Warren Buffett Disclosing $4.1B Stake Leads To 8% Spike In Apple Supplier's Stock

Apple Inc. AAPL supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. TSM shares jumped nearly 8% on Tuesday after billionaire investor Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) disclosed a new $4.1 billion stake in the company. 

What Happened: The Omaha-based conglomerate, in a filing, said it acquired about 60.1 million American depository receipts in TSMC in the last quarter ending Sept. 30. 

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A rare foray into the tech sector by Buffett’s company sent TSMC’s shares soaring high on Tuesday in Taiwan after they hit a two-year low last month due to a sharp slowdown in global chip demand. 

The company also disclosed other stakes: $297 million in building materials company Louisiana-Pacific Corp. LPX and $13 million in Jefferies Financial Group Inc. JEF.

Berkshire also exited an investment in a real estate company, Store Capital Corp, that agreed to go private in September.

This came after the Taiwan-based chipmaker, which also supplies to Qualcomm QCOM and Nvidia Corp NVDA, posted an 80% jump in its last quarterly profit. 

Last week, TSMC said that it is looking for local sources of neon gas after Vladimir Putin‘s war in Ukraine caused a major supply crunch. The senior vice president of the chipmaking giant said it is working with multiple Taiwan-based gas suppliers to explore the local production of neon gas in three to five years. 

Buffett was never a fan of tech stocks. But that has changed recently. Apple is by far the largest investment in his company’s $306.2 billion equity portfolio.

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