter. As a result, it’s not a big surprise that the company would want to dispose of some of the stocks he was in charge of managing for Berkshire.
Amazon looks like a relative value compared to where it was when Berkshire initially bought shares in 2019. Its P/E ratio fell to 32 by the end of 2025, compared to the 80 times earnings multiple it garnered when Berkshire bought it.
That said, there may be concerns about its free cash flow as it invests heavily in new data centers to meet demand for artificial intelligence (AI) compute. Amazon surprised investors with its $200 billion capital expenditure budget for 2026, which will likely result in negative free cash flow for the year.
Apple and Amazon aren’t the only stocks Buffett sold last quarter. And continued selling in Berkshire’s portfolio is a sign that Buffett still thinks much of the market is overvalued at this point. That said, there are pockets of opportunities, and Buffett may have found another one right before he retired.
In his 2023 letter to shareholders, Buffett told investors, “Berkshire is not big on newcomers.” He mentioned it as an aside when describing two of his favorite stocks: American Express and Coca-Cola.
Amex began operations all the way back in 1850, and Coca-Cola got its start in 1886. Buffett’s latest investment started in 1851 when it published the New-York Daily Times. Today, it’s known as The New York Times(NYSE: NYT). Buffett’s bet on the newspaper company comes at a time when the news media, particularly the print news media, are facing significant disruption. But Buffett’s no stranger to the news business.
Berkshire previously held shares of Graham Holdings, which owned the Washington Post before Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought it. Buffett served on the board there for a combined 37 years across two stints. Today, the Post is facing significant turmoil, and it recently laid off 30% of its workforce after posting a loss exceeding $100 million in 2025.
But The New York Times has been able to buck the trend. It pushed revenue 9% higher in 2025 while keeping expenses low, leading to a 23% increase in its operating profit. Net income came in at $344 million, up 18% for the year.
That’s owed to the publisher’s digital transformation, which includes top-tier content across multiple categories beyond news. Its Cooking and Games content keep readers subscribed and coming back to The New York Times for its journalism. Additionally, it expanded its addressable market with sports coverage (The Athletic), product reviews (Wirecutter), and podcasts. The New York Times has managed the shift to digital better than any other 174-year-old publisher and even much younger ones.
Subscriber growth remains strong for the company, up 1.4 million for the year, and 96% of its 12.8 million subscribers are digital-only and pay an average of $9.72 per month. Management expects its strength to continue in the first quarter, with digital-only subscribers rising between 14% and 17% year over year, which should lead to low double-digit revenue growth.
It’s worth noting that investors currently have to pay up for the high-quality company. Shares trade for close to 30 times forward earnings estimates. Buffett likely got a much better deal on the shares, which traded for a multiple in the low-to-mid-20s in the third quarter. That seems like a fair price to pay for a wonderful business. At the current price, though, it might be worth waiting for a better entry point.
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American Express is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Adam Levy has positions in Amazon and Apple. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, and The New York Times Co. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Before Retiring, Warren Buffett Dumped $4.5 Billion Worth of 2 AI Stocks and Established a New Position in This 174-Year-Old Company was originally published by The Motley Fool
