Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) on Solana

Berkshire Hathaway added roughly 48 million Alphabet shares in Q2 2026, pushing its combined GOOGL/GOOG stake to approximately 106 million shares and elevating Alphabet to the firm's third-largest equity holding by value, behind only Apple and American Express. The move helped lift Berkshire's total equity portfolio to about $299 billion as of June 30, up from $263 billion at the end of Q1.

The purchases are among the clearest signals yet of Greg Abel's willingness to build large positions in technology during his first full year as CEO. Alongside the Alphabet buy, Berkshire added 17.5 million Delta Air Lines shares while trimming Bank of America by 30.2 million shares and exiting Constellation Brands entirely — a pattern that suggests Abel is rotating the portfolio toward selective tech concentration and away from broader financial-sector exposure inherited from the Buffett era.

Berkshire Hathaway's three-year total return of 42.6% has trailed the S&P 500's 73.6% over the same period, prompting comparisons with focused financial alternatives as investors assess the conglomerate's trajectory under new CEO Greg Abel. Writing for Yahoo Finance on August 12, analyst Stefon Walters argues that JPMorgan Chase — the largest American bank by assets and the world's most valuable bank — is better positioned for total returns, citing its dividend yield (currently 1.6%, with a five-year average of 2.4%) as a structural advantage Berkshire, which has never paid a dividend, cannot match.

JPMorgan shares have risen roughly 128% over the past five years as of the article's publication, a performance gap that the author says reflects a key trade-off: Berkshire's sprawling conglomerate structure and $1 trillion-plus valuation may constrain future upside relative to a focused financial company whose earnings power is directly tied to a single, well-understood business line. The comparison adds to a broader post-Buffett debate about whether Berkshire's diversification premium still justifies holding the stock over more concentrated financial sector plays.

Greg Abel, who succeeded Warren Buffett as Berkshire Hathaway's CEO, has trimmed some consumer positions since taking the helm — selling stakes in Amazon and Domino's Pizza — but analysts expect Coca-Cola to stay untouched. Buffett accumulated 400 million Coca-Cola shares between 1988 and 1994 for roughly $1.3 billion, a position that now generates an estimated $848 million in annual dividends, equating to a cost-basis yield of approximately 65% for Berkshire.

That extraordinary return on a decades-old cost basis makes the position almost impossible to justify selling. Coca-Cola has raised its dividend for 64 consecutive years, qualifying it as a Dividend King, and the stock has outpaced the S&P 500 over the past year while expanding into healthier beverage categories. For Berkshire, the Coca-Cola stake is less a market bet than a compounding income machine — the kind of long-duration asset where staying put is the rational move regardless of who runs the conglomerate.

Berkshire Hathaway reported strong Q2 2026 results, with operating earnings rising 16% year-over-year to $12.983 billion, beating analyst expectations and lifting shares to their highest level since Greg Abel assumed the CEO role in January 2026. Abel deployed capital far more aggressively than in Q1, repurchasing $4.5 billion of Berkshire stock — up sharply from just $234.2 million in Q1 — while simultaneously purchasing $23.5 billion in equities including a $10 billion stake in Alphabet. The company's cash reserve edged down to $365.5 billion, reflecting the accelerated deployment strategy.

Despite the earnings beat and buyback surge, "The Big Short" investor Michael Burry announced on August 10 that he has exited his Berkshire position, writing on X that "I do not find Berkshire an attractive investment going forward." Burry's central concern is that Abel lacks Buffett's trademark patience for exceptional opportunities, characterizing Abel's recent moves as "more framing moves than investment moves" — strategic positioning rather than the high-conviction, disciplined capital allocation that defined Buffett's tenure.

Berkshire Hathaway shares are up roughly 3% in 2026, badly trailing the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average since Warren Buffett stepped down as CEO at the end of 2025 and handed control to Greg Abel. Michael Burry, the investor known for calling the 2008 housing collapse, said he no longer views Berkshire as "an attractive investment going forward," citing what he described as capital deployment that amounts to "more framing moves than investment moves" rather than substantive allocation decisions. He also flagged his longstanding concern that Abel's age could limit the runway for a meaningful strategic reinvention.

Berkshire's Q2 2026 cash and Treasury bills fell 8% sequentially to $365.5 billion — the first such decline in four years — as the company purchased $23.5 billion in equities, including a reported $10 billion position in Alphabet, and executed $4.5 billion in share buybacks. Despite Burry's skepticism, retail sentiment on BRK.B remained "extremely bullish" with unusually high message volume, suggesting the investor base is more sanguine about Abel's early moves than the "Big Short" investor.

Greg Abel turned Berkshire Hathaway into a net stock buyer in Q2 2026 for the first time in 14 consecutive quarters, purchasing roughly $23.5 billion in equities against $3.7 billion in sales. The headline moves were a $10 billion Alphabet investment through a private placement in Class A and C shares — now a top-five portfolio position — a $6.8 billion acquisition of Taylor Morrison Homes, and $4.5 billion in Berkshire share buybacks. The buying spree trimmed the company's cash pile from $397 billion to $365.5 billion, while Q2 operating income rose more than 16% year-over-year.

Whether the reversal signals broader confidence in equity valuations is debatable. Strip out the Alphabet deal — a negotiated private placement announced in June rather than open-market conviction buying — and net equity purchases fall to roughly $10 billion, meaningful but not the emphatic all-clear some headlines suggest. The Buffett Indicator, measuring total market capitalization against GDP, remains at an all-time high near 232%, a level Buffett himself previously used to argue that investors were gambling in an overvalued market. Abel has clearly begun deploying the cash hoard, but the composition of Q2 buys leaves room for caution about reading it as a broad market buy signal.

Since taking over from Warren Buffett on January 1, 2026, Greg Abel has maintained Berkshire Hathaway's trademark concentration strategy while adding his own stamp: Apple ($70.9B), American Express ($52.9B), Coca-Cola ($34.7B), Bank of America ($32.5B), and Alphabet ($31.3B) together account for 63% of the $355 billion equity portfolio. Abel moved quickly, cutting 16 positions and trimming six others in Q1 2026, signaling a decisive rather than caretaker approach.

The most telling departure from Buffett orthodoxy is Alphabet's $31 billion presence at number five — technology stocks are now firmly on the menu. Legacy positions in American Express and Coca-Cola, accumulated between 1988 and 1991, generate cost-basis yields of 45–65%, making them near-permanent fixtures regardless of broader portfolio pruning. The concentrated lineup suggests Abel intends to run Berkshire as Buffett did: fewer, higher-conviction bets rather than broad diversification.

Berkshire Hathaway's Alphabet holding has grown to the conglomerate's fifth-largest portfolio position at roughly 8.1%, after CEO Greg Abel expanded the stake by more than $11 billion in Q1 2026 on top of a $10 billion private placement at approximately $350 per share. Warren Buffett initiated the position before handing the reins to Abel, but the new CEO's aggressive additions have drawn comparisons to Berkshire's storied Apple bet — currently 21.6% of the portfolio after once representing roughly 40% — raising the question of whether Alphabet can achieve similar concentration over time.

The Apple analogy centers on capital-return discipline: Apple has repurchased approximately $850 billion in stock since 2012 against Alphabet's $346 billion since 2016. The comparison faces a significant complication, however, as Alphabet's AI infrastructure push has raised capex guidance above $200 billion, turned free cash flow negative, and forced a suspension of share buybacks. Against Berkshire's nearly $359 billion equities portfolio, how Abel weighs that temporary FCF pressure against Alphabet's potential as a long-term AI compounding machine will signal how far post-Buffett portfolio construction diverges from its predecessor.

Motley Fool analyst Daniel Foelber argues that American Express — a Berkshire Hathaway holding for nearly four decades — will remain in the portfolio under new CEO Greg Abel for the same fundamental reason Buffett never sold it: the stock's self-reinforcing ecosystem. American Express operates a network of 155.1 million cards that gives merchants the incentive to accept its higher-fee cards, generating $19.68 billion in annual discount revenue while spending $9.94 billion on cardholder rewards — nearly double the $5.61 billion collected in membership fees — creating a flywheel where generous perks drive more spending, which funds more perks.

The "remarkably simple reason" for a multi-decade hold, Foelber writes, is American Express's cross-generational appeal. Gen Z cardholders are growing spending on the platform at 40% year-over-year, far outpacing the 5-14% growth seen among older cohorts, suggesting the brand is successfully replenishing its customer base in the same durable fashion as Coca-Cola and Apple — two other long-term Berkshire holdings. Foelber positions AXP as arguably Berkshire's single best stock given its ability to grow through economic cycles and its strengthening hold on younger consumers.

Berkshire Hathaway's new CEO Greg Abel, who took over from Warren Buffett on January 1, 2026, is expected to have continued the conglomerate's prolonged net-selling stance through Q2 2026, extending a streak that now spans 15 consecutive quarters. As of March 31, Buffett and Abel had collectively sold approximately $194.8 billion more in equities than they purchased since October 2022, with the historically elevated "Buffett indicator" — the market-cap-to-GDP ratio — peaking at 238.5% in early June, well above its long-term average of roughly 88%, providing a clear rationale for continued caution.

The one notable exception under Abel's tenure was a $10 billion private placement in Alphabet completed in June 2026, split evenly between Class A and Class C shares, which analysts expect could make Alphabet Berkshire's fourth-largest portfolio holding. Berkshire's overall investment portfolio stood at approximately $352 billion heading into the quarter. Q2 2026 portfolio disclosures, expected via 13-F filing, will confirm whether Abel continued net selling or pivoted more aggressively toward new positions.