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Since 2012, when Apple’s share count peaked, the company have repurchased more than $580 billion in stock.
That’s ~38% of the outstanding share count in ten years.
Even if the revenues remained flat the share price would increase and you would be far better off purely for holding.
Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway hold a huge number of Apple stock – they must be laughing!
Berkshire Hathaway is a holding company owned by Warren Buffett and is one of the most successful and well-known businesses in the world. The company has two classes of stock, A and B, and the two stocks have some important differences. In this post, we’ll explore the difference between the two types of stock and what that means for investors.
Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares are the company’s original stock, and are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BRK.A. Class A shares are the most expensive, currently trading around $350,000 per share. The stock is known for its high dividend yield, and investors receive one vote per share when voting at the company’s annual meeting.
Berkshire Hathaway’s Class B shares are much more affordable, trading around $250 per share. The stock still carries the ticker symbol BRK.B and still pays a dividend, though it is not as high as the Class A stock. In addition, Class B shares only carry one-tenth of the voting power of Class A shares.
Berkshire Hathaway A stock and B stock are two classes of stock offered by the company. Class A stock is the most expensive, but carries more voting power and a higher dividend yield. Class B stock is more affordable and pays a dividend, though it carries much less voting power. Both classes of stock offer investors a chance to benefit from the long-term success of Berkshire Hathaway.
There is very little difference between Berkshire Hathaway’s BRK.A and BRK.B shares.
BRK.B shares were created because Warren Buffett noticed that the BRK.A shares were growing considerable high is cost per share and that these shares were less obtainable by the average retail investor and could only be purchased by either very wealth individuals, unit trusts or mutual funds.
Thus, Warren decided to create BRK.B shares to provide the average investor with the opportunity to purchase shares in Berkshire Hathaway without the huge cost associated with BRK.A.
There are other very small differences, but the above is the only one that really counts.
It has been confirmed that Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s energy unit will acquire Dominion Energy Inc’s natural gas transmission and storage business for $9.7 billion.
This puts Berkshire Hathaway Energy into a very strong position in the market.
Potentially, this is why Warren Buffett has been holding onto an extra large cash sum? Maybe not.