Buffett's Rare Tech Foray Gives Boost to Apple

Apple is having a good day, its stock rising about 3% after a slump blamed on slowing iPhone sales. The reason for the uptick? Look to Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway company shrugged off a general aversion to tech stocks and disclosed a $1.1 billion stake in Apple, reports the Wall Street Journal. Or at least the 9.81 million shares were worth $1 billion at the end of the March, though that figure has dropped to about $888 million upon the news of Apple's rare decline in quarterly revenue, reports CNN Money. Still, the news that Buffett's company seems confident in Apple appears to have given other investors similar confidence.

“Apple at the current valuation makes a ton of sense; it’s a consumer-product company more than a tech company,” Jeff Matthews, who has written books on Berkshire, tells Bloomberg. "The company has a great financial model, a great brand name, and a cheap stock.” It's not Buffett's only recent foray into tech. He also increased his stake in IBM and is teaming with the founder of Quicken Loans, Dan Gilbert, in a bid to buy the online assets of Yahoo, reports Reuters. (More Warren Buffett stories.)