Apple shares up after Buffett boosts stake to $17 billion

Former Vice President Al Gore, also an Apple board member, sold 215,437 shares of Apple stock worth about $29.5 million last week, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Buffett said that if the dividend rate on Bank of America common stock, now at 30 cents annually, rises above 44 cents before 2021, Berkshire would anticipate making a cashless exchange of its preferred shares into common. And he hailed America, with an implicit rebuke of anti-immigrant sentiment. The Oracle of Omaha closed out 2016 with approximately 57.4 million shares, up from the 15.2 million shares that Berkshire Hathaway was holding at the end of the third quarter.

His latest letter adds fuel to the fire as an accelerating flow of cash moves from actively managed funds, such as hedge funds and many mutual funds, to generally lower-cost funds tracking indexes.

Buffett didn’t say Monday which deputy had taken the American or Apple stakes. Buffett’s investment in Apple now amounts to about 2.5% of the company.

While doubling an already large position over the course of a month is already a pretty bullish signal to investors, it’s even more bullish when you compound that over a longer period of time.

He also touched upon a United States dollars 1 million charity bet that he undertook nine years ago: he bet that over a decade, an investment in a low-priced index fund would fare better than one in any selection of funds the hedge fund manager made.

In an interview on CNBC, Buffett said his company bought more than $9 billion of airline stocks because he believes they are operating more efficiently than they used to.

‘I don’t have an iPhone, ‘ the investor said.

But Tim Armour, CEO of Capital Group Cos, which runs the American Funds and invests $1.4 trillion, said index funds can expose investors to losses when markets turn sour. “But heaven help them if they act on the nonsense they peddle”, he said.

The unit’s success is in large part due to Mr. Jain, Mr. Buffett said. Since then, Apple’s share price has rocketed 18 percent higher, bringing the worth of Buffett’s holding to around $7.8 billion.

Further, in 2014 Buffett revealed in his annual shareholder letter that he had instructed the executors of his will to buy an index tracker for his widow.

“[Buffett] doesn’t know about tech, but he knows people love iPhones and will continue to buy them”, Janjigian said.

In pre-market trading today, Apple shares were in the green.

The recent movement in the stock suggests otherwise. “If that level is reached, we will instead attempt to blend a desire to make meaningful purchases at a value-creating price with a related goal of not over-influencing the market”, Buffett wrote. There were 19 trading days in the month of January before Apple reported its earnings on the last day of the month.