Under Greg Abel, Berkshire Hathaway was a net seller of stocks in Q3, held $357 billion in cash and bought back $9.6 billion of its own shares.
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) ended the third quarter of 2026 sitting on $357 billion of cash, and the quarter under Warren Buffett’s successor points to the same conclusion as Buffett’s long cash build: very little in the market looks worth buying.
As Business Insider first reported, Berkshire was a net seller of stocks in the quarter, buying $2.4 billion of equities and selling $2.8 billion, a sharp retreat from a spring in which it was adding to holdings. The cash pile, net of $20.5 billion of Treasury payables, shrank by about $8 billion to $357 billion as Greg Abel repurchased $9.6 billion of Berkshire’s own shares, the busiest stretch of buybacks in years.
The pile only shrinks when Berkshire buys itself
For a value investing reader, the shape of the quarter is the whole message. The conglomerate’s cash has more than doubled since the end of 2023, not because the businesses generate less money, but because deployment never kept pace. The one use of capital Abel has visibly accelerated is buying back Berkshire stock, and he did that in consultation with Buffett.
The University of Maryland’s David Kass, a longtime Berkshire analyst, said the net-selling posture “indicates caution with respect to current market valuations other than Berkshire’s.” In plain terms: the company that made its name finding undervalued assets now finds its own undervalued shares the best trade on its own book.
Continuity is the strategy
Buffett stepped down as chief executive at the end of 2025 and as chairman in September 2026. The first full picture of how Abel runs the company on his own shows him refusing to reinvent it. He is net selling stocks, hoarding cash, and leaning on repurchases, a combination investors have rewarded since the end of September.
That posture carries a signal for every holder watching from outside Omaha. When the best-known value investor’s successor holds hundreds of billions in cash rather than equities, the statement being made is about price, not opportunity: the opportunity is there, the price is not.
Berkshire’s third-quarter portfolio disclosure, due the week of November 9, will show exactly which stocks it bought and sold.
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