The numbers come first.
Berkshire Hathaway added a net of almost $20 billion in equities during the second quarter of 2026, its first full filing period under CEO Greg Abel, according to a regulatory filing released Friday. The conglomerate's cash hoard fell to $365.5 billion at midyear, down from a record $397 billion at the end of March — still a fortress balance sheet, but one that is now clearly being put to work.
Delta and Alphabet lead the buying
Berkshire added 17.5 million Delta Air Lines shares, lifting the value of its stake to $5.37 billion. The conglomerate also added 48.1 million Alphabet shares, pushing Google's parent to Berkshire's third-biggest holding at $37.8 billion at midyear.
The Alphabet position carries a strategic dimension beyond a standard equity bet. Abel separately handed $10 billion to Alphabet to support investments related to artificial intelligence — a new frontier for a conglomerate long associated with insurance, railroads and consumer staples.
Housing gets a $6.8 billion vote of confidence
In what the company described as a typical value transaction, Berkshire spent $6.8 billion to acquire homebuilder Taylor Morrison Home Corp. The deal closed last month. Berkshire also added shares of homebuilder Lennar Corp., bringing that holding to approximately $1.21 billion. Two housing bets in a single quarter underline Abel's conviction that residential construction remains undervalued relative to long-term demand.
Buybacks and Bank of America
Berkshire repurchased approximately $4.5 billion of its own stock during the period — a signal that management views the conglomerate's own shares as attractively priced even after years of appreciation. On the sell side, Berkshire continued trimming its Bank of America position and now owns 6.8% of the US lender.
Separately, the Gates Foundation sold almost 2.4 million Berkshire Class B shares, reducing its stake to $7.35 billion at quarter-end, according to a separate filing Friday. The filing comes after Buffett indicated last month that he did not plan to make additional gifts to the philanthropy, as co-founder Bill Gates faces scrutiny over his ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to the source reporting.
CEO Times take
After years in which Buffett publicly lamented that valuations left no room for large deals, Abel has moved with speed and scale in back-to-back quarters. A $10 billion AI commitment alongside a classic housing value play is not a contradiction — it is a portfolio manager reading two different market inefficiencies at once. That is exactly what a $365 billion cash reserve is built for.
Free enterprise rewards decisive allocation. The market will now watch whether Abel's bets on American housing and American technology compound the way Buffett's bets on American insurance and American rails once did. The paper trail points to a CEO who has no intention of letting capital sit idle.
