SILICON VALLEY: Billionaire Warren Buffett has said he would love to see Apple Inc. shares decline in price so he could buy more. He is getting his wish.
Apple’s warning on Wednesday about weak iPhone demand in the holiday quarter due to slower sales in China sent its stock down 7.5 percent during after-hours trading. Class B shares of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. traded down 2 percent in the same session on Wall Street.
Buffett, the folksy Nebraska investor known more for buying railroads, energy firms and classic American corporate brands than for his acumen picking tech stocks, in recent years has lamented missing the boat on buying shares in US technology giants. He admitted an earlier investment in IBM Corp. was not one of his best.
Yet Buffett has made Apple a centerpiece of his portfolio of other company’s stocks, touting his own use of the Cupertino, California-based company’s products and saying at his annual shareholders’ meeting in Omaha last May, “We would love to see Apple go down in price,” so he could buy more at a bargain.
Buffett sees Apple more as a consumer stock than a tech stock, reflecting the iPhone’s status as a must-have possession for so many people.
Including its after-hours drop on Wednesday, Apple’s stock market value has tumbled to below $700 billion from over $1.1 trillion at its peak in October. Although Apple has fallen behind Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in value, it remains one of Wall Street’s most widely held companies.
Shares of Berkshire itself have held up well even as the broader market sank last quarter. Last year, Berkshire returned 2.8 percent, while the S&P 500 fell 4.4 percent, including reinvested dividends.
But the $3 billion hit to Berkshire’s Apple shares in evening trading on Wednesday could show in future reported earnings. Those figures do not reflect any long-term gains on Berkshire’s investments, and Buffett has encouraged investors to ignore the profit statistic mandated by US accounting practices.
For Warren Buffett, sinking Apple shares a wish come true
For Warren Buffett, sinking Apple shares a wish come true
- Apple’s warning on Wednesday about weak iPhone demand in the holiday quarter due to slower sales in China sent its stock down 7.5 percent during after-hours trading
- Apple’s stock market value has tumbled to below $700 billion from over $1.1 trillion at its peak in October
Closing Bell: Saudi main index closes in red at 11,183
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index dipped on Monday, losing 44.79 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 11,183.85.
The total trading turnover of the benchmark index was SR4.05 billion ($1.08 billion), as 69 of the listed stocks advanced, while 191 retreated.
The MSCI Tadawul Index decreased, down 6.63 points or 0.44 percent, to close at 1,504.73.
The Kingdom’s parallel market Nomu lost 328.20 points, or 1.36 percent, to close at 23,764.92. This comes as 22 of the listed stocks advanced, while 49 retreated.
The best-performing stock was Maharah Human Resources Co., with its share price surging by 7.26 percent to SR6.50.
Other top performers included Arabian Cement Co., which saw its share price rise by 6.27 percent to SR22.71, and Saudi Research and Media Group, which saw a 4.3 percent increase to SR104.30.
On the downside, the worst performer of the day was Arabian Internet and Communications Services Co., whose share price fell by 8.01 percent to SR207.80.
Jahez International Co. for Information System Technology and Al-Rajhi Co. for Cooperative Insurance also saw declines, with their shares dropping by 5.61 percent and 4.46 percent to SR12.79 and SR75, respectively.
On the announcement front, Etihad Etisalat Co. announced its financial results for 2025 with a 7.9 percent year-on-year growth in its revenues, to reach SR19.6 billion.
In a Tadawul statement, Mobily said that this growth is attributed to “the expansion of all revenue streams, with a healthy growth in the overall subscriber base.”
Mobily delivered an 11.6 percent increase in net profit, reaching SR3.4 billion in 2025 compared to SR3.1 billion in 2024.
The company’s share price reached SR67.85, marking a 0.37 percent increase on the main market.
