Buffett’s Apple Share Dump Is Set to Reshape Major Stock Gauges
- Sale means iPhone maker’s full heft to be reflected in indexes
- Passive funds set to scoop up $40 billion of company shares
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Warren Buffett’s sudden sale of a huge pile of Apple Inc. shares has come with a surprise silver lining for investors in the iPhone maker: Its influence in major stock indexes is set to be fully unleashed.
Apple’s weighting in a slew of benchmarks has been depressed for years because Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. tends to hold its investments for the long run, making them unavailable for trading. As a result, index providers calculated the tech company’s weight based on a methodology known as float-adjusted market capitalization.