Did you know that Apple alone accounts for more than 7% of the S&P 500 Index by market capitalization?

This shows the impact a single company can have on the broader market, especially when its position is being rocked.

In today’s edition, we’ll be looking at these three areas:

• Berkshire Hathaway Slashes Apple Stake By Nearly 50%: First, we’ll explore why Warren Buffett's investment giant has slashed its Apple holdings by nearly 50% 📉

• Mortgage Rates Are Down – Here’s How Much Further They Could Fall: Next, we’ll discover the recent drop in mortgage rates 🏡

• Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU May Be Delayed – What That Means For The Chip Maker: Finally, we’ll analyze the implications of a potential delay in Nvidia's next-generation chips 💻

Stay tuned for insights and analyses that can help you profit from the market by finding the best investment opportunities. Here we go!

Berkshire Hathaway Slashes Apple Stake By Nearly 50% 📉

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway slashed its holdings of Apple stock by nearly 50% in the second quarter to about 400 million shares from 789 million shares in the first quarter, according to information in the company’s 10-Q report released Saturday.

Berkshire now holds about 2.6% of the amount of Apple stock outstanding, and the stake was worth about $88 billion based on Friday’s closing price of $219.86.

A reduction was not surprising, but the size of the cut was unexpected.

Some Berkshire watchers had anticipated the decline because CEO Warren Buffett often continues to reduce a large equity stake once he begins cutting it.

A drop of 100 million shares or so had been anticipated 👀

Buffett may feel that Apple is fully priced at recent levels and that the holding, which was more than 40% of Berkshire’s stock portfolio, had become too large.

Berkshire is sitting on a large profit in the stock given that its cost basis is around $34 a share.

Berkshire accumulated the stock largely between 2016 and 2018.

Berkshire had held 905 million shares of the iPhone maker at year-end 2023.

Buffett may have taken advantage of the strength in Apple shares in the second quarter to unload so much stock.

In his 2021 annual letter, he talked about Apple as one of four “giants” at Berkshire which accounted for the bulk of the company’s value along with its insurance business, railroad, and utility operations.

A key issue now is whether Berkshire will continue to reduce the Apple stake in the current quarter and potentially eliminate it entirely 🤔

Apple trades around 30 times projected profits in its fiscal year ending in September 2025.

Buffett has a value bent and the Apple valuation may be too high for him.

When Berkshire was buying the stock, it was paying 15 times earnings or less.

Mortgage Rates Are Down – Here’s How Much Further They Could Fall 🏡

Many prospective home buyers have been waiting for lower mortgage rates to pull the trigger.

Those who have been on the sidelines by choice may not want to wait too long.

The Federal Reserve said it could lower interest rates in September.

Economists say that expectation is already priced into mortgage rates, which have fallen 0.22 percentage point since the first week in July to a recent 6.73%, according to Freddie Mac.

Buyers so far have shrugged 🤷

Purchase loan applications measured by the Mortgage Bankers Association have sagged for three straight weeks through last Friday to a level only about 6% off its multi-decade low.

Borrowers may be waiting for signs that mortgage rates will drift lower as the Federal Reserve begins to cut short-term rates.

A sustained drop in mortgage rates could reignite demand for houses next spring when most buyers start looking—meaning it might pay to shop while housing traffic remains low and active listings remain high 📝

A sustained drop in mortgage rates could reignite demand next spring when most buyers start looking—meaning it might pay to shop while traffic remains low and active listings remain high.

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Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU May Be Delayed – What That Means For The Chip Maker 💻

A report Saturday said one of Nvidia’s next generation chips will be delayed by a just-discovered design flaw.

If true, a few billion dollars in revenue for the chip maker may arrive in early 2025, instead of late 2024.

Tech news site “The Information”, citing a couple of industry sources, said volume shipments of the Blackwell B200 chip would be delayed by some three months.

The Blackwell chips are the next-generation of the artificial-intelligence acceleration chips that have made Nvidia one of the most valuable companies on the planet 💰

Demand for the company’s current generation of Hopper chips still outstrips production.

Nvidia says that its story hasn’t changed.

“As we’ve stated before, Hopper demand is very strong,” said a spokesperson.

“Broad Blackwell sampling has started, and production is on track to ramp in 2H .. beyond that, we don’t comment on rumors.”

Nvidia is not a cheap stock.

At the closing price Friday of $107, it trades at 40 times this year’s earnings forecast and 30 times next year’s 🤑

But a three month delay won’t be the thing that changes Nvidia’s popularity on Wall Street.

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