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Warren Buffett is not your typical investor, and his moves have been out of the ordinary in the past few years. Berkshire Hathaway’s most recent filing showed Buffett shed ~42 million shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC). This translates to a 14.92% reduction in his AAPL stake and a 6.15% reduction in his BAC stake.
This is antithetical to what the rest of the market has been doing, and it’s not the only quarter where Warren Buffett has seemed bearish. He has been a net seller for 12 consecutive quarters as of Q3. This means he has been selling stocks while most other investors were pouring money into the AI rally.
Let’s take a look at why he is selling so much and for so long, and which asset he is piling into instead.
Why Buffett is selling Apple (AAPL)
Buffett has had a long history with Apple, and it is still his largest holding. At one point, he used to have over 50% of his portfolio in just AAPL stock alone. He remarked during Berkshire Hathaway’s 2025 annual meeting that CEO Tim Cook made Berkshire “a lot more money” than even himself.
This doesn’t mean he is not open to taking profits. Buffett reduced his holdings by 1.1% in Q4 2023, 12.8% in Q1 2024, 49.3% in Q2 2024, 25% in Q3 2024, 6.7% in Q2 2025, and finally, the most recent sale of 14.9% of his AAPL stake in Q3 2025.
This still leaves him some 238.2 million of AAPL shares, worth $60.66 billion.
Naturally, one would question why he did it. AAPL stock has climbed by more than 55% since Q4 2023, and the rally has shown no sign of slowing down. If anything, investors believe AAPL stock is not too expensive, as it has remained largely uninvolved with the AI hype. The recent iPhone refresh boosted sales significantly, so this also proves that Apple can still profitably sell hardware and grow just fine.
He publicly addressed this last year. Buffett said that selling “a little Apple” now would benefit Berkshire shareholders if the U.S. raises capital gains taxes in the future to address the climbing fiscal deficit. This allowed Berkshire to lock in over $100 billion in profits at current tax rates.
Plus, he indicated he views Apple shares as overpriced relative to their intrinsic value. When Berkshire first purchased Apple in 2016, the stock traded at a price-earnings ratio below 12 times and a price-sales ratio under 3 times. AAPL stock now carries a PE ratio near 40 and trades at over 10 times sales, while revenue growth has slowed.
Why Buffett is selling Bank of America (BAC)
Buffett has remained silent on his rationale for selling BAC stock. He has had an even longer history with Bank of America. Buffett first bought back in 2011 and injected $5 billion into the bank through preferred stock during the European debt crisis. This helped the bank stabilize and became one of Buffett’s most profitable holdings.
He has been offloading BAC stock aggressively every quarter since Q3 2024.
Still, he holds some 568 million shares with a value of $30.4 billion. It constitutes 10.96% of his portfolio, and the stock has kept going up.
Maybe he sees another banking crisis or just wants to lock in profits before capital gains taxes supposedly go higher. I believe capital taxes are unlikely to be the only cause, as Trump has kept them mostly unchanged.
The asset he is pouring into
Berkshire Hathaway is pouring cash into U.S. Treasury bills (T-bills), which are short-term government debt securities considered one of the safest investments available. The company now holds approximately $360 billion in T-bills.
This is more than the Federal Reserve’s $195 billion stake and constitutes 5% of the entire short-term Treasury market.
He has made the rationale behind this clear time and time again. He said in 2022 that “Berkshire will always hold a boatload of cash and U.S. Treasury bills” and repeated many times that he does not see many good opportunities in the market right now.
In essence, he believes stocks are too expensive, and it doesn’t bother him that they keep going up. He’s taking profits on the way up while making his cash reserve bigger for when a correction inevitably comes. These T-bills are yielding him 4.1% to 4.3% in the meantime and keep him comfortably ahead of inflation.