Most of the attention on Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA -0.84%) (BRKB -0.87%) owes to its impressive investment portfolio. But Berkshire Hathaway stock is also worth watching on its own, and its shares did something this month that it hasn't accomplished in eight years.
The conglomerate, now led by Greg Abel after the retirement of its longtime leader, Warren Buffett, saw its Class B shares close higher for 10 consecutive trading sessions from Oct. 1 through Oct. 14. Berkshire's stock rose from about $498 to $526.
Berkshire snapped the streak on Oct. 15, but the stock is on another run higher, recently topping $547 and beating the record close of $539.89 set in May 2025.
Obviously, it's a great time to be a Berkshire Hathaway investor. But let's also look at the bigger picture about what happens when Berkshire stock goes on a 10-day winning run. This has happened only six other times since 1998 -- and in four of those six instances, the shares were trading higher 12 months later.
Does that mean investors should buy Berkshire stock today? History offers some encouragement, but there's a much stronger argument for owning Berkshire than its recent winning streak.
Image source: Getty Images.
What does a Berkshire winning streak mean?
Berkshire's earlier streaks of at least 10 consecutive higher closes occurred in 1998, 2003, 2014, twice in 2017, and in January 2018.
The longest came in August 2017, when the shares advanced for 15 consecutive sessions. Berkshire also recorded another extended winning streak in March of that year.
Let's be clear -- although it's a bullish signal that Berkshire posted 12-month gains on four separate occasions after those 10-day runs, that doesn't guarantee that the stock will be higher one year from now. After all, six previous occurrences are a small sample size.
The historical results suggest that an extended winning streak isn't automatically a warning that investors have missed their opportunity. But a 67% success rate doesn't establish that Berkshire has a two-thirds chance of rising during the next year.
Fortunately, investors have something more useful than historical trading patterns to help them make that decision.
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Berkshire has plenty going for it
One of the biggest questions surrounding Berkshire entering 2026 was how the company would perform after Buffett's retirement as chief executive officer.
So far, Abel has demonstrated that he's willing to put Berkshire's enormous financial resources to work.
Berkshire doubled down on its position in Alphabet, the parent company of Google, while also adding to positions in companies such as Delta Air Lines. The company has also resumed substantial share repurchases, buying back about $4.4 billion of its own stock.
The buybacks are a signal to investors -- Berkshire has always been cautious about buying its own stock and has a stated philosophy of buying only when the stock is trading below its intrinsic value.
Of course, a buyback isn't proof that Berkshire shares are undervalued today, particularly after their recent advance. But it's an encouraging indication of management's willingness to deploy capital when opportunities arise.
And Berkshire still has considerable financial flexibility. Its cash reserves provide ample flexibility for Abel to make acquisitions, invest in more companies, or buy back more of the company's own shares.
Meanwhile, Berkshire's collection of operating businesses, including insurance, railroads, utilities, and manufacturing operations, gives investors exposure to several important parts of the economy without having to purchase individual stocks.
That's a compelling combination for long-term investors.
Is Berkshire Hathaway stock a buy now?
There's another reason I like Berkshire that has little to do with its October winning streak.
Historically, Berkshire has demonstrated an ability to hold up relatively well during difficult markets. In fact, Berkshire outperformed the S&P 500 in 11 of the 13 calendar years when the index posted a negative return.
That doesn't mean Berkshire is immune to market declines. But its diversified businesses, financial resources, and disciplined approach to investing can make it an attractive long-term holding.
And that's where the historical winning-streak data becomes less important.
Berkshire's 10 consecutive gains this month -- or in any year -- don't guarantee positive returns 12 months from now, particularly with the shares trading at a record high. Investors buying today also need to recognize that a strong business isn't automatically an attractive investment at any price.
But I remain bullish on Berkshire's long-term prospects under Abel. The company's financial strength, diverse operations, and renewed willingness to deploy capital provide several avenues to reward shareholders over time.
The October winning streak may have caught Wall Street's attention. For long-term investors, though, Berkshire's underlying business is a much better reason to own the stock.
Greg Abel očekává výrazné zlepšení v BNSF: každý procentní bod zvýšení provozní marže přidá Berkshire Hathaway zhruba 230 milionů USD provozního peněžního toku.
You likely know that Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +0.22%) (BRKB -0.15%) is ultimately a massive insurance operation that owns a combination of publicly traded stocks and privately owned enterprises (like Duracell, Clayton Homes, and flooring company Shaw). What's less obvious is just how much cash these wholly owned businesses generate every year. In 2025, Berkshire's private companies produced $44.5 billion in operating earnings.
Even more surprising is where a sizable chunk of it comes from. Although insurance is (usually) its single-biggest cash cow, Berkshire Hathaway's railroad BNSF -- you may know it better as Burlington Northern Santa Fe -- accounts for more than 10% of the conglomerate's total operating income.
And CEO Greg Abel expects that number to grow for the foreseeable future.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel. Image source: Getty Images.
It's clearly on Abel's mind, and for good reason How do we know Abel is eyeing something bigger and better for BNSF? In his first-ever letter to Berkshire shareholders published in February, Warren Buffett's replacement plainly stated about the railroad, "The team recognizes the significance of this opportunity, and we will be disappointed if we do not deliver a substantial improvement over the next few years." He even offered specific numbers, explaining, "Each one-percentage-point improvement in operating margin generates approximately $230 million of incremental operating cash flow for our owners."
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For perspective on that figure, BNSF's 2025 revenue was $23.5 billion. With a 34.5% operating margin, that amounts to about $8.1 billion in operational cash flow from this one business.
And there's opportunity ahead to be sure. While intermediate-term growth outlooks for the entire domestic rail industry are only in the mid-single digits, more efficiency, like that BNSF began achieving last year, will translate into a better bottom line. These efforts are already making a positive impact.
Data source: Berkshire Hathaway. Chart by author.
Rival railroads point to what's possible As for what's realistic here, obviously nobody owns a functioning crystal ball. We do, however, know that rival railroad Union Pacific (UNP +0.09%) is turning roughly 40% of its revenue into operating earnings right now, while CSX's (CSX +0.67%) operating margin rate is in the ballpark of 38%, pointing to what's possible. If BNSF can pump up its operating margins on its current revenue by just three percentage points to CSX's levels, that's roughly $700 million in additional annual pretax income.
And that's without any revenue growth whatsoever. If revenue can also grow at a 3% annual rate, BNSF's contribution to Berkshire Hathaway's bottom line could approximately double within five years, putting it in the ballpark of $10 billion per year. That's not chump change.
Readily addressable opportunity with immediate impact Of course, the conglomerate's other privately owned businesses, such as Berkshire Hathaway Energy and the recently acquired homebuilder Taylor Morrison, are also being managed to maximize profit growth.
Improving BNSF's fiscal performance, however, looks like the low-hanging fruit to pick right now, with the most immediate potential for near-term impact. Don't be surprised to see more of the narrative regarding Berkshire focusing on this particular business for the foreseeable future.
It's another reason to be bullish on this conglomerate at this time, even if it's not the primary one.
That didn't take long. Greg Abel has been CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +0.55%)(BRKB +0.55%) since January, and since then he's made several big moves. He bought homebuilder Taylor Morrison in July, although that fits right into the company's standard formula and will be merged with its existing homebuilding operations.
He also presided over a major purchase of Alphabet stock, although the position was initiated by Warren Buffett, who was still the company's chairman at the time.
His latest move, though, is a further push into tech. Berkshire first bought shares of holding company Bending Spoons (BSP -3.90%) in its initial public offering (IPO) in July, and the company just bought an additional $330 million in shares, bringing its total stake to 4% of the company.
Is this where Berkshire Hathaway is heading?
Why Bending Spoons isn't your typical tech stock
CEO Luca Ferrari describes Bending Spoons as "25% private equity, 75% tech company." It's a holding company of sorts, just like Berkshire Hathaway, and it seems to be gaining Abel's admiration.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel. Image source: Getty Images.
Instead of acquiring distressed companies and fixing them up before reselling them or taking them public, as many private equity firms do, Bending Spoons acquires great tech companies that need improvement, identifies how to address their problems, helps them perform better, and then keeps them. The Milan-based company's brand portfolio includes Vimeo, Evernote, and AOL, among others, and it recently acquired Airtable.
Similar to Berkshire's recent expansion of its Alphabet holdings, the Bending Spoons position is a private placement, and the company issued 10 million shares to Berkshire at $33 per share. The stock traded at $47 before the announcement, and it jumped to $53 on Oct. 14, when it was announced.
Bending Spoons is a fast-growing tech stock
Abel has said in the past that he's not going to reinvent Berkshire Hathaway. His recent trades are all in line with the company's historical model, and the Bending Spoons position isn't all that different. Although Abel didn't comment on the deal, Bending Spoons' methodology, aside from its tech focus, would appeal to Abel. Berkshire Hathaway loves brand-name companies, although it usually spends its money on companies that have proven their worth, rather than fallen out of favor with their fans.
BSP Bending Spoons S.p.A.$43.78-$1.78 (-3.90%)
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The company itself is growing fast. In the second quarter, revenue increased 126% to $311 million. However, growth was driven by new acquisitions, and it didn't disclose operating results for its individual brands. Operating income was up 139%, and operating margin improved from 32% to 34%.
Bending Spoons' model is supported by a large credit facility and high debt. It had $793 million in cash and equivalents at the end of the second quarter and $1.28 billion in available borrowing capacity, although it has since increased that. Its net debt was $4.09 billion, with a leverage ratio of 2.4. That's not the kind of cash-generating company Berkshire Hathaway usually invests in.
Is this a new direction for Berkshire Hathaway?
The market seemed happy with the news, and Berkshire Hathaway stock has been rising. Its performance year to date has been mediocre, up close to 6%, but it's up 3% over the past week alone.
Bending Spoons itself is based in Italy, but its companies are in the U.S., so it's still a bet on America. Buffett has said that "there remain only a handful of companies in this country capable of truly moving the needle at Berkshire, and they have been endlessly picked over by us and by others." Even under his leadership, the company made investments in Chinese, Japanese, and Latin American companies, and Abel sees opportunities outside the U.S. that could move the needle, too.
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Although Berkshire Hathaway seeks to invest in long-term opportunities, it's quick to sell when needed. Some of its recent positions that didn't last very long include Ulta Beauty, Nu Holdings, and Floor & Decor Holdings. Bending Spoons is a riskier company than Berkshire's usual fare, and if it doesn't live up to expectations or Abel feels it's time to move on, it could disappear quickly.
More important for Berkshire Hathaway investors is that Abel appears willing to look beyond the company's traditional industries to move the needle, which bodes well for its future growth.
Berkshire Hathaway od 17. září do 2. října nakoupila akcie Lennar za zhruba 596 milionů USD a zvýšila svůj podíl na přibližně 12 % v hodnotě 2,2 miliardy USD.
Warren Buffett is pouring hundreds of millions into America's largest homebuilder at the exact moment mortgage rates hit multi-year highs and cancellation rates set records. Here is why his conviction grows as nearly every analyst turns bearish.
Warren Buffett recognizes greater opportunity in the securities market vs. American real estate, and his portfolio reflects this conviction.
Market analyst Charlie Bilello highlighted Miami, Florida, on October 16 as the strongest buyer’s market in America, with home sellers outnumbering homebuyers by 159%. Incidentally, Miami is also where Lennar (NYSE:LEN | LEN Price Prediction), the nation’s largest homebuilder by volume, has its headquarters. That same homebuilder is where Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-B), the conglomerate Warren Buffett built, has been putting large amounts of money.
From September 17 to October 2, 2026, Berkshire reportedly scooped up Lennar shares worth roughly $596 million. That works out to about 7.4 million Class A shares bought over 11 trading days at prices between $74.80 and $81.96.
Following Berkshire’s Buying Trail
At the end of June, Berkshire held 13,111,741 Lennar shares worth about $1.19 billion. It kept buying silently until its stake reached 10% in mid-September, CNBC reported. Once a holder crosses 10%, SEC rules require it to report each trade within two business days.
Sept. 17 to Sept. 25: almost $349 million of shares, bought on six of seven trading days.
Sept. 28 to Sept. 30: $53.6 million of Class A shares plus $329,000 of super-voting B shares.
Oct. 1 to Oct. 2: about 2.42 million shares for roughly $193 million.
Berkshire now owns about 29 million Class A and Class B shares, a stake of roughly 12% worth about $2.2 billion. For investors who like borrowing Buffett’s homework, we sorted Berkshire’s dividend payers by valuation in a free report on the seven cheapest Buffett stocks you can grab right now.
Housing Data Keeps Getting Worse
Bilello also reported that over 14% of U.S. home purchases were canceled in September, the highest rate on record for that month. He illustrated that the 30-year mortgage rate is now at 7.4% against a median home price of $418,000, versus 3.4% and $235,000 a decade ago. Freddie Mac’s 30-year average just reached 7.40%, its highest since November 2023.
The 10-year Treasury yield stood at 5.10% on October 15 after peaking at 5.31% on October 5. Existing home sales ran at an annualized 3.99 million in September, close to August’s 12-month low of 3.93 million.
Lennar Is Giving Up Margin to Keep Homes Selling
In Lennar’s Q3 earnings release, revenue fell 8.52% to $8.05 billion. Adjusted EPS came in at $1.23, missing the $1.30 consensus. Home sales gross margin contracted to 15.8% from 17.5% even with incentives of about 12.0%, and new orders fell 9% to 20,879 homes. Management lowered full-year deliveries to 80,000–81,000.
CEO Stuart Miller said “the buyer at median family income is stretching well past 30% of gross income to carry a home,” and that in many markets “almost 50% of our visitors cannot immediately qualify.” He also named resale supply in Texas and Florida, Lennar’s two largest markets, as a source of “more competition than we’ve seen in a long time.”
Lennar’s balance sheet helps explain why Berkshire is willing to buy. The company owns roughly 2% of its homesites and controls 476,000 through third parties. Homebuilding debt equals 16.6% of total capital, and build cycle time fell to a record 116 days. Miller called the land-cost drag “finite” and “visible,” adding that “every quarter of volume shortens it.” Lennar is also buying back its own stock: it repurchased 3 million shares for $256 million at an average of $85.49. Shares are down 26% YTD and almost 40% over the past 12-month period.
Most Analysts Are Bearish on Lennar
Analyst coverage leans bearish, with eight sell or strong-sell ratings against two buy-side ratings. Morgan Stanley started coverage with an “underweight” rating and a $65 price target. The stock closed at $77.08 on October 16. That’s down 22.44% year to date and 35.11% over the past year.
Numbers That Will Test the Thesis
For Q4, Lennar guided to 19,500–20,500 new orders and a gross margin of 15.5%–16.0%. That outlook assumed mortgage rates near 6.8%, and rates are now higher. If orders land within that range, it would support Berkshire’s view that Lennar can keep homes moving through a long downturn. A margin below 15.5% would suggest a value trap, with high rates eating away profits faster than Lennar can work through land it bought at older, higher prices. The next earnings date will be posted on Lennar’s investor relations site.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Berkshire Hathaway ve 2. čtvrtletí nakoupila akcie za 23,5 miliardy USD a prodala akcie za 3,7 miliardy USD, čímž se po třech a půl letech stala čistým nákupcem akcií.
In general, I've always found it better to follow someone's actions than their words, and the same holds true with investing. Interestingly, this rule can now be applied to legendary investor Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +1.08%) (BRKB +1.21%).
In an early-May interview with CNBC, when asked whether stock prices were too high, Buffett responded, "Yeah." He said prices for a "lot of things will look very silly," and that he's never seen more people in a gambling mood than now.
Warren Buffett. Image source: Getty Images.
Fast forward five and a half months later, and the S&P 500 index (^GSPC -1.09%) is up 7% between May 1 (7,230.12) and Oct. 15 (7,744.06) since Buffett's interview. However, during that time, despite Buffett's call that the market was overvalued and risk levels were elevated, Berkshire has become more aggressive.
Berkshire and Buffett in a buying mood
In Q2, Berkshire became a net buyer of stocks for the first time in three and a half years. The insurance conglomerate bought roughly $23.5 billion in stocks while selling only around $3.7 billion. Prior to that, the company had been aggressively pairing down several of its top holdings, including Apple and Bank of America.
BRKB Berkshire Hathaway$532.02+$6.34 (+1.21%)
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At the same time, Berkshire bought back $4.5 billion worth of its own stock in the quarter. Prior to a modest $235 million share repurchase in Q1, it was the first time Berkshire had bought back any stock since 2024.
Berkshire has traditionally only bought back stock when it believes its assets are trading below their intrinsic value. In the past, it used price-to-book (P/B) ratios of 1.1x and 1.2x as guidelines for repurchasing shares, but it eliminated those thresholds in 2018. Berkshire stock currently has a P/B ratio over 1.5x, although it dipped below 1.4x in Q2 when it was buying shares.
Meanwhile, some of the stocks that Berkshire has been buying are also interesting. As of early October, over a quarter of the stocks in the S&P 500 were 40% or more off their highs. However, instead of hunting for bargains among these names, Berkshire has made investments in Alphabet (GOOGL -2.47%) (GOOG -2.32%) and the recent IPO Bending Spoons (BSP -15.60%). Under Buffett, Berkshire took a position in Alphabet toward the end of last year and then added to it significantly in a private placement this year to help fund the company's artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure investments. Alphabet is now Berkshire's third-largest holding, representing nearly 13% of its equity portfolio.
More recently, the company has taken a stake in Italian company Bending Spoons. Berkshire bought $600 million worth of shares at its IPO in July, and then made another $330 million investment this month during a private placement. Bending Spoons is a leveraged digital technology holding company that buys beaten-down tech companies and works to improve their businesses by cutting costs, improving their technology, and raising prices. The stock trades at a 29-times forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio based on 2027 estimates and will carry plenty of debt, so it is not exactly a screaming "bargain" in any traditional sense.
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Is now a good time to invest?
Whether you're looking to invest in Berkshire stock or the broader market with an S&P 500 exchange-traded fund (ETF), such as the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO -1.10%), you'll have some pretty heavy exposure to megacap tech. Apple and Alphabet make up nearly 35% of Berkshire's equity portfolio, while large-cap tech stocks account for about 40% of the S&P 500.
Although there is some fear of an AI bubble and some potential red flags (certain backward-looking valuation metrics like the CAPE ratio and funding concerns), there are also signs that the AI boom is still in the early innings (cumulative spending to GDP vs. past historical innovation booms). And valuations based on projected future earnings growth look low (the S&P 500 has one of its lowest PEG (price/earnings-to-growth) ratios ever).
Ultimately, it's nearly impossible to time the market, and time in the market is generally the better path to building wealth. As such, I'd continue to invest and dollar-cost average into stocks and ETFs, without letting valuation fears get in the way. In a way, that is what Berkshire has started to do this year.
Warren Buffett ve svých 96 letech předává předsednictví společnosti Berkshire Hathaway synovi Howardovi, zatímco Greg Abel zůstává jeho nástupcem ve funkci výkonného ředitele. Buffett uvedl, že budoucnost společnosti nikdy neviděl optimističtěji.
Last year, Warren Buffett, who built Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +1.08%) (BRKB +1.21%) into a $1.1 trillion behemoth, announced he was stepping down as CEO after 60-some years, remaining chairman of the board of directors. This year, he turned 96 and made another announcement -- he's remaining on the board as chairman emeritus, but handing the chairmanship to his son Howard.
Buffett has expressed no worries about the future of Berkshire Hathaway, which should encourage his fellow shareholders. Here's a look at why he's confident -- and whether you should be, too.
Former Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. Image source: Getty Images.
Why Buffett believes in Berkshire Hathaway
Why would Buffett have long-term confidence in a company he's no longer going to be leading? Well, I can think of a bunch of reasons:
He built the company to last, and has likened it to a masterpiece he has painted painstakingly over many years.
He sought resilience in how he built it, and in a 2014 letter to shareholders, he said: "I believe that the chance of permanent capital loss for patient Berkshire shareholders is as low as can be found among single-company investments. That's because our per-share intrinsic business value is almost certain to advance over time." And he added:
"I believe the chance of any event causing Berkshire to experience financial problems is essentially zero. We will always be prepared for the thousand-year flood; in fact, if it occurs we will be selling life jackets to the unprepared. Berkshire played an important role as a "first responder" during the 2008-2009 meltdown, and we have since more than doubled the strength of our balance sheet and our earnings potential. Your company is the Gibraltar of American business and will remain so."
Over many years, Berkshire has built a reputation as a wonderful and trustworthy home for great businesses looking to be sold. This should help it to acquire additional solid subsidiaries.
He has planned for succession at Berkshire superbly, in my opinion. When he announced his retirement from the CEO post, shareholders and others had many months to digest the news and prepare. And he had long told shareholders that the board of directors was prepared, should anything happen to him, with the name of his successor.
That successor turned out to be Greg Abel, a longtime Berkshire manager (of its energy operations) who has been making decisions for Berkshire for a long time.
Buffett has full faith in Abel, saying, in his farewell letter, "My expectations for him were sky high from the start, and he has exceeded them." He also said, about Berkshire, "I have never felt better about what comes next."
$532.02+$6.34 (+1.21%)
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Should you believe in Berkshire, too?
In my opinion, Berkshire is a great portfolio candidate for most long-term investors. It happens to be my largest holding -- because I have faith that it will be a steady one in times of turbulence.
Its shares seem reasonably valued or a bit overvalued at recent levels, with the forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 25.6 above the five-year average of 21.2. So perhaps add Berkshire to your watch list, waiting for a better price, or buy incrementally over time.
Selena Maranjian has positions in Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Berkshire Hathaway vybudovala podíl v Alphabetu v hodnotě 37,4 miliardy USD, který tvoří více než 10 % jejího akciového portfolia; jde o její třetí největší pozici.
If you've been a longtime fan and follower of Berkshire Hathaway's (BRKA +0.42%) (BRKB +0.36%) former chief stock-picker Warren Buffett, then you know he's steered clear of technology stocks, arguing they're too difficult to understand.
That is, until somewhat recently. Berkshire took on a small (now-exited) position in Amazon back in 2019, and of course, Apple has grown to become the conglomerate's single-biggest equity holding since first stepping into it back in 2016. It's not clear to what extent these were Buffett-directed trades, and to be fair, both companies are as much consumer-oriented as they are technology names, making their businesses at least somewhat easier to understand.
If there was any doubt that Warren Buffett has officially warmed up to tech stocks, though, it's been wiped away this year by Berkshire's entry into a sizable stake in Google parent Alphabet (GOOG -0.60%) (GOOGL -0.64%).
Big commitment
It wasn't clear to what extent Warren Buffett had a hand in the matter when Berkshire first scooped up 17.8 million A shares of Alphabet in Q3 of 2025. By then, the Oracle of Omaha had already announced his then-impending retirement as CEO at the end of that same year, and seemed more interested in cleaning up some loose ends rather than adding new stocks to the company's portfolio. Besides, it was only about a $5 billion stake at the time, suggesting perhaps that he'd merely allowed one of his lieutenants to take on a token position.
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That changed dramatically in the first quarter of this year, however, when Berkshire bought another 36.4 million A shares of Alphabet, and then 24.5 million in Q2. Paired with the 27.2 million C shares of Alphabet purchased this year, this $37.4 billion (combined) holding accounts for a little over 10% of Berkshire Hathaway's $358 billion stock portfolio, making it the conglomerate's third-biggest holding.
The kicker: This was largely Buffett's idea after all. Although he still consults with current CEO Greg Abel on such matters, in an interview with CNBC this July, Warren Buffett plainly explained: "I initiated it."
The sector itself isn't exactly the stumbling block
This still doesn't mean Berkshire is embracing all technology stocks. As Buffett said in the very same interview, "I would say that I don't like it as well as at least four or five other businesses that we own."
It also doesn't mean Buffett is still calling all the shots despite no longer being CEO or chairman of the board. He adds, "I am not doing anything that he [current CEO Greg Abel] doesn't approve of. He's not doing anything I don't approve of. We talk all the time, but he is the decider."
Image source: Getty Images.
Rather, it's a recognition that at least two major technology companies meet a very specific requirement Buffett looks for in all of Berkshire Hathaway's holdings -- that is, "businesses that are going to earn high returns on capital for an extended period of time."
And that's a simple criterion more investors might want to consider before buying any new stock, in or out of the technology sector. It certainly seems to be working for Berkshire, allowing the conglomerate to buy and hold names it arguably wouldn't have at one point in its history.
Berkshire Hathaway pod vedením Grega Abela zvýšila podíl ve společnosti Lennar na 10 % a dokončila akvizici společnosti Taylor Morrison Home za 6,8 miliardy USD.
Mortgage rates are rising, making it harder for people to afford a home. The housing market has been stalled for quite some time, as affordability issues existed even before mortgage rates began rising. This is a terrible backdrop for homebuilders like Lennar (LEN -0.54%). And yet, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +0.71%)(BRKB +0.80%), under new CEO Greg Abel, has been buying that stock, building its position to 10%, and it recently completed its $6.8 billion acquisition of Taylor Morrison Home. Is this a costly early misstep?
Greg Abel is doing things his way
Housing has long been a part of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway's business. The company has a deep knowledge of the sector, which tends to be cyclical. The company's housing exposure was originally built under former CEO Warren Buffett. So Greg Abel isn't exactly charting his own course with his investments in home builders.
Image source: Getty Images.
Greg Abel's big departure from Buffett is that he has explicitly stated that Taylor Morrison Home will eventually be integrated with other Berkshire Hathaway businesses to create a larger division. Buffett usually allowed companies under the Berkshire umbrella to operate independently. But there's a similarity between Buffett and Abel that's important when it comes to housing: Buffett often bought stocks and entire companies when they were unloved. The housing market is deeply unloved today, with Lennar stock down 40% from its 52-week high.
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If you were looking to buy housing companies on the cheap, now might be a good time since the rest of Wall Street appears to hate them. There are good reasons for that investor concern, but you often find the best values in an industry when it is facing hard times.
A housing mistake or an opportunistic, long-term investment
Right now, with mortgage rates rising and housing stocks falling, it is easy to see why investors would consider Abel's housing investments an early misstep. But that's a short-term view, while Berkshire Hathaway has long viewed investing as a long-term endeavor. That was Buffett's approach, and Abel's housing push suggests it is his approach, as well. Buy when others are fearful, as the old saying goes, and then hold for the long term.
Basically, it is too soon to tell if Abel has made a mistake. But before you pass judgment, you may want to ask yourself a simple question: Are people going to stop living in houses? The logical answer is no, which suggests that there will eventually be a housing recovery in what is a traditionally cyclical industry. And Berkshire Hathaway clearly plans to be there to benefit when the current downturn ends.
An ETF targeting 15% annual distributions paid monthly sounds like a dream for income investors who admire Buffett's stock picks but hate that Berkshire writes no dividend checks. Before you buy in, there is a structural trade-off worth understanding.
Warren Buffett’s longstanding preference has been to retain capital when Berkshire can put it to better use, whether that’s maintaining a fortress balance sheet, repurchasing shares opportunistically, buying publicly traded stocks, or acquiring entire businesses outright. That means no dividends.
I’ve always liked that approach. If I owned Berkshire Hathaway and needed income, I’d rather sell shares periodically and manufacture my own dividend. Another possibility for someone holding at least 100 Class B shares is selling covered calls, although that introduces its own trade-off by capping some upside if the stock rallies through the strike price.
But what if you want exposure to Berkshire’s stock-picking philosophy while receiving a large monthly distribution without managing an options strategy yourself? One unusual solution is the VistaShares Target 15 Berkshire Select Income ETF (OMAH).
It owns a portfolio heavily influenced by Berkshire’s publicly disclosed equity holdings and layers an options strategy on top, targeting a 15% annual distribution paid monthly. That’s a lot of income. It’s also important to understand what OMAH has to do to generate it.
What’s Inside OMAH? OMAH has grown to roughly $1 billion in assets under management and charges a 0.95% expense ratio. Its portfolio draws heavily from Berkshire’s publicly disclosed equity investments, while also holding Berkshire itself. Here are its largest positions:
Holding Ticker Weight Apple Inc. AAPL 10.59% Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRK.B 10.21% American Express Co. AXP 6.47% Coca-Cola Co. KO 4.86% VeriSign Inc. VRSN 4.77% Chevron Corp. CVX 4.74% Kroger Co. KR 4.70% DaVita Inc. DVA 4.70% Occidental Petroleum Corp. OXY 4.63% Alphabet Inc. GOOGL 4.58% This gives investors something different from owning Berkshire directly. Berkshire is much more than its 13F portfolio. Its value also comes from wholly owned operating businesses, insurance operations and float, its enormous liquidity position, and management’s ability to allocate capital among all of those opportunities.
OMAH instead provides a way to isolate much of Berkshire’s publicly traded stock portfolio and turn it into an income strategy. The fund targets an annual distribution equal to 15% of NAV, which works out to approximately 1.25% each month. Its latest distribution was $0.2245 per share against a $17.66 NAV.
But investors shouldn’t confuse a 15% distribution target with a 15% investment return. As of the fund’s most recent distribution, 37.50% was estimated to be return of capital (ROC). That figure comes from the fund’s Section 19a-1 notice and remains an estimate. Investors won’t know the final tax characterization until they receive Form 1099-DIV after year-end.
ROC also isn’t automatically a bad thing. Depending on its final tax characterization, it can defer taxes by reducing an investor’s cost basis rather than immediately being treated as ordinary income. What matters is whether the portfolio generates enough total return over time to support its distributions without persistently eroding NAV.
The Catch Behind a 15% Target There are several reasons I’d hesitate before treating OMAH’s 15% distribution as something I could simply collect indefinitely. The first is concentration. Financial stocks account for roughly 38% of the portfolio, while Apple and Berkshire alone represent more than 20%. That’s considerably different from owning a broadly diversified U.S. equity ETF.
The second is the size of the distribution target itself. A 15% annual payout is way above the S&P 500’s long-term annualized total return of around 10%. OMAH isn’t promising to earn 15% annually, but maintaining a distribution that high requires the portfolio’s dividends, option premiums, realized gains and potentially ROC to collectively support substantial cash payments.
That could become difficult during a prolonged bear market. Lower volatility could also reduce the premiums available from selling options, while a powerful bull market can create the opposite problem: covered-call strategies may surrender some appreciation when their options move against them.
Still, I’ll give OMAH credit for what it has accomplished so far. From March 5, 2025 through Oct. 6, 2026, a roughly 1.59-year period, OMAH produced a 12.51% cumulative total return with distributions reinvested. Berkshire Class B shares returned just 0.89% over the same period.
That’s a very short track record, so I wouldn’t extrapolate it indefinitely. But OMAH has at least demonstrated that a high distribution hasn’t prevented it from generating positive total returns so far. And if your objective is specifically to isolate Berkshire’s publicly disclosed equity holdings while receiving substantial monthly income, there really isn’t another ETF doing quite the same thing.
Therefore, I don’t think OMAH is a bad ETF as far as covered-call products go. I’d simply prefer a slightly less ambitious version of it. A target distribution closer to 12% could potentially retain more capital inside the portfolio, while an expense ratio around 0.75% would reduce the hurdle the strategy needs to overcome.
Until then, I’d view OMAH as a specialized income product rather than a substitute for Berkshire Hathaway itself. Berkshire lets management decide where capital should go next. OMAH takes a selection of those public-equity ideas and deliberately converts more of their potential return into cash today.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +0.92%)(BRKB +0.95%) has a share price few investors can afford. Its Class A stock costs around $759,000 as I write, about 6% under its 52-week high of about $806,000.
The leader who kept it that way has stepped back, too. Greg Abel became CEO on Jan. 1. Later, on Sept. 18, Berkshire made Warren Buffett chairman emeritus and elected his son, Howard Buffett, board chairman.
With Buffett no longer running the business or chairing its board, could the A shares finally be split? As far as I can find, neither Abel nor the board has said anything publicly about it. And I don't think the leadership change matters here as much as it might seem.
Image source: Image source: The Motley Fool.
Buffett's objectionBuffett explained his thinking in his annual letter for 1983, when one Berkshire share was around $1,300. He worried that a lower price would draw owners less focused on the company's intrinsic value.
"Were we to split the stock or take other actions focusing on stock price rather than business value, we would attract an entering class of buyers inferior to the exiting class of sellers," he wrote.
Instead of a split, Buffett proposed a second class of stock in early 1996, with each A share convertible into 30 Class B shares.
He aimed the B shares at high-fee unit trusts pitching themselves as low-priced "clones" of Berkshire. But he also pointed out that shareholders wanting a split had "gained a do-it-yourself method of bringing one about."
The 2010 split was about a railroadBerkshire did split its stock in 2010 -- but not the A shares.
Its board approved a 50-for-1 split of the Class B stock on Nov. 3, 2009, the same day Berkshire announced a deal to buy the rest of railroad BNSF. Splitting the B shares let even the smallest BNSF owners swap into Berkshire stock in a tax-free exchange.
Shareholders approved the split on Jan. 20, 2010. The A shares were left alone, and each became convertible into 1,500 B shares rather than 30.
The lower B share price also helped Berkshire enter the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.47%), where it replaced BNSF once the deal closed in February 2010. Index funds tracking the S&P 500 had to buy the B shares.
In short, the B split served the deal and left Buffett's argument about the A shares intact.
A split wouldn't change Berkshire's valuation. It just slices the same company into more pieces. Berkshire's market cap would still be around $1.09 trillion, and its price-to-earnings ratio wouldn't move.
The company already reports its profits both ways. Second-quarter net income was $17,868 per average equivalent A share and $11.91 per B share. Both more than doubled from a year ago, mainly because of swings in Berkshire's investments.
Access wouldn't change much, either. Divide the A share's price by 1,500 and you get around $506 -- almost identical to the B shares' price of about $507 as I write.
I'd say the bigger difference between the two classes is voting power. Every B share has 1/1,500 of an A share's economic rights but just 1/10,000 of its vote. As of June 30, Berkshire had 501,101 A shares and almost 1.4 billion B shares outstanding. By my math, that leaves the A shares with around 35% of the company's economic interest but about 78% of its votes.
That matters because, if the 2010 split is any guide, a Class A split would probably need a shareholder vote, too. And Buffett owned 188,290 A shares as of mid-July, around 38% of the class and about 30% of the company's total voting power. Of course, he no longer runs the company. But his vote would still count more than anyone else's.
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Meanwhile, the do-it-yourself split Buffett described keeps going on its own. In the first half of 2026, owners converted 14,223 A shares to around 21.3 million B shares. Including buybacks, the A share count dropped almost 3% over that stretch, to 501,101 from 515,835.
So, is a Class A split finally coming? I doubt it, at least not soon. Sure, a new CEO and a new chairman could see it differently someday. But nothing Berkshire has said since the leadership change points to one.
For investors who just want to own a piece of Berkshire, a split wouldn't add much anyway. The B shares already do the job, at around $507 each.
Berkshire keeps buying Lennar shares even as the stock sinks below what it paid, a short seller questions the company's reported deliveries, and Greg Abel himself admits he sees no quick recovery in housing. That raises a question worth answering.
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Over two days last week, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-B | BRK-B Price Prediction) bought about 2.4 million more Class A shares of Lennar (NYSE:LEN), paying between $78.37 and $81.90 in a roughly $193 million purchase.
By Monday’s close, Lennar had fallen to $74.44 after a 6.73% one-day drop. The stock now trades below the range Berkshire paid and below its $75.70 52-week low.
Berkshire has permanent capital, and it is adding to a stock that keeps falling. It is doing so deliberately, because its chief executive, Greg Abel, said in early September that he does not see a quick recovery in housing.
Wall Street is unconvinced too. The consensus target sits only modestly above the price. The ratings lean toward hold and sell, and a short seller has just questioned the quality of Lennar’s reported deliveries. That raises a fair question: why does a long-horizon buyer keep buying a stock analysts will not defend?
What Berkshire’s Form 4 Filing Shows Berkshire also bought about 15,000 Class B shares. Afterward, Berkshire held 28,438,045 Class A shares and 568,028 Class B shares, a stake of more than 11%.
That size is why you can see these trades at all. An investor owning more than 10% of a company’s registered stock becomes an insider for reporting purposes and must file a Form 4 within two business days. Berkshire’s buying now reaches the market almost in real time, and recent reporting noted its pace of purchases has slowed.
A Bearish Initiation and a Short Report in One Week The first setback came when Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) initiated coverage at Underweight with a $65 target, well below the current price. The second came from Hunterbrook, which is short both Lennar and Millrose Properties (NYSE:MRP). Hunterbrook says that Millrose, the land company Lennar spun off in 2025, bought more than 700 finished Lennar homes worth about $200 million, including at least 356 in the final week of the quarter.
Builders are judged on deliveries against guidance. A related party buying homes at quarter end raises the question of whether reported deliveries reflect real end buyers or an internal transfer.
These remain allegations from a firm that profits if both stocks fall, and Lennar has not responded as of this writing, so the conflict calls for independent confirmation even if the claims prove accurate.
A $79 Target Offers Almost No Cushion The consensus target of $79 implies upside of just 6.86%. Lennar is down 26.45% this year while the S&P 500 gained 13.62%.
The ratings show one Strong Buy and one Buy against nine Holds, three Sells and five Strong Sells. That mix leans heavily toward Hold and Sell ratings.
Analysts point to recent results. Adjusted EPS of $1.23 missed the $1.30 consensus, home sales gross margin slipped to 15.8% from 17.5%, and full-year delivery guidance was cut to 80,000 to 81,000 homes.
They are modeling today’s rates, which CEO Stuart Miller put at approximately 7%. Berkshire is underwriting the next cycle instead, which likely explains why it keeps buying.
Berkshire Is Paying for Land, Scale and Survival Abel added that housing is an industry Berkshire is “invested in for the long term.” Lennar owns roughly 2% of its homesites and controls the rest through third parties.
Miller said Lennar is “compromising margin in order to maintain volume,” using incentives of 12%. High rates hurt smaller builders most because they lack the scale to fund that spending.
Berkshire’s $6.8 billion acquisition of Taylor Morrison already made it the fourth-largest U.S. homebuilder. If rates stay high for years, this thesis works for permanent capital but fails for anyone needing a return inside a normal holding period.
What Long-Term Lennar Holders Need to Know Now Lennar’s setup likely rewards only holders whose horizon spans a full housing cycle, while management, its largest outside shareholder, and most analysts all expect a slow recovery, and the short report remains unanswered. Miller said the land drag “will not finish quickly,” and fourth-quarter gross margin guidance of 15.5% to 16.0% shows no turn yet.
Berkshire itself offers another path to this exposure. Its shareholders get Lennar and Taylor Morrison exposure, buffered by insurance, rail, and utility earnings, without needing housing to recover on your schedule.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Greg Abel inherited one of the most cash-rich companies on earth, yet Berkshire Hathaway sits flat while the S&P 500 surges ahead. Something has to give, and the window for Abel to prove himself is closing fast.
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Maybe it is because Warren Buffett stepped down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B | BRK-B Price Prediction) at the end of last year. Maybe his replacement, Greg Abel, is not up to the job. (Buffett stepped down as Chairman recently, but that is too recent to affect Berkshire Hathaway’s stock, which is flat this year, while the S&P 500 is 13% higher. Every day, the distance between those two numbers stays about the same or worsens. And the end of the year, a natural time to judge management, is not that far away.) Many people thought that another senior executive, Ajit Jain, should have gotten the job.
What happened? Berkshire has nearly $360 billion in cash on its balance sheet. But Buffett had nearly as much and did little with it. Observers argue that Berkshire’s investment in companies like Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) is an AI proxy, and its energy investments are sort of an investment in AI data centers. Both of those observations are a stretch.
Berkshire’s stock won’t move unless Abel does something big. Shuffling around holdings in public companies won’t do it. Berkshire is too big for any single large or increased holding to shock the market into buying Berkshire stock.
Berkshire has always favored steady earnings and powerful brands. Costco (NASDAQ: COST) has a market cap of $408 billion. Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) has a market cap of $375 billion. Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) has a market cap of $288 billion. Abel could buy them without taking on too much debt.
Abel, take some risk. Get that Berkshire stock up.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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Berkshire Hathaway téměř zdvojnásobila podíl v Lennar a nyní drží 10,9 % firmy po nákupu akcií za 348 milionů USD během jednoho zářijového týdne. Podíl má hodnotu asi 2,1 miliardy USD.
Buy Lennar (LEN). Berkshire just added ~$348M in one week and now owns ~10.9%, signaling conviction that the housing cycle will turn and that LEN’s discount to book value plus scale will re-rate when mortgage rates ease. Berkshire’s end-to-end housing ecosystem (including Clayton Homes) also supports a longer runway for homebuilding demand. Key setup: deep drawdown (down ~20% YTD, ~50% from peak) + Berkshire’s willingness to buy through weak revenue and sentiment.
Key Risk: Mortgage rates stay high longer than expected, keeping affordability crushed and delaying the housing rebound.
Buy DHI
Buy D.R. Horton (DHI). If Berkshire is right that structural housing shortages and eventual rate normalization lift builders, the benefit should spread to the next-largest, best-capitalized builder with similar cycle exposure. DHI tends to capture share when demand returns and financing costs stabilize, and it’s a cleaner “cycle beta” play than smaller builders.
Key Risk: A prolonged downturn forces builders into margin compression and land write-downs, hurting earnings even if rates eventually stabilize.
Berkshire Hathaway has aggressive plans for the US housing market.
By late September 2026, the conglomerate virtually doubled its position in Lennar, accumulating 25.9 million combined shares.
Valued at roughly $2.1 billion, this stake grants Berkshire a massive 10.9% ownership footprint in the nation’s second-largest homebuilder.
Because crossing the 10% threshold required fast-tracked SEC disclosures, recent filings showed Berkshire loading up on $348 million worth of LEN stock in a single September week despite poor sentiment, falling revenue, and challenging 7% mortgage rates.
Berkshire’s buying spree highlights an opportunistic move into deeply discounted cyclicals, widely regarded by Wall Street as a classic value play.
Handled likely by portfolio manager Ted Weschler, the purchase aligns with the broader corporate strategy spearheaded by CEO Greg Abel.
Abel oversaw a landmark $6.8 billion cash acquisition of Taylor Morrison Home in June 2026 to combine its site-built homebuilding assets with manufactured home maker Clayton Homes
Alongside industrial subsidiaries like Johns Manville, Acme Brick, Benjamin Moore, and Shaw Industries, Berkshire is fortifying an end-to-end housing ecosystem.
Management envisions five to ten years ahead – believing that persistent structural demand for US homeownership will outlast high mortgage rates and temporary affordability hurdles.
Lennar stock offers an exceptionally compelling balance sheet for patient, long-term capital.
Trading down 20% year-to-date and off nearly 50% from its peak, it presents an attractive bargain, below its book value.
While recent quarterly earnings missed expectations and revenue contracted 8%, Lennar maintains scale, operational efficiency, and market share that position it to capture outsized gains when macro conditions ease.
While experts believe Berkshire would ideally prefer an outright takeover for around $25 billion, Chairman Stuart Miller’s 70% control over Class B shares blocks a hostile buyout – leaving open market share accumulation as the premier strategy to ride the firm’s cyclical rebound.
While Wall Street focuses more on current quarter earnings misses and elevated borrowing costs, Berkshire continues leveraging its huge cash balance to buy “best-in-class” real estate assets at a notable discount.
The aggressive expansion into Lennar demonstrates complete confidence that systemic structural housing shortages across the US will ultimately prevail over short-term macroeconomic pressures.
As mortgage rates inevitably stabilize and buyer demand normalizes, Berkshire Hathaway’s multi-billion dollar stake in national builders will serve as a powerful profit driver for decades to come.
Investors should note, however, that Wall Street analysts are not at all constructive on LEN stock for the near- to medium-term.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the consensus rating on Lennar sits at Underweight currently – with the mean price target of nearly $77 indicating the company is overvalued at present levels.
Berkshire Hathaway ve 2. čtvrtletí po zhruba třech letech přešla z čistého prodeje na čistý nákup akcií a nakoupila cenné papíry za 23,5 miliardy USD, zatímco prodala za 3,7 miliardy USD. Čistě investovala téměř 20 miliard USD.
Warren Buffett's retirement from the position of CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA -0.09%)(BRKB +0.06%) was well telegraphed. The company had been preparing for Greg Abel to assume the CEO role for years. That included Buffett building up the company's cash position, leaving Abel with a buffer against adversity and ample firepower if he wanted to make any big moves.
In truth, Abel hasn't yet made any major moves, but there was a subtle shift in the second quarter worth noting: Berkshire Hathaway went from a net seller of stocks to a net buyer. Here's what it could mean.
Image source: Getty Images.
Getting Berkshire Hathaway's house in order for Greg Abel To state the obvious, Greg Abel is not Warren Buffett. While Buffett helped train Abel, Abel will still run Berkshire Hathaway differently from Buffett. For example, Abel is expected to be a more hands-on manager, which has already shown up with Abel's purchase of Taylor Morrison Home for $5.8 billion. Buffett historically bought businesses and allowed them to operate independently. Abel clearly stated that Taylor Morrison Home would be a key part of Berkshire Hathaway integrating its current homebuilding operations into a single division.
When it comes to Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio of publicly traded stocks, there was also a subtle shift in the second quarter. After roughly three years of net sales, Berkshire Hathaway bought $23.5 billion worth of equity securities but only sold sold $3.7 billion. So it made nearly $20 billion in investments in the quarter.
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As usual with Berkshire Hathaway, there's likely an opportunistic element here. The company made a large purchase of Alphabet (GOOG +0.61%) stock during the tech giant's secondary offering, as that company looked to fund its artificial intelligence spending. Google accounted for roughly $17 billion of the company's stock purchases. That said, the shift from net seller to net buyer could also signal something bigger: Berkshire Hathaway's stock portfolio may be roughly where Greg Abel wants it.
The third quarter will be the big tell for Greg Abel One quarter is not a trend, so investors shouldn't read too much into this shift. However, it does set up an interesting dynamic for the third quarter. If there are only modest sales, or even net purchases, it could indicate that Greg Abel is satisfied with Berkshire Hathaway's stock holdings. Which means he will have put his imprint on the business, notably just as Warren Buffett announced he was stepping away from the role of Chairman of the Board. It increasingly looks like Berkshire Hathaway's future is Greg Abel's story to write.
Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Berkshire Hathaway dostává z dividend Coca-Coly 212 milionů USD za čtvrtletí, tedy 848 milionů USD ročně, díky 400 milionům držených akcií. Coca-Cola letos zvýšila dividendu a vyplácí ji už 64 let v řadě.
Legendary investor Warren Buffett stepped down as CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK)(NYSE:BRK) within the last 12 months. Before leaving those roles, he helped establish an investment portfolio of stocks, including some that will benefit the conglomerate for years to come.
Buffett began buying shares of Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) for Berkshire Hathaway back in 1988. Today, the position is one of the largest held by the conglomerate, representing around 9.3% of the investments at the end of the second quarter.
Along with benefiting from a rising stock price, with Coca-Cola shares hitting new all-time highs this year, Berkshire Hathaway benefits from quarterly dividend payments from the beverage giant.
Coca-Cola currently pays a quarterly dividend of 53 cents per share. Berkshire Hathaway owns 400 million shares.
This means Berkshire Hathaway gets $212 million from Coca-Cola each quarter, whether the stock price goes up or down. This translates to $848 million annually in dividend income from just this one stock.
Read Next
What’s NextThe payouts keep rising, with Coca-Cola raising its dividend annually for the last 64 consecutive years.
The beverage giant raised the dividend payment from 51 cents per share to 53 cents per share in February of this year. This means another increase could happen between now and next February, likely one to two more cents per share.
In the future, Berkshire Hathaway could collect more than $1 billion annually from Coca-Cola dividends. Each one-cent raise is worth $40 million more in quarterly payments and $160 million annually, based on the 400 million shares held.
While Buffett no longer leads Berkshire Hathaway, his successor, Greg Abel, named Coca-Cola stock one of the company’s core holdings early in his time as CEO.
Read Next
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Pět klíčových akcií Berkshire Hathaway každý rok zvyšuje dividendu. Patří mezi ně American Express, Bank of America, Chevron, Coca-Cola a Occidental Petroleum.
Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway into a dividend-collecting machine even though the company refuses to pay one itself, and five of his biggest holdings are quietly handing shareholders more cash every single year.
If any investor has stood the test of time, it’s Warren Buffett, and with good reason. For 60 years, the “Oracle of Omaha” has had a rock-star presence in the investing world, and his annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings have drawn thousands of loyal investors. They were stunned at last year’s meeting when Buffett announced he would step down as CEO of the investment giant at year’s end. While he remains board chair and vows to come to the office every day, he still has a voice in day-to-day operations. His pre-announced successor and long-time lieutenant, Greg Abel, has assumed the CEO position and is likely directing or having a say in most, if not all, new investments, public or private.
One major difference between Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-B | BRK-B Price Prediction) and many similar large funds is that, despite years of calls from Wall Street and shareholders, the fund does not pay a dividend. We found that Berkshire Hathaway does not pay dividends because its leadership believes that retaining earnings creates superior long-term value for shareholders. Buffett and Abel maintain that the company can compound capital more effectively by reinvesting profits in acquisitions, its operating businesses, and strategic share repurchases. In addition, investors shouldn’t expect it to start paying one anytime soon, despite a record cash balance.
One thing is for sure: Buffett and Abel love stocks that pay dividends. In fact, the 2025 Berkshire Hathaway annual report showed the company earned a stunning $5.086 billion in dividend income. A large portion comes from five top holdings that not only pay dependable, and in some cases, outsized dividends, but also have been raising them year in and year out.
Why Do We Cover Berkshire Hathaway Stocks?
Few investors have the results and reputation that Buffett has garnered over the past 60 years. Though he has stepped away from the CEO chair, his impact and investment guidelines are likely to remain in place long after he is gone. While investing has evolved since Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, and now that Abel is in charge and vowing to stay the course, buying good companies with products and services recognized worldwide and paying dividends will remain a timeless approach and never go out of style. Here are the five portfolio stocks that have raised their dividends over the past year. All are rated Buy at top Wall Street firms.
American Express American Express (NYSE:AXP) is a bank holding company and multinational financial services corporation specializing in payment cards. The globally integrated payments company operates card-issuing, merchant-acquiring, and card-network businesses, and pays a 0.98% dividend. The company raised its quarterly dividend from $0.82 to $0.95 between January and April 2026.
The company offers products and services to customers worldwide, including consumers, small businesses, mid-sized companies, and large corporations. Its segments include:
U.S. Consumer Services, which offers travel and lifestyle services, as well as banking and non-card financing products. Commercial Services offers payment, expense management, banking, and non-card financing products. International Card Services provides services to international customers, including travel and lifestyle services, and manages certain international joint ventures and its loyalty coalition business. Global Merchant and Network Services operates a payments network that processes and settles card transactions, acquires merchants, and provides multichannel marketing programs, capabilities, services, and data analytics. Berkshire Hathaway owns 151,610,700 shares, 22.2% of American Express’s float, and 14.8% of the portfolio.
J.P. Morgan has an Overweight rating with a $400 target price.
Bank of America While Warren Buffett has trimmed his position over the past two years and sold a whopping 50 million shares in the fourth quarter of 2025, this quality financial giant remains an exceptional long-term holding with a solid 1.83% dividend yield. The dividend was raised from $0.26 to $0.28, then to $0.32 per quarter, with two increases over the past 12 months. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) is a bank holding company that reported impressive Q2 results. Berkshire Hathaway owns 513,624,165 shares, which is 9.1% of the portfolio and 7.3% of the float.
Its segments include:
Consumer Banking offers a range of credit, banking, and investment products and services to consumers and small businesses. Global Wealth & Investment Management (GWIM) comprises two businesses: Merrill Wealth Management, which offers tailored solutions to meet clients’ needs through a comprehensive suite of investment management, brokerage, banking, and retirement products. Bank of America Private Bank provides comprehensive wealth management solutions. Global Banking offers a range of lending-related products and services, including integrated working capital management and treasury solutions, as well as underwriting and advisory services. Global Markets offers sales and trading services, as well as research services, to institutional clients across fixed income, credit, currency, commodity, and equity markets. The Jefferies target price for the shares is $75.
Chevron This American multinational energy company primarily focuses on oil and gas. Chevron (NYSE:CVX) is a safer option for investors looking to position themselves in the energy sector. It pays a substantial 3.58% dividend, which was raised by 5% earlier this year, and has a 39-year streak of dividend increases. The company operates integrated energy and chemicals businesses worldwide. Berkshire Hathaway holds 84,375,856 shares, representing 4.2% of the float and 4.7% of the portfolio.
The company operates in two segments. The Upstream segment is involved in:
Exploration, development, production, and transportation of crude oil and natural gas Processing, liquefaction, transportation, and regasification associated with liquefied natural gas Transportation of crude oil through pipelines, and transportation and storage Marketing of natural gas, as well as operating a gas-to-liquids plant The Downstream segment engages in:
Refining crude oil into petroleum products Marketing crude oil, refined products, and lubricants Manufacturing and marketing renewable fuels Transporting crude oil and refined products by pipeline, marine vessel, motor equipment, and rail car Manufacturing and marketing of commodity petrochemicals, plastics for industrial uses, and fuel and lubricant additives It also involves cash management, debt financing, insurance operations, real estate, and technology businesses.
Mizuho has a Buy rating with a $230 target price.
Coca-Cola Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1892. This company remains one of Buffett’s longest-held positions. Berkshire owns a massive 400 million shares, which is 9.3% of the float and 9.3% of the portfolio. The stock pays a dependable 2.51% dividend, which was raised to $0.53 per share in May 2026, marking the 64th straight year of dividend increases.
Coca-Cola is the world’s largest beverage company, offering consumers more than 500 sparkling and still brands. Led by Coca-Cola, one of the world’s most valuable and recognizable brands, the portfolio features 20 billion-dollar brands, including:
Diet Coke Coca-Cola Light Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Caffeine-free Diet Coke Cherry Coke Fanta Orange Fanta Zero Orange Fanta Zero Sugar Fanta Apple Sprite Sprite Zero Sugar Simply Orange Simply Apple Simply Grapefruit Fresca Schweppes Dasani Fuze Tea Glacéau Smartwater Glacéau Vitaminwater Gold Peak Ice Dew Powerade Topo Chico Minute Maid Globally, it is the top provider of sparkling beverages, ready-to-drink coffees, juices, and juice drinks. Through the world’s most extensive beverage distribution system, consumers in more than 200 countries enjoy the company’s beverages at a rate of over 1.9 billion servings per day. The company also owns 19.5% of Monster Beverage (NASDAQ:MNST), which continues to deliver strong financial results.
UBS has a Buy rating and a target price of $98.
Occidental Petroleum After years of building this position, Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway are finally in the money on this company, which pays a 1.70% dividend. Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) is an international energy company with assets primarily in the United States, the Middle East, and North Africa. The company is an oil and gas producer in the United States, including the Permian and D.J. basins and offshore Gulf of America. Occidental’s most recent dividend increase was on February 19, 2026. The board raised the quarterly dividend by more than 5%, from $0.24 to $0.26 per share (bumping the annualized rate from $0.96 to $1.04).
Berkshire Hathaway has a large position in the company, owning 264,941,431 shares, representing 26.6% of the float and 4.3% of the portfolio.
Occidental’s oil and gas segment explores for, develops, and produces oil (including condensate), natural gas liquids (NGLs), and natural gas. The midstream and marketing segment purchases, markets, gathers, processes, transports, and stores oil (including condensate), NGLs, natural gas, carbon dioxide (CO2), and power. This segment provides flow assurance, maximizes the value of its oil and gas, and optimizes the company’s transportation and storage capacity. It also invests in entities that conduct similar activities, including low-carbon venture businesses.
A notable recent development was Occidental’s decision to sell its OxyChem subsidiary to Berkshire Hathaway, with the bulk of the proceeds expected to strengthen the company’s balance sheet and further concentrate its business on oil and gas. The move was notable because Buffett had reportedly long been interested in OxyChem, and Berkshire now owns the business outright. Berkshire Hathaway completed its purchase of OxyChem from Occidental on January 2, 2026, giving Berkshire full ownership of the chemicals business while providing Occidental with $9.7 billion in cash to reduce debt and sharpen its focus on energy.
Mizuho has an Overweight rating and a $75 price objective.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N) said on Friday that Warren Buffett, its former CEO and the world's most revered investor, has been named chairman emeritus, effective immediately.
"Father Time always wins. He has, however, been generous with me," Buffett, 96, wrote in a letter to shareholders.
The conglomerate named his son, Howard Buffett, a Berkshire director since 1993, as chairman.
"As Chairman Emeritus, Mr. Buffett will remain a member of the Board of Directors and will continue to offer his valued judgment and perspective," Berkshire said in a statement.
Buffett transformed the company from a struggling textile business into an investment giant worth more than $1 trillion.
Known for his long-term strategy and focus on buying high-quality businesses at reasonable prices, Buffett delivered steady gains that outpaced broader markets, making him a trusted steward of capital.
Earlier this year, he stepped down as CEO of Berkshire, handing the reins to his longtime lieutenant Greg Abel.
"The culture Warren built and the values he championed will remain at the heart of Berkshire, and Howard will be their guardian," Abel said in a statement.
Greg Abel po Buffettově odchodu dál prodává akcie Bank of America; Berkshire od 30. června 2024 snížila podíl o téměř 549,5 milionu akcií, tedy o 53 %.
It's the dawn of a new era for one of Wall Street's trillion-dollar businesses. With Warren Buffett retiring as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +0.27%)(BRKB +0.35%) on Dec. 31, his longtime understudy, Greg Abel, is now overseeing the company's day-to-day operations and its closely watched $364 billion investment portfolio.
Even though Abel wasted little time imprinting his mark on Berkshire's portfolio -- he exited 16 positions in the first quarter -- he and the Oracle of Omaha have a similar investment approach. Most importantly, Abel and Buffett are unwavering in their pursuit of value. This is what makes it increasingly likely that one of Berkshire's largest holdings, Bank of America (BAC +0.08%), is sent packing.
Warren Buffett retired as Berkshire's CEO on Dec. 31. Image source: The Motley Fool.
Warren Buffett's investment in BofA has been exceptionally profitableIn Buffett's more than half a century at the helm, he made a habit of pouncing during periods of panic. In the years after the financial crisis, Buffett helped fortify Bank of America's balance sheet. In return, Berkshire Hathaway received $5 billion in BofA preferred stock, yielding 6% annually, in August 2011.
But $300 million in annual dividend income wasn't the prize of this arrangement. Berkshire also received warrants to purchase up to 700 million shares of Bank of America stock at $7.14 per share, which were eventually exercised in the summer of 2017. Buffett's timely investment has made his company a pretty penny.
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The beauty of financial stocks like BofA is that they benefit in lockstep with the economy. Even though recessions are inevitable, periods of economic growth last considerably longer than downturns.
Bank of America is also the most interest-sensitive of America's large banks. When the Federal Reserve was aggressively hiking interest rates from March 2022 to July 2023, arguably no money-center bank benefited more than BofA.
Image source: Getty Images.
Bank of America is likely getting the boot from Berkshire's portfolioBut over the last eight quarters, Berkshire's bosses have been relentless sellers of Bank of America. Since June 30, 2024, Buffett and Abel have sold nearly 549.5 million shares of BofA, equating to 53% of Berkshire's stake.
Bank of America's valuation is probably the No. 1 catalyst behind this selling activity. When the Oracle of Omaha purchased BofA's preferred stock, the company's common stock was trading at a 62% discount to its book value. As of the closing bell on Sept. 11, BofA's shares were trading at a 59% premium to book value. Historically, bank stocks have performed poorly as they've approached a 100% premium to book value.
BAC Price to Book Value data by YCharts
Furthermore, Bank of America's interest-rate sensitivity worked against the company when the Fed cut interest rates six times between September 2024 and December 2025. Although BofA's interest income is still well above where it was five years ago, the central bank's rate-easing cycle disproportionately hurt it, relative to other money-center banks.
Lastly, we've seen no indication from Berkshire's current or former bosses that Bank of America is viewed as a core holding. In 2024, Buffett outlined eight stocks he thought of as "indefinite" holdings in his annual letter to shareholders. This included Coca-Cola (KO -0.12%), American Express (AXP -1.02%), Occidental Petroleum (OXY +2.82%), and the five Japanese trading houses.
Meanwhile, Abel's first annual letter to shareholders included Apple (AAPL -0.52%) and Moody's (MCO -2.25%) as holdings that can "compound over decades." Bank of America's exclusion as an indefinite or compound holding points to it being shown the door.
Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. American Express is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Sean Williams has positions in Bank of America. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends American Express, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, and Moody's. The Motley Fool recommends Occidental Petroleum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Berkshire Hathaway ve 2. čtvrtletí zvýšila provozní zisk o 16 % na zhruba 13 miliard USD. Firma po 14 čtvrtletích čistého prodeje akcií nakoupila více, než prodala, a drží asi 365 miliard USD v hotovosti a pokladničních poukázkách.
Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +0.75%)(BRKB +0.90%) has spent the past year standing still. The B shares trade near $510 as of this writing, and they haven't traded below about $464 or above about $538 over the past 52 weeks.
Sometimes a flat stretch like that can mean the market thinks a company's best days are behind it. And sometimes the price simply stops moving while the business keeps going, leaving the stock a little cheaper with each passing quarter.
I think Berkshire's flat year is mostly the second kind. The company's first year under CEO Greg Abel (Warren Buffett remains chairman) has featured growing profits and something Berkshire hasn't been in years: a buyer.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
The business didn't go sidewaysBerkshire reported its second-quarter results in early August, and the headline figure was strong. Operating earnings grew 16% from the same quarter a year ago, to about $13 billion. Operating earnings are the company's preferred yardstick because they leave out the swings in the value of its enormous stock portfolio, which accounting rules otherwise pour into reported profit.
Berkshire's businesses outside of insurance carried the quarter. Earnings from manufacturing, service and retailing jumped 24% year over year, to about $4.5 billion, Berkshire Hathaway Energy grew its earnings 27% to $891 million, and the BNSF railroad added 6% to about $1.6 billion. Insurance, however, was the soft spot -- underwriting profit fell 13% year over year, and insurance investment income slipped 9%. Of course, a currency swing on debt Berkshire owes in foreign currencies also flattered the total, so the underlying growth was more modest than 16%.
Still, the direction is right. Quarterly operating earnings have been stepping up -- about $11.2 billion a year ago, about $11.3 billion in the first quarter of 2026, and about $13 billion in the most recent period.
And the insurance operation kept doing its quieter job. Float (the premium money Berkshire holds and invests before claims come due) grew about $1.1 billion in the first half, to about $177.5 billion.
Berkshire is a buyer againThe earnings aren't the main reason to like the stock here, though. The buying is.
Berkshire had been a net seller of stocks for 14 consecutive quarters. That streak ended in the second quarter, when the company bought nearly $20 billion more in equities than it sold. Across the first half, purchases totaled about $39 billion against about $28 billion of sales, and Alphabet now sits among Berkshire's five largest stock holdings.
The company also closed two acquisitions this year -- the industrial chemicals maker OxyChem in January and the homebuilder Taylor Morrison in late July, for a combined price of more than $16 billion.
And after a first quarter with hardly any buybacks, Berkshire stepped up the pace and repurchased about $4.5 billion of shares in the second.
In short, Berkshire can afford all of it. The company was still holding about $365 billion in cash and Treasury bills at the end of the second quarter.
The price hasn't run awayAt about $510 per B share, Berkshire's market value is about $1.1 trillion, against about $750 billion of shareholders' equity. That works out to nearly 1.5 times book value -- hardly cheap, but not a level with years of good news already priced in. And the multiple of book value has drifted lower this year, because shareholders' equity grew about 4% over the first half while the share price barely moved.
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Berkshire's own repurchase policy offers a more practical test. After all, the company buys back stock only when Abel, after consulting with Buffett, believes the price sits below a conservative estimate of what Berkshire is worth. In May, Berkshire paid an average of about $476 per B share. In June, it paid about $488.
As of this writing, the stock trades about 5% above that June average.
Sure, the quiet year didn't come from nowhere. Insurance results have softened, a company already valued near $1.1 trillion is never going to compound the way the Berkshire of decades past did, and the stock could stay quiet for a while longer.
So, should you buy Berkshire Hathaway stock right now?
I think so. The businesses are growing, and the cash is finally moving. And the stock costs only a little more than what the company itself was recently willing to pay for it. I'd buy the shares today and plan on holding them for years to come.
Berkshire Hathaway přidala Alphabet mezi své čtyři největší pozice po nákupu 24,5 milionu akcií ve 2. čtvrtletí. Podíl vzrostl o 45 % na zhruba 79 milionů akcií v hodnotě 28,2 miliardy USD.
Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +0.28%) (BRKB +0.06%) has not had many changes to its top five holdings. Apple, Bank of America, American Express, Coca-Cola, and Chevron have pretty much been locked in the top five spots over the past four years.
But last quarter, a new stock crashed the party as Alphabet (GOOG +0.61%) (GOOGL +0.59%) moved into the top five, displacing Chevron.
CEO Greg Abel and his team made a massive investment in the "Magnificent Seven" technology giant last quarter. They added 24.5 million shares of Alphabet in Q2, according to the Berkshire Hathaway 13F filing, increasing its stake by 45%.
Berkshire now holds about 79 million shares of Alphabet, the parent of Google, worth about $28.2 billion. That accounts for about 9.41% of the total portfolio, making it the fourth-largest holding. Only Apple (22%), American Express (17%), and Coca-Cola (11%) are larger.
Image source: Getty Images.
Capex concerns Berkshire Hathaway didn't even own a single share of Alphabet stock until then-CEO Warren Buffett added almost 18 million shares for a $4.4 billion stake just one year ago, in the third quarter of 2025. Berkshire added another 36 million in Q1 and 24.5 million in Q2.
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Over the past year, Alphabet stock has returned about 37%; however, shares have tumbled recently, down about 7% over the past month. Alphabet had a strong second quarter with revenue up 24% year over year to $120 billion and operating income up 30% to about $41 billion.
Investors are concerned about artificial intelligence (AI) spending and cash flow depletion. Alphabet is investing heavily in AI infrastructure for its cloud business to meet rising demand. In Q2, Alphabet raised its guidance for capital expenditures (capex) this year to $195 billion to $205 billion, up from the previous range of $180 billion to $190 billion.
The increase is mainly to accelerate capacity expansion to meet growing demand. But the spending has depleted Alphabet's free cash flow. It reported a cash outflow of $5.8 billion in the quarter, marking the first quarter since the company went public with negative free cash flow.
"We expect the free cash flow will remain under pressure driven by our investments in technical infrastructure, which enables us to capitalize on the AI opportunity and continue to drive attractive returns," CFO Anat Ashkenazi said on the earnings call.
The Amazon parallel Amazon found itself in a similar place at the beginning of the year, and the market reacted similarly. But Amazon argued that it had to bite the bullet and spend the money to build the capacity to meet future demand.
In its most recent earnings report, Amazon showed that its investments are already paying off, as the stock soared post-earnings on improved cloud revenue.
The recent sell-off has put Alphabet stock at an extremely low valuation, trading at just 16 times earnings, which is right up Berkshire's alley as a firm that looks for good stocks at reasonable valuations.
That would describe Alphabet, the dominant market leader in internet search and one of the top cloud computing stocks.
American Express is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Dave Kovaleski has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, American Express, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, and Chevron. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Akcie Berkshire Hathaway B za měsíc od posledních výsledků klesly asi o 3 % a zaostaly za indexem S&P 500. Ve 2. čtvrtletí ale provozní zisk vzrostl o 16,3 % na 13 miliard USD a tržby o 10 % na 101,8 miliardy USD.
A month has gone by since the last earnings report for Berkshire Hathaway B (BRK.B - Free Report) . Shares have lost about 3% in that time frame, underperforming the S&P 500.
But investors have to be wondering, will the recent negative trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is Berkshire Hathaway B due for a breakout? Before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late, let's take a quick look at its most recent earnings report in order to get a better handle on the important drivers.
BRK.B Q2 Earnings & Revenues Rise Year Over Year on Diversified Growth
Berkshire Hathaway delivered second-quarter 2026 operating earnings of $13 billion, which increased 16.3% year over year. The increase was due to higher earnings in BNSF; Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company; Manufacturing, service and retailing; and Other.
Behind the HeadlinesRevenues rose 10% year over year to $101.8 billion due to an increase in revenues in Insurance and Other and Railroad, Utilities and Energy. The metric surpassed the consensus estimate by 6.8%.
Costs and expenses increased 8.4% year over year to $86 billion, largely driven by increases in Insurance and Other and in Railroad, Utilities, and Energy.
Segment Performance
Berkshire’s Insurance and Other segment revenues increased 10.1% year over year to $88.5 billion in the reported quarter due to higher insurance premiums earned, sales and service revenues and leasing revenues.
Insurance underwriting produced operating earnings of $1.7 billion, which decreased 13.1% year over year.
Railroad operating revenues rose 14.6% year over year to $6.6 billion, primarily due to increases in car/unit volume of 6.5% in the second quarter as well as an average revenue per car/unit increase of 7.6% in the second quarter primarily from higher fuel surcharge revenues and higher yield. Pre-tax earnings increased 13.9% in the second quarter of 2026.
Operating earnings from the Railroad business increased 12.8% year over year to $2.3 billion.
Total revenues at Manufacturing, Service and Retailing increased 15.2% year over year to $61.5 billion. Pre-tax earnings increased 25.8% year over year to $5.8 billion.
In the second quarter of 2026, after-tax earnings from manufacturing, service and retailing businesses increased 24.1% year over year. Earnings increases in industrial products manufacturing and services businesses drove the increases.
Results among the numerous operations in the quarter improved, with overall earnings increases in the manufacturing and service businesses and in the retailing businesses.
Financial PositionAs of June 30, 2026, consolidated shareholders’ equity was $750.2 billion, up 4.2% from the level as of Dec. 31, 2025. At the end of the quarter, cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash were $41.4 billion, down 59.1% year over year.
Berkshire exited the second quarter of 2026 with a float of about $177.5 billion, which grew $1.1 billion from Dec. 31, 2025.
Cash flow from operating activities totaled $21.7 billion in the first six months of 2026, up 3.2% from the year-ago period.
How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then?Since the earnings release, investors have witnessed a upward trend in fresh estimates.
VGM ScoresCurrently, Berkshire Hathaway B has a poor Growth Score of F, however its Momentum Score is doing a lot better with a B. However, the stock was allocated a grade of D on the value side, putting it in the bottom 40% for value investors.
Overall, the stock has an aggregate VGM Score of F. If you aren't focused on one strategy, this score is the one you should be interested in.
OutlookEstimates have been trending upward for the stock, and the magnitude of these revisions looks promising. It comes with little surprise Berkshire Hathaway B has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). We expect an above average return from the stock in the next few months.
Performance of an Industry PlayerBerkshire Hathaway B belongs to the Zacks Insurance - Property and Casualty industry. Another stock from the same industry, NMI Holdings (NMIH - Free Report) , has gained 0.5% over the past month. More than a month has passed since the company reported results for the quarter ended June 2026.
NMI Holdings reported revenues of $187.89 million in the last reported quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +8.1%. EPS of $1.38 for the same period compares with $1.22 a year ago.
NMI Holdings is expected to post earnings of $1.30 per share for the current quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +7.4%. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate has changed -0.8%.
NMI Holdings has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) based on the overall direction and magnitude of estimate revisions. Additionally, the stock has a VGM Score of C.
Greg Abel z Berkshire Hathaway varuje, že odpor vůči výstavbě datových center v USA sílí. Pensylvánie zároveň podmínila nové projekty podporou místních komunit.
A White House AI adviser is selling data centers as economic lifelines while Berkshire's Greg Abel warns of a full-blown revolt taking shape in communities across the country. One of them is reading a very different map of where a…
On September 2, 2026, three things happened within roughly 24 hours. Craft Ventures co-founder and White House AI adviser David Sacks amplified a political messaging script coaching candidates to frame data centers as “life preservers” for “drowning American towns.” Berkshire Hathaway‘s (NYSE:BRK-A | BRK-A Price Prediction)(NYSE:BRK-B) Greg Abel told CNBC there is “a lot more pushback” on data center construction across the country. And Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order making local community support a permit prerequisite for new sites. Three separate signals, one message: the roughly $1 trillion in AI capital expenditure that investors are underwriting has run into a political problem large enough to require coordinated damage control.
Buildout Meets Backlash Sacks himself has quantified the scale. “Something like $800 billion of capex is being invested this year. I’ve seen forecasts for 1.4 trillion next year,” he said last week, adding that he would not be surprised if 2026 clears $1 trillion. The demand side of that number lives inside NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), which reported $96.22 billion in quarterly revenue and told investors it expects fiscal 2028 growth of approximately 70%, capped only by supply. CEO Jensen Huang put the cloud-industry backlog at greater than $2 trillion, with the top five hyperscalers on pace to spend $1.3 trillion in 2027.
The physical footprint of that money is what towns are now fighting. Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) has 1.4 gigawatts under construction at a total cost of $20 billion and a growth runway of 9 gigawatts. CEO Andy Power conceded on the July call that “as an industry, we are becoming significantly more visible” and that “it is becoming more and more challenging to deliver the critical digital infrastructure” customers want.
The power side is tighter still. Constellation Energy (NASDAQ:CEG) signed 920 megawatts of long-term nuclear power purchase agreements last quarter at durations of 18 and a half years, and PJM’s 2028/2029 capacity auction cleared at $325/MW-day. That price is exactly what residential ratepayers in the mid-Atlantic will see on their bills, and it is the number driving statehouse letters and county-commission fights.
Congressional research on the sector concluded that “data center load growth is the primary reason for recent and expected capacity market conditions” in PJM. Vertiv (NYSE:VRT), which supplies the cooling and power gear, just announced an acquisition explicitly aimed at accelerating “time to power” for AI data centers. The picks-and-shovels names powering, cooling, and networking these sites are the ones we profiled in a free report on seven AI infrastructure stocks that aren’t chipmakers.
Why Buffett’s Successor Is the Tell Berkshire Hathaway is the skeptical voice that matters because Berkshire Hathaway Energy owns regulated utilities across six states and Abel spent his career running them. Berkshire’s operating earnings rose to $12.98 billion last quarter, and the company deployed roughly $23.5 billion into equities including a $10 billion Alphabet stake. When Abel flags a revolt, he is speaking as the operator who has to file the rate cases the revolt shows up in. BRK-B is up just 0.52% year to date; NVDA is up 20.47%; VRT is up 58.52%. The gap prices in a world where the buildout continues without friction.
What to Watch Before the Midterms Shapiro’s Pennsylvania order is the template. Watch whether Virginia, Ohio, Texas, and Georgia adopt similar community-consent triggers before November, and watch PJM’s response to FERC on co-location rules, which Constellation expects in the first to second quarter of 2027. A single high-profile permit denial in Loudoun County or a rate-shock headline out of Ohio would validate Abel over Sacks and force NVIDIA’s hyperscaler customers to explain how a supply-constrained pipeline gets built when the constraint moves from wafers to zoning boards. The AI trade has priced in the chips. It has not priced in the county commission.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Greg Abel z Berkshire Hathaway uvedl, že v USA sílí odpor vůči výstavbě datových center. Berkshire chce být u těchto projektů, pokud nezdraží elektřinu pro ostatní zákazníky.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel noted the growing resistance to the construction of data centers across the U.S. in an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick on Wednesday morning.
"There is a lot more pushback in the communities across the U.S.," Abel said.
Berkshire's interest in the ongoing computing facility buildout is mostly related to power and electricity generation for the sites, Abel commented, noting that the conglomerate wants to be in business with supercomputing companies provided they keep their costs contained.
"We are interested in serving these hyperscalers ... if there was no impact to the rates of our other customers," he said.
Investors and analysts on Wall Street have echoed Abels comments, pointing to increasing organized political resistance to major computing construction projects that can siphon local natural resources.
New York State has enacted a moratorium on data center construction, while many other states have pending bans and restrictions of varying intensity. There are about 4,700 data centers in the U.S. and the number is growing.
Analysts at Mizuho said in a Tuesday note to clients that investors think data centers could be a significant issue in the midterm elections.
"This is clearly an evolving situation as some investors question the set-up with upcoming mid-term elections and validity of claims around resource consumption and limited long-term job creation," Vikram Malhotra at Mizuho wrote on Tuesday.
Google parent Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) remained in focus Wednesday after Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK) CEO Greg Abel backed the company’s artificial intelligence position and revealed a sharp increase in the conglomerate’s stake. The vote of confidence comes as investors assess Alphabet’s heavy AI infrastructure spending and its potential returns.
Berkshire Sees Alphabet As A Major AI PlayerAbel said that the conglomerate views Alphabet as a significant artificial intelligence player, pointing to Berkshire’s firsthand experience using AI across its portfolio companies.
He told CNBC on Wednesday that Berkshire has visibility into how its businesses use AI and the benefits the technology delivers, which increased the firm’s interest in the sector.
“We have a lot of visibility from within our companies as to how we’re using AI, what type of benefits it’s delivering, so that brought incremental interest, and then we saw Google as a significant player,” Abel said.
Berkshire initially invested $10 billion in Alphabet about 15 months ago at a 6.5% discount. Abel said he and Warren Buffett discussed both the size of the investment and the discount before completing the transaction.
Berkshire Builds Its Alphabet PositionBerkshire added $17 billion of Alphabet shares during the second quarter, making the Google parent the third-largest holding in its equity portfolio.
According to Berkshire’s latest filing, the conglomerate owned about 106 million Alphabet Class A and Class C shares, valued at roughly $36.6 billion. Alphabet was Berkshire’s largest portfolio addition during the quarter.
Alphabet’s Google is also among the major technology companies spending heavily to expand computing capacity for AI workloads.
Abel’s comments highlight Berkshire’s confidence in Alphabet’s AI position as the conglomerate increases its exposure to the Google parent while observing AI benefits across its own businesses.
Alphabet carries a consensus Buy rating. Its average price forecast is $429.15. Recent analyst actions include:
Rosenblatt maintained a Buy rating with a $410 price forecast on Aug. 20. UBS maintained a Neutral rating and cut its price forecast to $379 on July 23. Morgan Stanley maintained an Overweight rating and lowered its price forecast to $400 on July 23. Top ETF ExposureAlphabet has a large weighting in several growth-focused exchange-traded funds:
Franklin Focused Dynamic Growth ETF (NASDAQ:FFOG): 9.22% CastleArk Large Growth ETF (NYSE:CARK): 9.91% Hartford Large Cap Growth ETF (NASDAQ:HFGO): 9.83% Significance: Because GOOG carries such a heavy weight in these funds, any significant inflows or outflows for these ETFs will likely force automatic buying or selling of the stock.
Technical AnalysisAlphabet is trading below several key short-term averages. The stock sits 2.9% below its 20-day simple moving average of $346.43. It is also 3.6% below its 50-day average of $348.91 and 6.2% below its 100-day average of $358.45.
However, shares remain 0.4% above the 200-day average of $335.05. That keeps the longer-term trend intact for now.
The 20-day average is below the 50-day average, which signals weaker short-term momentum. Still, the 50-day average remains above the 200-day average. Therefore, the broader technical structure remains constructive.
The MACD sits below its signal line, while the histogram is negative. Both readings suggest buying pressure has faded.
Alphabet shares have gained 58.51% over the past 12 months. However, the recent price action points to a period of consolidation rather than a fresh breakout.
Resistance stands near $375.50. A move above that level could strengthen the bullish case. Support sits near $315. A break below the 200-day average could put that level in focus. Price ActionGOOG Stock Price Activity: Alphabet shares were up 0.31% at $333.07 during premarket trading on Wednesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Berkshire Hathaway v pondělí vzrostla o 1,3 %, zatímco většina velkých čipových titulů klesla. Firma drží zhruba 360 miliard USD v hotovosti a v krátkodobých státních dluhopisech.
Berkshire Hathaway's (BRKA +1.63%)(BRKB +1.71%) B shares rose about 1.3% Monday morning, to about $502 as of this writing, while the market's chip complex went the other way.
Nvidia fell about 2%, down for a seventh session in a row. Advanced Micro Devices dropped about 3%, Broadcom about 2%, Intel about 3%, and Micron Technology about 5%.
That is every major chip stock down on a day the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.28%) slipped only modestly, and the biggest conglomerate in the index up more than a percent.
A divergence this clean on one day can be noise. But this one has a logic to it, and I think the logic is worth understanding even if Monday doesn't repeat.
Image source: Getty Images.
A $360 billion pile of cash and Treasury billsBerkshire attracts money on days like this because of what it owns.
At the end of June, the conglomerate held about $35 billion in cash and about $325 billion in short-term U.S. Treasury bills in its insurance and other businesses -- about $360 billion combined. That money is not a bet on anything. It earns interest while it waits, and no sell-off in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure touches a dollar of it.
The operating businesses sit just as far from the build-out. Berkshire's earnings come from car insurance and reinsurance, a railroad, electric utilities, and dozens of manufacturers and retailers.
Second-quarter operating earnings rose 16% year over year to about $13 billion. The manufacturing, service, and retailing group grew 24%, Berkshire Hathaway Energy's earnings climbed 27%, and the BNSF railroad earned about $1.6 billion, up 6% year over year.
Insurance was the soft spot. Underwriting earnings fell 13% year over year, and insurance investment income slipped 9% to about $3.1 billion. None of those results depends on the price of a graphics processing unit.
Even the stock portfolio leans away from the theme.
Berkshire's biggest holdings are Apple, American Express, Alphabet, Coca-Cola, and Bank of America -- consumer and financial franchises, except for one. The Alphabet stake, worth about $37 billion after roughly $17 billion of buying in the second quarter, is Berkshire's one large bet adjacent to AI. The portfolio holds no chipmaker at all.
Earnings that don't need the boomOf course, Berkshire isn't immune to a market decline. In a real downturn, its railroad hauls less freight and its stocks fall with everyone else's.
The point is narrower. Berkshire's earnings power doesn't require the AI spending boom to continue. Monday, that independence was what investors paid for.
The nervousness has been building for a week. The iShares Semiconductor ETF fell 5.5% last week before Monday's drop, and Nvidia reports earnings Wednesday after the close. Gold, meanwhile, hit its highest level since May. Money is playing defense.
Berkshire has also been supporting its own stock. The company repurchased about $4.5 billion of its shares in the second quarter, a sharp step-up from the $235 million it spent on buybacks in the first. And Berkshire was a net buyer of about $20 billion of stocks during the quarter -- evidence the conglomerate still sees value in equities.
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Defensive day or rotation?So is Monday the start of something, or just a nervous session?
One day can't say. After all, Berkshire's B shares remain nearly 7% below their 52-week high of $537.74. The stock has hardly been the market's darling this year while AI growth stocks soared, and a single green Monday doesn't reverse that.
What can be said is what a buyer pays for the defensive qualities. At about $502, Berkshire's market value is about $1.1 trillion, which works out to about 21 times its annualized operating earnings. The reported price-to-earnings ratio is lower, at about 12, but that figure includes large investment gains that swing from quarter to quarter. On the steadier operating basis, Berkshire is arguably not the discount it was a few years ago.
Still, the stock offers something scarce right now, and Monday showed there's demand for it. Berkshire's earnings arrive either way, because premiums and freight don't wait on the AI build-out. And the $360 billion in cash and Treasury bills becomes more useful, not less, as other assets get cheaper.
At about 21 times operating earnings, none of that comes at a discount anymore. But on the first day in a while that investors seriously doubted the chip complex, Berkshire is what they bought. I don't think that is a coincidence.
Berkshire Hathaway ve 2. čtvrtletí zvýšila sázku na Alphabet, jehož podíl je už třetí největší v portfoliu, na 36,6 miliardy USD. Akcie Alphabetu za posledních 12 měsíců vzrostly o 70 %.
Berkshire Hathaway's (BRKA +0.80%) (BRKB +0.74%) most recent 13F was just filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the company made a notable move. During the second quarter, it increased the size of its bet on Alphabet (GOOGL -0.54%) (GOOG -0.50%), thanks to the $10 billion private placement in June and open market transactions.
Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffett, who is now chairman of Berkshire after retiring as CEO at the end of 2025, revealed that he initiated this position last year. Combined, the Class A and Class C shares make up the conglomerate's third-largest position, valued at $36.6 billion. It's now larger than the Coca-Cola stake.
Berkshire and Buffett have made it crystal clear just how bullish they have become on Alphabet, whose share price has surged 70% over the past 12 months. Alphabet is one of the major hyperscalers in artificial intelligence (AI).
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Alphabet passes the test Notably, Buffett led the decision to buy Alphabet during the third quarter last year, although he did discuss the move with now-CEO Greg Abel. Buffett's philosophy has seen him shy away from internet enterprises in the past. This is no longer the case, of course. It's even more interesting that the Alphabet position was started during the ongoing AI revolution.
Berkshire must be optimistic about Alphabet's prospects over the coming five years and beyond. This is easy to believe, given that the business possesses a wide economic moat. There are network effects at play for Google Search and YouTube. Google Cloud has a notable scale advantage, and its customers face switching costs. And valuable intangible assets, such as the Google brand name and the company's ability to collect and leverage data, bolster its competitive position.
Abel must also favor Alphabet's position in the ongoing AI data center boom. Investors are already familiar with Alphabet's capital expenditure (capex) surge, as it now plans to spend $200 billion (at the midpoint) in 2026, with a higher outlay next year. The hyperscalers are sparing no expense to build AI infrastructure.
Rising capex has officially resulted in negative free cash flow (FCF), to the tune of a $5.9 billion loss in the second quarter. It might not be long until sell-side analysts update their spreadsheets to forecast that Alphabet will post negative FCF for the full year.
Alphabet is a wildly profitable company on the income statement, despite the massive hit to its FCF. Its operating margin over the first six months of 2026 was a superb 35%. And its balance sheet has $242 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities.
Buffett wouldn't have made a sizable capital outlay if he didn't appreciate Alphabet's financial position. This tells me that Berkshire's investment team believes it can accurately predict Alphabet's FCF well into the future. Buffett and Abel must have concluded that the multi-hundred-billion-dollar capex plan will generate a satisfactory return on invested capital.
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This AI stock has gotten cheaper Over the past year, Alphabet shares have soared 70%. After a fantastic gain like that, investors are forgiven for assuming the stock is expensive now. This isn't the case, though. You'd be surprised to learn that the valuation has become cheaper. The AI stock trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 17.4 today. This multiple has declined by 20% in the last 12 months.
One of Warren Buffett's core investing guidelines is never to overpay for any company. Buying at an attractive valuation is preferred. Alphabet shares are at a P/E ratio that's 34% below the S&P 500's multiple.
Berkshire Hathaway will file its next 13F in about three months. When this happens, the world might find out that it further added to its Alphabet stake in the current quarter. The conglomerate certainly has enough cash on hand to do so.
Berkshire Hathaway v 1. čtvrtletí ukončila 16 pozic a byla čistým kupcem akcií, což naznačuje další nové pozice pod Gregem Abelem. Nejvíc se čeká na možné změny u Constellation Brands a Jefferies Financial.
New Stock PositionsBerkshire Hathaway made major changes to their investment portfolio in Q1, the first without legendary investor Warren Buffett as CEO.
For the first time in a while, the conglomerate was a net buyer of equities, buying more than it sold. This signals that more new positions could be on the horizon.
The last three stocks bought, and first under Abel as CEO, covered airlines, tech and retail. Based on those purchases and Abel’s limited public buying history, it’s hard to determine which stocks or sectors the company looked at for the second quarter.
These are only loose predictions based on Abel’s recent buying history and investors will have to wait until Friday to find out if there are indeed new positions.
Exited PositionsBerkshire Hathaway exited 16 positions in Q1. While Q2 isn’t expected to bring another wave of major exits, Abel could still make significant adjustments to reshape the portfolio.
“Our investment in Kraft Heinz has been disappointing,” Abel previously said. “Even after considering the preferred equity component in our original Heinz investment, our return has been well short of adequate.”
Another position likely due for a complete exit is alcoholic beverage company Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ). Abel cut the position by 95% in Q1, not leaving many shares left to sell.
Jefferies Financial (NYSE:JEF) was among the smallest positions in the first quarter and Abel could look to exit the small stake.
“Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, and Moody’s — businesses we understand well, have a high regard for their leaders, and expect will compound over decades,” Abel previously wrote.
That leaves remaining holdings vulnerable to further cuts or full liquidations this quarter.
Changes to PortfolioIn Q1, Abel increased four stakes and reduced six. Multiple positions are likely to see activity in the second quarter as Abel reshapes the portfolio.
Outside of Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, and Moody’s, all holdings are on watch for potential trims or exits.
Following recent additions, the Alphabet position has grown and is expected to rank among Berkshire’s top holdings by the end of Q2.
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) has been a core holding for years, though the position was trimmed slightly in Q1. Given Abel’s exits across other financial stocks earlier this year, he could look to trim the Bank of America stake further.
Another position that could see a boost is The New York Times (NYSE:NYT). As one of the final buys initiated under Buffett, Abel may have taken advantage of Q2 stock pullbacks to build the position in honor of his mentor.
After 16 exits, two new additions, and several adjustments in the first quarter, Q2 may feature fewer moving pieces—offering a clearer picture of which sectors Abel favors for the long haul.
Image via Shutterstock
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Berkshire Hathaway ve 2. čtvrtletí zvýšila tržby v divizi výroby, služeb a maloobchodu na 61,5 miliardy dolarů a čistý zisk na téměř 4,5 miliardy dolarů. Tato část firmy nyní tvoří téměř 40 % disponibilního cash flow.
Given that the stock's only a tad below analysts' consensus price target of $525.08 following the recent release of its second-quarter results, Berkshire Hathaway's (BRKA -0.42%) (BRKB -0.47%) Class B shares appear to be fully and fairly valued. And maybe they are.
Dig deeper, though. There may be something the analyst community isn't fully appreciating. And it's not the fact that CEO Greg Abel is finally starting to do something with all that idle cash the company's been sitting on, either. It's how well its biggest cash cow is now doing.
Berkshire's breadwinner is now firmly growing It's easy to forget that Berkshire Hathaway isn't just a basket of hand-picked stocks. It's also a collection of privately held, cash-generating businesses like Duracell batteries, Pilot Travel Centers, Clayton Homes, Shaw flooring, and Dairy Queen, just to name a few. This is where most of the conglomerate's quarterly cash flow comes from, in fact, which of course is eventually invested for growth (one way or another). These businesses collectively contributed $11.7 billion worth of after-tax earnings in Q2 of this year, despite headwinds on the insurance front.
Image source: Getty Images.
Still, the grouping that includes Berkshire's manufacturing, retailing, and services ventures like Precision Castparts, Lubrizol, International Metalworking, Clayton Homes, and others performed phenomenally well last quarter, turning $61.5 billion worth of revenue into net earnings of nearly $4.5 billion. Those numbers are up 15.2% and 24.1%, respectively, accelerating Q1's already healthy growth pace.
Indeed, as the graphic below illustrates, last quarter's profit growth of the conglomerate's manufacturing, services, and retailing arm extends and accelerates long-standing forward progress that hasn't necessarily been mirrored by all of Berkshire's other businesses, or, for that matter, every business that's not part of the Berkshire Hathaway family.
Data source: Berkshire Hathaway. Chart by author. Figures are in millions of dollars.
It matters simply because -- as the chart above also illustrates -- manufacturing, services, and retailing are now collectively Berkshire Hathaway's single-biggest and most consistent cash cow, accounting for nearly 40% of the company's spendable cash flow. Remember, Berkshire's investment gains don't become liquid cash until and unless those positions are sold.
Potential not fully reflected in the target price One quarter doesn't necessarily start a new trend. All long-lived trends, however, start out with that first good quarter. And given the nature of most of this arm's businesses -- manufacturing -- strength on this front against the backdrop of a lethargic economy is encouraging to be sure. It says that what these businesses are making is in demand even if the economy remains hampered by slow growth, lingering inflation, and an uptick in job losses. In that sort of environment, reliable cash flow has a funny way of suddenly becoming very important.
More to the point for interested investors, many of the analysts who are conservatively pricing this stock based on the company's still-limited interest in putting more of its cash hoard (now roughly $360 billion) to work may not be pricing in the full potential of these privately held ventures. This, of course, bolsters the already bullish case for buying a stake in Berkshire Hathaway here.
Michael Burry uvedl, že Berkshire Hathaway už nepovažuje za atraktivní investici. Kritizuje, že první kroky Grega Abela působí spíše jako marketingový rámec než skutečné investice.
Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA) (BRKB -2.46%) has generated market-crushing returns for roughly six decades.
Investors attribute the superior performance largely to its longtime former chief executive officer, Warren Buffett, who stepped down from the role at the end of last year. The loss of Buffett seemed to remove some of the premium that investors paid for Berkshire's stock, which has underperformed the broader market this year.
While Buffett handpicked new CEO Greg Abel to lead the company, the market hasn't been completely sold. However, Berkshire's stock has bounced back during the past month, up 4.6% (as of Aug. 11), as Abel has begun to deploy some of Berkshire's huge cash pile.
Still, this hasn't convinced The Big Short's Michael Burry, who recently said on Substack that he no longer finds Berkshire to be "an attractive investment." Does Burry know something that Wall Street doesn't?
Image source: Getty Images.
Concerns about the long-term strategy It's not a surprise that Abel will have nearly impossible shoes to fill as Buffett's successor. Warren Buffett became an icon in the stock market for his investing prowess, so that would be true for anyone stepping into the role.
One issue investors have had in recent years is Berkshire's towering cash pile, which reached almost $400 billion at the end of the first quarter.
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Although Buffett has expressed concern about speculation and frothiness in the market in recent years, investors have surely been hoping that Berkshire could make more productive use of the staggering amount of cash the company has been sitting on.
Abel has started to do this. Abel has significantly increased Berkshire's equity position in Alphabet, which is now a top-five holding in the portfolio.
Berkshire also announced the acquisition of Taylor Morrison Homes in the second quarter for $6.8 billion, and repurchased roughly $4.5 billion of its own stock, more than the company had repurchased in either 2024 or 2025.
Furthermore, Berkshire was a net buyer of stocks in the second quarter, breaking a 14-quarter streak of net selling. Still, Burry has concerns that Abel may not take the same approach as Buffett.
"My biggest fear for Berkshire Hathaway was that when Warren finally stepped down, the successor would be too old and otherwise not Warren, so would not have his patience for the fat pitch," Burry wrote on Substack. "I believe this fear has come true. I do not find Berkshire an attractive investment going forward. I realize not too much of the cash pile has been spent, and the cash pile remains large. However, these first steps look to be more framing moves than investment moves."
By "fat pitch," Burry is using to a baseball term that refers to a pitch right down the middle of home plate, which looks like it is perfect to hit. Buffett made this term famous in his investing philosophy by likening the "fat pitch" to an obvious, low-risk opportunity that the market is mispricing.
While I am just speculating, it's quite possible that Burry is not pleased with Abel's decision to invest so heavily in Alphabet, a company that, along with other major artificial intelligence (AI) players, he's been critical of, particularly some of its accounting practices regarding how it estimates the useful life of equipment.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't Burry is considered one of the brightest investors around, so perhaps he's right. But it also seems as if he's being a bit harsh toward Abel.
Although Buffett wasn't penalized by the market for carrying nearly $400 billion of cash without paying a dividend, the market may not have the same patience for Abel, so the new CEO is damned if he puts cash to work and damned if he doesn't.
It's true that Alphabet is beholden to the AI trade and will likely see its stock suffer if AI suffers a significant setback. However, there are worse AI stocks to invest in, and Alphabet probably can weather a crash better than most AI stocks.
Furthermore, sitting on the sidelines while AI booms is easier said than done. Sure, investors who manage to avoid a crash will certainly be rewarded. But they can also be punished if they avoid AI and it goes on to generate gigantic returns.
Berkshire probably isn't going to be a real growth stock again, but it still could serve as a good hedge in the portfolio, especially if the market falters. The stock will generate solid long-term returns through the entire economic cycle.
Berkshire Hathaway pod vedením Grega Abela začala po letech poprvé výrazněji nasazovat hotovost: ve 2. čtvrtletí zpětně odkoupila akcie za 4,5 miliardy USD a byla čistým kupcem akcií za téměř 20 miliard USD. Hotovostní zásoba přesto klesla jen na 365,5 miliardy USD.
During his last few years at the helm of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +1.76%) (BRKB +1.46%), Warren Buffett took a very conservative view of stocks. While he maintained that equities were still the best way to invest for the long term, he sold a lot more stocks than he bought, significantly cutting stakes in the company's top holdings, including Apple and Bank of America.
Between late 2022 and the end of the first quarter of this year, Berkshire was a net seller of stocks for 14 straight quarters. At the same time, Berkshire also stopped buying back its own stock, doing no share repurchases for more than a year and a half, from June 2024 until March 2026. The combination of net stock sales, solid cash flow generation, and a lack of buybacks led Berkshire to accumulate a huge stockpile of cash near $400 billion at the end of Q1.
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Putting cash to work However, with Buffett officially retiring at the end of 2025, new Chief Executive Officer Greg Abel has begun to deploy the company's cash. He restarted the company's buyback program in early March, repurchasing $235 million worth of shares in Q1. That continued in Q2, with $4.5 billion in share repurchases.
On top of that, for Q2, Berkshire was a net buyer of stocks for the first time in more than three years. The conglomerate made nearly $20 billion in net purchases in the quarter, headlined by a $10 billion private placement investment in Alphabet to help the cloud computing giant build out its artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. While big tech investments haven't been typical for Buffett, he has come out and said that Berkshire's initial investment in the search behemoth in Q4 2025 was at his behest and in consultation with Abel. Alphabet is now one of Berkshire's top five equity holdings, along with Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, and Bank of America.
During the quarter, the company also closed on its acquisition of homebuilder Taylor Morrison. Berkshire has a pretty strong presence in the U.S, housing market, also owning manufactured-home builder Clayton Homes, several building products companies, and residential real estate brokerage franchise network Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. It was the first deal made under Abel, whom Buffett has praised for his deal-making skills.
Image source: The Motely Fool
All these moves reduced Berkshire's cash hoard from a record $497.4 billion at the end of Q1 to $365.5 billion at the end of June. However, it still gives Abel more than enough dry powder to continue to invest in equities, buy back Berkshire stocks, and make large deals.
Berkshire's Q2 earnings report shows that the company's operating earnings climbed 16%, from $11.2 billion a year ago to almost $13 billion. The growth was led by its manufacturing, service, and retailing segment, which saw growth soar 24% to $4.5 billion, and Berkshire Hathaway Energy, where profit surged 27% to $891 million . Profit at BNSF, its railway segment, meanwhile, rose 6% to $1.6 billion.
The company's insurance segment saw some pressure, with underwriting profits sinking 13% from almost $2 billion a year earlier to $1.73 billion. Insurance investment income, meanwhile, fell by 9% to $3.06 billion. Berkshire's insurance segment can be lumpy quarter to quarter depending on when claims come in, but its enormous float -- money collected from policy holders before claims are paid -- provides the company with a steady, zero-cost pool of capital to help fund its investment portfolio.
It's good to see Berkshire finally using some of its cash instead of sitting on it. The stock dropped to one of its lowest price-to-tangible book value in several years, at 1.85, so the return of buybacks makes sense and isn't just something Abel decided to do arbitrarily. At the same time, while the market has performed well, there are certainly some pockets where value can be found.
Given an improved valuation and Berkshire and Abel having plenty of cash for work with, now looks like a good time to buy the stock for the long haul.
Geico ve 2. čtvrtletí 2026 snížila pojistný zisk před zdaněním na 994 mil. USD z 1,82 mld. USD, tedy téměř o 45 %. Počet škod z úrazů vzrostl v prvním pololetí 2026 o 5 % a průměrné náklady na ně o 10 %.
ToplineGeico, Berkshire Hathaway's largest insurance business, saw earnings decline nearly 45% last quarter as American drivers filed more auto claims and injury costs sharply spiked, delivering a hit to the conglomerate’s most profitable sector.
A Geico insurance office on July 20, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Getty Images
Key FactsGeico's pre-tax underwriting earnings fell to $994 million in the second quarter of 2026, down from $1.82 billion a year earlier—for a decline of nearly 45%, according to Berkshire's quarterly Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Geico's loss ratio—the share of premiums paid out in claims—rose to 76.6% in the second quarter and 75.3% for the first half of 2026, up nearly five percentage points from the same periods a year earlier.
The filing says the number of bodily injury claims rose 5% in the first half of 2026 and injury claim costs on average jumped 10%, both measures worsening when compared to 2025.
Berkshire's filing reflects a broader trend in the insurance industry where bodily injury claims have surpassed auto physical damage payouts for the first time in history.
WHY HAVE BODILY INJURY CLAIMS INCREASED? CCC Intelligent Solutions, an auto insurance software company, reports bodily insurance claim frequency is up 11% over the past two years and the cost of those claims has jumped 10.3% over the last year and 32% over the last four years. CCC says the increase is not because car crashes are becoming more frequent or more severe, instead pointing to changes in the social environment surrounding injury claims. General affordability, higher medical costs and more aggressive legal strategies have all made alleging injuries and filing lawsuits more attractive, according to industry analyst Erik Bahnsen. In other words, people are more likely to win lawsuits and, in doing so, can avoid shouldering the burden of medical costs on their own. For insurance companies, those bodily injury claims are becoming more expensive due to higher rates of attorney involvement, longer negotiations, higher legal fees and rising health care expenses.
SURPRISING FACTWhile the number of bad car accidents hasn’t substantially changed, the number of minor ones has. What are known as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, like automatic emergency braking, have successfully cut down on the number of minor, low-speed fender benders. And because there are fewer of those lower-severity collisions, the remaining claims pool is disproportionately weighted toward more intense crashes that may result in physical injuries.
Key backgroundGeico was one of Berkshire Hathaway’s strongest performers heading into 2026, recovering from a period of underwriting losses that prompted significant cost cuts and premium increases in previous years. That turnaround made this year’s second-quarter reversal even more striking when underwriting expenses at Geico surged about 28% in the first half of 2026 versus a year earlier. The filing discloses no significant catastrophe losses in the first half of 2026, meaning the Geico deterioration is purely operational rather than weather-driven. Berkshire’s broader operations held $359.2 billion in cash and Treasury bills as of June 30 and generated about $177.5 billion in insurance float—a financial cushion that masks how sharply Geico's underwriting performance has deteriorated.
FORBES VALUATIONWarren Buffett, the investor known as the "Oracle of Omaha," is worth an estimated $151.4 billion as of Monday, making him the 10th-richest person in the world. Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 and turned the struggling textile company into a giant holding company, of which he was CEO until stepping down in December at age 95. He remains chairman of the board.
further readingForbesBerkshire Hathaway Earnings Beat As Abel Deploys Buffett’s Cash HoardBy Bill StoneForbesBerkshire Hathaway Stock’s 2026 Outlook And What It Means For Your PortfolioBy Catherine Brock
Berkshire Hathaway shareholders walk by a video screen at the company's annual meeting in Omaha May 4, 2013. REUTERS/Rick Wilking/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
CompaniesAug 8 (Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), opens new tab on Saturday reported a higher quarterly operating profit, benefiting from higher earnings in manufacturing, service and retail operations, while net income was bolstered by double-digit gains in common stock investments such as Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab and Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab.
Second-quarter operating profit rose 16% to $12.98 billion from $11.16 billion a year earlier.
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Net income more than doubled to $25.67 billion from $12.37 billion.
Berkshire also repurchased $4.5 billion of its own stock in the second quarter, accelerating repurchases it had begun in March following a nearly two-year hiatus.
Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Sharon Singleton
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Warren Buffett plánuje do 31. prosince 2034 rozdat zbytek svých akcií Berkshire Hathaway v hodnotě kolem 140 miliard USD. Převod vlastnictví má být postupný a nemusí výrazně ovlivnit cenu ani řízení firmy.
Warren Buffett started giving away his Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA -0.75%) (BRKB -0.54%) shares 20 years ago, but the legendary investor is speeding up the process. Last month, Buffett announced his plans to dispose of his remaining shares between now and Dec. 31, 2034.
On the same day as the press release, Buffett converted $6 billion in Berkshire Class A shares into Class B shares and donated them to several private foundations.
Interestingly enough, for the first time in 20 years, Buffett gave nothing to the Gates Foundation, opting instead to give only to various affiliated foundations, including The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, as well as the private foundations run by each of his three children.
While there's rampant speculation about why Buffett skipped out on the Gates Foundation this time, there is one more pertinent question on the minds of Berkshire Hathaway stock investors: How will this accelerating transfer of Buffett's stake impact the company and its shares moving forward?
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Buffett and the big transfer Currently, the Oracle of Omaha holds a 13.2% economic interest in Berkshire Hathaway. This position is worth around $140 billion, implying that Buffett will give away an average of $17.5 billion each year for the next eight years.
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However, it's as if these shared, once transferred, will immediately hit the market. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may require private foundations to donate 5% of their overall assets annually.
While Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings from The Gates Foundation suggest that it has sold off the bulk of the $47 billion in Berkshire shares it has received over the past 20 years , Buffett's family foundations may opt to hold on to their gifted positions.
Even if the family foundations liquidate their positions, this is likely to happen gradually. Furthermore, Berkshire's present and future share repurchase plans could mitigate the impact of some of these shares hitting the open market.
A shift, but not necessarily a dramatic one At the same time Buffett is initiating this great transfer, Berkshire Hathaway is seemingly shifting back to "buyback mode." According to published reports, the company has bought back between $5 billion and $11 billion worth of its own shares.
Berkshire has typically repurchased shares when it believes the company is trading below its intrinsic value. With nearly $400 billion in cash on hand, the company has plenty of capital it could return to investors. That said, it's not as if newly appointed CEO Greg Abel is looking to "dismantle" the Berkshire empire or even shrink it.
Although it still sits on a relatively large cash reserve, the company, under new leadership, has continued to make major deals and investments so far this year. Major transactions include Berkshire's $8.5 billion acquisition of Taylor Morrison and its $10 billion participation in Alphabet's $80 billion equity offering.
In short, while Berkshire's ownership may shift between now and 2034, it's not necessarily a dramatic one. Until subsequent developments suggest otherwise, don't expect Buffett's large transfer to materially affect the company's corporate governance, strategy, or price action.
Berkshire Hathaway ve 2. čtvrtletí zřejmě odkoupila vlastní akcie až za 11 miliard USD, což by byl rekord firmy. Tento signál naznačuje, že vedení považuje titul za podhodnocený.
Earlier this year, CEO Greg Abel announced that Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +0.21%) (BRKB +0.36%) resumed its share repurchase program in March. But much to investors' disappointment, the company's first-quarter earnings report revealed just $235 million in total share repurchases that month. That's practically unnoticeable for a company with a market cap of more than $1 trillion.
It looks like Abel stepped up the repurchase activity in the second quarter. A Barron's analysis of Warren Buffett's SEC filings in July indicates Berkshire Hathaway's Class A share count declined by around 11,000 between April 14 and July 14. Due to rounding and estimating the average share price of repurchases, the actual amount spent buying back shares won't be known until Berkshire releases its Q2 earnings results. However, Barron's suggests the amount could be as high as $11 billion.
That's a bullish sign for shareholders.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Should you buy Berkshire Hathaway stock now? When Berkshire Hathaway buys back its own shares, it's usually a good sign that management believes its shares are undervalued. Chairman Warren Buffett has decried companies that repurchase shares without regard for their stock's price or value. Conversely, Berkshire's share repurchase authorization permits repurchases only when "Berkshire's Chief Executive Officer, after consultation with the Chairman of the Board, believes that the repurchase price is below Berkshire's intrinsic value, conservatively determined."
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If Berkshire did buy back $11 billion worth of shares in Q2, it would be the largest repurchase in the company's history. The previous record was in the fourth quarter of 2020, when Buffett bought back $9 billion worth of Berkshire stock. As such, it would indicate extreme bullishness on the part of Abel and Buffett, and help decumulate the massive cash pile on the company's balance sheet.
Berkshire Class A share price averaged about $721,000 per share between April 14 and the end of the quarter, which is the best estimate for the average purchase price for share repurchases during the period. Shares have climbed since the end of May, but the valuation remains compelling.
The stock trades for just 1.5 times book value, based on data from the end of Q1. That number may be closer to 1.4 times book value based on up-to-date data. Investors will have to wait until the Q2 financial release to get more exact numbers.
Data by YCharts.
The stock's performance in the first half of 2026 also suggests investors may be undervaluing the conglomerate. While railroad and insurance stocks have climbed higher, Berkshire stock has remained relatively flat. That's despite the fact that its marketable equity portfolio has significantly increased in value, approaching $360 billion as of this writing.
Given all the evidence, now may be a great time to add Berkshire shares to your portfolio.
Berkshire Hathaway výrazně zvýšila podíl v Alphabetu a z firmy udělala pátou největší pozici v portfoliu, kde tvoří zhruba 8,1 %. Buffett ale varuje, že masivní výdaje na AI infrastrukturu mohou dál držet volný peněžní tok v záporu.
One of the biggest stories surrounding Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB +0.10%)(BRKA +0.24%) this year is the company's large purchases of Alphabet (GOOG -0.62%) (GOOGL -0.91%) stock for its massive, nearly $359 billion equities portfolio.
Alphabet has quickly become a top position for the conglomerate. It's an interesting move for Berkshire, as it's the first time it's gone all-in on an artificial intelligence (AI) stock. Will CEO Greg Abel and executive chairman Warren Buffett make Alphabet Berkshire's next Apple?
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Berkshire's artificial intelligence horse Berkshire initiated its Alphabet position last year. Recently, Buffett actually revealed that he was the one who initiated it. Under Abel's leadership, Berkshire has significantly increased its position.
In the first quarter, Berkshire's holdings of Alphabet class A and C shares increased by over $11 billion. Then Berkshire acquired an additional $10 billion from Alphabet in a private placement at an average price of about $350 per share across class A and C shares.This makes Alphabet the fifth-largest position in Berkshire's portfolio.
While Alphabet has a wide variety of large tech businesses that had been doing quite well before AI, the company is a hyperscaler driving the AI revolution by investing heavily in AI infrastructure, so this is Berkshire making a real bet on AI.
Sure, Apple is set to benefit from AI in several ways, but Apple is not one of the large cloud providers and is not spending massively on AI.
On its recent earnings call, Alphabet management raised its capital expenditure guidance to $200 billion or potentially more, almost all of which will be for AI infrastructure.
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In a CNBC interview regarding the Alphabet position, Buffett said, "The trick in life is to find -- I mean investing -- is to find businesses that are going to earn high returns on capital for an extended period of time."
While Alphabet has done this historically, the $200 billion-plus in capital expenditures (capex) this year and likely more in 2027 will put Buffett's theory to the test. Free cash flow has already turned negative, and that trend is likely to accelerate.
Buffett also expressed concerns about all the AI spending, so the question becomes whether this is a company that Berkshire can really live and die with, given that the AI trade is likely to face significant obstacles at one point.
Could Alphabet be Berkshire's new Apple? At roughly 8.1% of the portfolio, Berkshire's Alphabet position still pales in comparison to Apple, which currently accounts for 21.6% of Berkshire's portfolio. At one point, Apple consumed roughly 40% of the portfolio.
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While Buffett certainly loves Apple's business due to its strong moat, he also likes how shareholder-friendly the company has been. Since its share repurchase program began in 2012, Apple has repurchased over $850 billion worth of stock.
Now, Alphabet has also repurchased a massive amount of stock over the past decade -- $346 billion since 2016.
However, large amounts of spending on AI infrastructure led Alphabet to halt buybacks earlier this year. And it seems likely that repurchases will be on pause for the foreseeable future, with free cash flow expected to remain negative.
While I don't know the exact thinking of Abel and Buffett, they may have felt they had to invest in some level of AI for the same reason Alphabet feels like it has to invest in all this AI infrastructure: Missing the revolution could be just as costly as getting burned by it. And Alphabet is a safer pick in AI than some other stocks trading at massive valuations that lack the ancillary businesses, scale, and earnings power that Alphabet has.
While I wouldn't expect Berkshire to make Alphabet as big as Apple, especially while they are investing in all this capex, if there is more evidence that the capex will yield adequate returns, Berkshire might then likely consider increasing the position.
Famed investor Warren Buffett is usually not one to seek out recognition, but in a recent interview, the Oracle of Omaha took credit for Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA 0.34%) (BRKB 0.42%) taking a large stake in Alphabet (GOOGL 2.05%) (GOOG 2.06%). Buffett has never been known as a tech investor, so when this value-oriented guru takes a big stake in a leading tech company, the stock should probably be on your list of stocks to strongly consider.
Berkshire first took a position in Alphabet in the third quarter of last year, right before Buffett was set to retire at the end of 2025. It added to that position earlier this year when it invested $10 billion in a private placement to help Alphabet raise money to build out its AI infrastructure.
In the interview, Buffett said the key to investing was finding businesses that can earn a high return on capital for a long period of time. He and current Berkshire CEO Greg Abel appear to believe that Alphabet can do this with its AI infrastructure investments, and there is good reason to believe this will be the case.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
A long runway of growth As with the other big three cloud computing giants, Alphabet benefits from being able to split its computing power between its own internal needs and third-party demand. This gives it flexibility to help it generate the best return on its investments. What really separates the company from the pack, though, is its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). It developed these chips more than a decade ago and has been improving upon them with new iterations ever since. It has also optimized its entire software and hardware stack around them.
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This gives the company a big cost advantage versus both AI model competitors and those in the cloud computing space that tend to rely mostly on Nvidia's much more expensive graphics processing units (GPUs). Alphabet's TPUs allow it to train its Gemini frontier models at a much lower cost than competitors like OpenAI. They also help the company save on inference expenses, giving it a structural cost advantage. This, combined with its distribution and ad-network edges, is why it can run a strong and profitable consumer AI business.
Alphabet's custom chips also give the company a cost edge in its fast-growing cloud computing business. It's seeing rapid cloud revenue growth, including 63% last quarter, but its cloud profits are climbing even faster, with cloud operating income tripling. Meanwhile, Alphabet's TPUs are so well regarded that Anthropic has started placing big TPU orders through its partner Broadcom, opening up another potential high-margin revenue stream.
Backed by Buffett's approval, Alphabet is a top AI stock to buy right now, with a long runway of growth ahead.
Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet and Broadcom. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Berkshire Hathaway, and Broadcom. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Greg Abel říká, že Berkshire Hathaway Energy už dodává 8 % své potenciální výroby elektřiny v Iowě do AI datacenter a v příštích pěti letech to může růst o 50 % i více. Pro Berkshire to ale zatím není zásadní tahoun.
Although the company holds a sizable stake in Alphabet, much like his predecessor, Warren Buffett, current Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +0.73%) (BRKB +1.71%) CEO Greg Abel isn't making any major, hyperaggressive bets on artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
He's certainly not unaware of the industry's rapid growth, though, and is making a point of preparing one of Berkshire's subsidiaries for what seems inevitable. That's soaring demand for the electricity that powers AI data centers.
The question is, will this meaningfully move the needle for Berkshire Hathaway and its shareholders?
Image source: Getty Images.
AI and energy is definitely on Abel's radar Given everything else happening that busy day, it would have been easy to miss. Nevertheless, as Abel commented during Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting in early May, "One of the core inputs to all those data centers -- hyperscalers -- associated with artificial intelligence is energy. Our businesses have that opportunity in front of them at Berkshire Hathaway Energy." He then added, "And yes, we're pursuing them."
Abel went on to point out that, unlike so many other players in the utility business, Berkshire Hathaway Energy is already sending 8% of its potential electricity production in Iowa, for instance, to the AI data center industry that's set up shop there. He goes on to suggest that this figure could grow by 50% (or more) over the next five years.
In other words, Berkshire's energy arm is already ready for what awaits.
But what does this opportunity practically mean for Berkshire Hathaway shareholders?
It takes some digging, but it's not a secret -- Berkshire's energy business added nearly $4 billion worth of earnings to the conglomerate's bottom line last year. That's roughly 10% of its total profits, excluding the ever-changing gains from its stock portfolio. That's not huge, but it's not insignificant either.
Data source: Berkshire Hathaway 2025 investor report.
For all the opportunity Abel says he sees on this front, however, it's not exactly a game changer.
AI takes a relatively small part of overall energy production There's no denying the utility industry as a whole wasn't -- and still isn't -- ready for the rapid growth in electricity demand driven by the proliferation of AI data centers.
In the grand scheme of things, though, it's not as if artificial intelligence is consuming the vast majority of the nation's produced power. Recent number crunching by Pew Research indicates that data centers accounted for only about 4% of the United States' total electricity generation in 2025. The rest is still being used by everything else and everyone else. Even Pew's forecast for a doubling of this consumption by 2030 would put the AI industry's portion of power consumption in the ballpark of 8%, which is still a small minority.
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So why all the angst? The capital-intensive utility business wasn't ready for any major surge in demand, having managed paper-thin differences between supply and consumption for decades.
More to the point for interested investors, while AI-driven energy demand is undeniably growing rapidly, it's growing from a small baseline. There's not enough whole-dollar opportunity here to consider it a core part of any bullish thesis for Berkshire Hathaway... at least not yet.
That doesn't mean Berkshire isn't a buy, though. If nothing else, the conglomerate remains an incredible cash cow, with a portfolio of great stocks.
Warren Buffett went on CNBC this morning and took personal credit for one of the more surprising moves in Berkshire Hathaway‘s (NYSE:BRK-B | BRK-B Price Prediction) recent history. Speaking with Becky Quick, the 95-year-old chairman said, “I initiated it” when asked about the conglomerate’s expanding stake in Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), offering his first public explanation of how Google’s parent became one of Berkshire’s largest technology holdings.
The remark resolves the question of whether new CEO Greg Abel or Buffett drove the pivot toward Big Tech, and it comes as Alphabet uses fresh capital, including a roughly $10 billion private placement from Berkshire earlier this year, to fund an AI infrastructure buildout that is straining even the largest hyperscalers’ cash flows.
The “Decider” Dynamic With Greg Abel Buffett announced he would step down in May of last year and formally handed the reins to Abel at the start of this year. That timing had led many to assume Abel authored the Alphabet position, which Berkshire first disclosed in Q3 2025 and has since expanded.
Buffett described the working arrangement plainly: “I am not doing anything that he doesn’t approve of. He’s not doing anything I don’t approve of. We talk all the time, but he is the decider,” referring to Abel. He also expressed regret over the delay, saying he “made a mistake” by not investing in Alphabet sooner, echoing his long-standing frustration at missing Google’s early rise despite seeing its advertising strength through Geico.
Even so, Buffett kept his enthusiasm measured. On Alphabet’s place in the portfolio, he said: “I would say that I don’t like it as well as at least four or five other businesses that we own.”
Berkshire’s Q1 2026 8-K, filed with the SEC on May 7, 2026, reported operating earnings of $11.35B and indicated that the company remained a net seller of equities. Berkshire shares trade around $500, up just under 1% year to date.
Why the $10 Billion Alphabet Placement Matters Alphabet is spending at a pace that reframes the tech capex conversation. Management guided to $175 billion to $185 billion in 2026 capital expenditures, and Q1 2026 capex more than doubled year over year to $35.67 billion. Google Cloud Q1 revenue reached $20.03 billion, up 63% year over year, with backlog nearly doubling quarter over quarter to more than $460 billion.
That backlog is the demand signal Buffett appears to be underwriting. He framed the competitive stakes directly: “The real question with Google and all of its competitors now, because they’re all laying out hundreds of billions, and that’s real money. That’s the game they’re playing now. They weren’t playing that game with computer software.”
Alphabet’s stock has responded to the disclosure and capex trajectory. Shares trade near $342.78, up 8% year-to-date and roughly 86% over the past year. The forward P/E sits around 25.
Berkshire as a Recurring Capital Partner? The forward question is whether the Alphabet placement is a one-off or a template. Berkshire ended Q1 2026 with a record $380 billion in cash. Hyperscalers are entering a phase in which AI-related capex is outpacing operating cash flow, creating an opportunity for large, patient private capital providers. Buffett’s other Big Tech position, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), was built entirely in the public market. The Alphabet deal is structured differently, and the “I initiated it” comment suggests Buffett himself sees value in being a preferred financing partner rather than just a market buyer.
For readers assembling a longer view of the portfolio’s next chapter, our 7 Warren Buffett Stocks to Buy Now briefing walks through which existing Berkshire holdings look most durable alongside the new tech tilt.
What to watch next: whether Berkshire’s next 13F expands the Alphabet position further, whether Abel signals appetite for similar structured deals with other hyperscalers, and how Alphabet’s AI monetization keeps pace with the capex line.
Warren Buffett řekl, že právě on inicioval nedávnou velkou investici Berkshire Hathaway do Alphabet. Berkshire ji odhalila ve 3. čtvrtletí 2025 a minulý měsíc přidala dalších 10 miliard USD.
Warren Buffett said Wednesday he — not Berkshire Hathaway's new CEO Greg Abel — was the driving force behind the recent big investment in Alphabet.
"I initiated it," Buffett said in an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick. "I am not doing anything that he doesn't approve of. He's not doing anything I don't approve of. We talk all the time, but he is the decider."
Berkshire first disclosed a stake in Alphabet during the third quarter of 2025 and has dramatically increased its investment since. Last month, the conglomerate invested an additional $10 billion through a private stock purchase.
"The trick in life is to find — I mean investing — is to find businesses that are going to earn high returns on capital for an extended period of time," Buffett said.
Buffett, who stepped down as Berkshire's chief executive earlier this year but remains chairman, said he and CEO Greg Abel continue to work closely together on investment decisions.
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