Berkshire Hathaway is digging into its nearly $400 billion in cash - and buying a stock it knows very well

By Barbara Kollmeyer

Under CEO Greg Abel, Berkshire Hathaway bought its own stock in the second quarter.

After more than three years of largely building up a massive cash pile, Berkshire Hathaway has loosened up and found a stock worth buying - its own.

The storied conglomerate announced Saturday that after amassing a record cash holding of $397.4 billion at the end of the first quarter, it spent $31.9 billion, whittling those holdings down to $365.5 billion. During the fourth quarter of 2025, Berkshire trimmed its cash pile slightly to $373.31 billion from $381.67 billion.

Berkshire said it spent $349.6 million to repurchase 478 shares of Class A (BRK.A) common stock and $4.18 billion to buy back 8.6 million Class B (BRK.B) shares. Both share classes have gained just over 3% this year and roughly 12% in one year. The S&P 500 SPX has gained 13% this year and 21% over the last 52 weeks.

Also notable in the latest Berkshire earnings was that the company bought more equity than it sold after a 14-quarter streak of doing the opposite. Some may be hoping Berkshire is getting more enthused about the opportunities it is finding after a stretch of holding back.

In March, CEO Greg Abel announced that the company saw enough value in Berkshire shares to recommend buying them, and that's what the company did. Berkshire bought $234 million in its stock in the first quarter of 2026, the first instance of share repurchases since the second quarter of 2024.

The conglomerate has said in the past that buybacks can happen whenever Abel - after consulting with Chairman Warren Buffett - believes the company's share price is below its intrinsic value.

An investment Substack, Maverick Equity Research, calculated that most of the Berkshire purchases in the second quarter were done at 1.4 times book value. That's right around the 10-year average of the stock. When Berkshire bought its own stock more aggressively, the stock was priced around 1 to 1.2 times book value.

However, not everyone was in agreement with the latest move by Berkshire. "Big Short" investor Michael Burry wrote that he has feared any successor to Buffett would lack Buffett's patience for "the fat pitch."

"I do not find Berkshire an attractive investment going forward," he said in a Substack post. "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."

Macrae Sykes, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, appeared to disagree, telling clients that the $4.5 billion repurchase of Berkshire shares is positive in two ways: that management believes those shares are undervalued and that it is "finding opportunity to deploy cash in this market environment."

-Barbara Kollmeyer

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08-10-26 1023ET