Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway asked regulators to keep its new stock purchase secret for the second consecutive quarter, while the conglomerate slightly reduced its massive stake in Apple in the fourth quarter, according to a new regulatory filing. Berkshire has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to keep details of one or more of its stock holdings confidential. Many speculated that the secret purchase may have been for banking stocks as 10Q filings for the third quarter suggested that Berkshire had purchased $1.2 billion in “banking, insurance and finance” stocks. Requesting such treatment is relatively rare for Berkshire. The last time it kept a purchase confidential was when it bought Chevron and Verizon in 2020. Cut Apple, HP and Paramount The Omaha-based conglomerate sold about 10 million Apple shares last quarter, the filing shows. At the end of 2023, Berkshire still owned 905,560,000 shares of the iPhone maker, worth more than $174 billion. Berkshire significantly reduced its stake in Paramount, holding about 63,300 shares at the end of December, or 30% fewer shares than in the previous quarter. Paramount Global shares recently got a boost following news of a potential takeover bid, but the media company could still prove to be a rare losing bet for Berkshire. The conglomerate first acquired its non-voting stake in Paramount in the first quarter of 2022. Meanwhile, Buffett’s company continued to sell its stake in HP, reducing the number of shares by 77% to just 22,852 in the fourth quarter. Berkshire initially bought the tech hardware stock in April 2022. Many Buffett watchers had already suspected the Oracle of Omaha’s intention to completely offload the stake. Other moves Elsewhere, Berkshire dumped its positions in Brazilian fintech StoneCo, homebuilder DRHorton and financial firms Markel and Globe Life. Over the past month, Berkshire has continued to buy shares of Liberty Media tracker for New York-based satellite radio company SiriusXM in a likely merger arbitrage play. The move, which is relatively small for Berkshire, could come from the billionaire’s investor lieutenants, Ted Weschler or Todd Combs. Meanwhile, Berkshire continued to increase its already large stake in Occidental Petroleum in the new year, now owning nearly 30% of the energy producer. This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.