Berkshire Hathaway spends $39B on stocks and buys back $5B in shares as cash pile shrinks

Berkshire Hathaway poured $39.4 billion into equities during the first half of 2026, more than five times what it spent during the same period last year. The company also repurchased $4.8 billion of its own stock, marking the most aggressive capital deployment the conglomerate has undertaken in years. The buying binge, by the numbers The $39.4 billion in equity purchases during H1 2026 dwarfs the $7.1 billion Berkshire spent during the same window in 2025. After accounting for $27.8 billion in stock sales, net purchases still came in around $11.6 billion. That matters because it represents the first time Berkshire was a net buyer of stocks in 14 consecutive quarters. On the buyback front, Q2 alone saw $4.5 billion in share repurchases, the largest quarterly buyback figure since 2021. Another $3.3 billion was repurchased in July, bringing total buybacks since the end of March to over $7.8 billion. Berkshire’s cash and equivalents dropped to roughly $364.7 billion as of June 30, down from a peak near $397 billion earlier in 2026. What Berkshire is buying Among the most notable moves was a roughly $10 billion private placement in Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Berkshire also compl...