Berkshire Hathaway starts deploying its $400B cash pile on a stock it knows well: itself

For more than three years, Berkshire Hathaway did something that made Wall Street increasingly nervous: it sat on its hands. Quarter after quarter, Warren Buffett’s conglomerate sold more stock than it bought, piling up a cash reserve so large it rivaled the GDP of a mid-sized European country. That streak just ended. Under new CEO Greg Abel, Berkshire became a net buyer of equities in Q2 2026 for the first time in over three years, purchasing $23.5 billion in stocks while selling just $3.7 billion. The company also bought back $4.5 billion of its own shares during the quarter, a dramatic escalation from the $235 million it repurchased in Q1. The cash pile finally shrinks Berkshire ended Q1 2026 with $397.4 billion in cash and equivalents. By the end of Q2, that figure had dropped to roughly $365 billion. Buybacks, which had been paused since 2024, resumed in March 2026. And they didn’t slow down after the quarter closed. July alone saw more than $3.3 billion in additional repurchases. Alphabet and the art of doubling down The most eye-catching individual bet was a $10 billion addition to Berkshire’s stake in Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The position is now one of Berkshire’s...