Warren Buffett's Berkshire halves Apple stake, boosts cash to $277bn

(Reuters) -- Warren Buffett appears to have soured on stocks, letting cash at Berkshire Hathaway soar to nearly $277 billion and selling about half its stake in Apple, even as the conglomerate posted a record quarterly operating profit.

Berkshire's results suggest the 93-year-old Buffett, one of the world's most revered investors, is growing wary about the broader U.S. economy or stock market valuations that have gotten too high.

The results were released on Saturday after a stock market sell-off that pushed the Nasdaq composite into correction territory, while a weak jobs report sparked worries about U.S. economic activity and whether the Federal Reserve waited too long to cut interest rates.

"If you look at the entire Berkshire picture and the macroeconomic data, a safe conclusion is that Berkshire is getting defensive," said Cathy Seifert, an analyst at CFRA Research who rates Berkshire a "buy."

The cash stake grew to $276.9 billion as of June 30 from $189 billion three months earlier largely because Berkshire sold a net $75.5 billion of stocks in the quarter. It was the seventh straight quarter Berkshire sold more stocks than it bought.

Berkshire sold about 390 million Apple shares, on top of 115 million shares sold from January to March, as Apple's stock price rose 23%. It still owned about 400 million shares worth $84.2 billion as of June 30.

Second-quarter profit from Berkshire's dozens of businesses rose 15% to $11.6 billion, or about $8,073 per Class A share, from $10.04 billion a year earlier.

Nearly half that profit came from Berkshire's insurance businesses, including a more than tripling of underwriting profit at the Geico car insurer.

But revenue rose just 1% to $93.65 billion, and barely changed in major