Greg Abel's Berkshire Switches to Net Stock Buyer After 14 Quarters

Berkshire Hathaway, long interpreted as an indicator of the U.S. stock market, has returned to buying stocks after 14 quarters.

The Financial Times (FT) reported on the 9th (local time) that Greg Abel, who took office as Berkshire's new CEO in January this year succeeding Warren Buffett—known as the Sage of Omaha—ended Berkshire's more than three-year streak of selling stocks and shifted to a net buyer in the second quarter.

Berkshire recorded a net stock purchase of 19.8 billion dollars in the second quarter, approximately 27.9 trillion won in Korean currency.

This included the purchase of 10 billion dollars in Alphabet common stock and 4.5 billion dollars in Berkshire Hathaway treasury shares.

Buffett, who previously led Berkshire, had maintained a wait-and-see stance by gradually selling down a listed stock portfolio totaling 324 billion dollars over the past three years or so.

Because of this, investors interpreted that Buffett, a renowned value investor, viewed the current stock market as overvalued.

Therefore, the FT pointed out that Berkshire's return to net stock buying is a surprising decision, especially as the recent U.S. stock market has been breaking all-time highs.

For decades, Buffett's moves have been regarded as a clue to gauge the market's direction.

In particular, the massive cash he has accumulated recently has made some investors uneasy.

This is because they thought Buffett was waiting for the market to drop.

Berkshire invested 23 billion dollars in listed stocks such as Alphabet in the second quarter.

With this, Alphabet joined Berkshire's list of top 5 holdings.

On the other hand, it sold 3.7 billion dollars worth of stocks.

The amount sold is the smallest scale since 2022.

Berkshire announced that its cash reserves decreased by 15 billion dollars this quarter.

(Photo: Getty Images)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.