Subject: Re: Reading tea leaves
But it's actually the seventh quarter in a row with more equity sales than equity purchases. At some point it's tempting to read something into the trend. Watch what they do, not what they say?

The most obvious possible lesson is that the three stock pickers aren't seeing a target rich environment for buying good stocks at fair prices. Really the boss I guess, since he's the one who decides capital allocation. Another reasonable inference is that the recent higher short term interest rates make it a little less unattractive to sit on a bigger pile of cash while waiting, so it is (for the moment) acceptable to sit on more cash than usual.

To these factors, I would add a few more:

-- Continuing to clear the decks for new leadership. The extent to which Mr. Buffett has already passed the operational baton to Mr. Abel was clearer to me at this year's annual meeting than it had been before. Perhaps he is doing the same with the investment portfolio.

-- It was objectively a reasonable time to cut the Apple allocation, both because it was an outsized percentage of the equity port by any traditional portfolio management standard, and because the Mag 7 valuation doesn't make a lot of sense given its growth prospects compared to those of the hyperscalers. Throw in China market share risk and booking some of the massive gains seems like a move toward safety.

-- A Democratic Party sweep in the coming U.S. elections is a low-probability event, but if it happens, corporate tax rates will likely rise. In the event of a Republican Party sweep, corporate tax cuts, if any, would likely be minor (Mr. Trump has floated a cut fro 21% to 20). The enormous, rapidly-growing national debt is beginning to have actual ramifications. So, net-net, the likelihood of this tax bill, large as it is, looking like a bargain in the future, might have seemed a reasonable bet.