💰 Berkshire’s New Boss Bets On Google

THE MAIN EVENT
Berkshire’s New Boss Bets On Google 🧹

Berkshire Hathaway’s latest portfolio filing was not just about what Greg Abel bought. It was about what a $263B stock portfolio walked away from.

In one quarter, Berkshire tripled its bet on Google-parent Alphabet, opened a multibillion-dollar stake in Delta Air Lines, and exited more than a dozen positions.

This was not routine portfolio housekeeping.

This was Berkshire taking out the trash, rearranging the furniture, and hanging a very large Google poster in the living room.

First, What Is A 13F?

A 13F is the quarterly SEC filing where large investment managers disclose their U.S. stock holdings.

For decades, Berkshire’s 13F was Wall Street’s version of reading Buffett’s diary. Investors tracked every move because a new Berkshire position could send stocks soaring.

Buffett even occasionally requested confidential treatment from regulators so Berkshire could keep building a position without being front-run.

But this filing hits different.

Buffett announced last May that he would retire as CEO, with Abel taking over on January 1, 2026. Since then, Berkshire has lost some of its old glow:

• Berkshire: down 5% over the last year

• S&P 500: up over 27%

• An open question: Can the “Buffett premium” survive without Buffett calling the shots?

The Big Buy: Alphabet

Berkshire increased its Alphabet stake by 224%, making Google’s parent company its fifth-largest equity holding at roughly $22.9B.

That is a loud vote of confidence in a company some investors still worry is investing too heavily in AI infrastructure.

But so far, the market likes the trade.

Alphabet has rallied sharply since the end of Q1, helped by enthusiasm around Gemini, Waymo, and the company’s custom TPU chips.

For Berkshire, Alphabet looks like a rare blend:

• A wildly profitable advertising engine

• Built-in Gemini distribution across Google’s ecosystem

• A full-stack AI strategy running on its own rails, from custom chips to owned cloud

The funny part? Alphabet is also the lowest-yielding dividend payer in the S&P 500.

In other words, Abel’s first major swing is not a classic Buffett value bet. It is a bet on a company that can spend like a moonshot factory, earn like a monopoly, and turn innovation into its next growth engine.

The Surprise Return: Delta

Berkshire also bought 39.8M Delta shares, worth nearly $3B.

That is notable because Buffett dumped Berkshire’s airline stocks during COVID, after years of warning that airlines were exactly the kind of business investors should avoid:

The Cleanup: 16 Full Exits

The quieter story may be the selling. Berkshire eliminated 16 positions entirely, cutting the portfolio from 42 holdings to 26.

Some of the biggest exits included:

• Visa

• Mastercard

• Amazon

• UnitedHealth

• Domino’s

These exits are not necessarily a thumbs-down on the businesses themselves.

Berkshire may have sold because:

• The original thesis had already played out

• The stocks no longer offered enough upside at today’s prices

• The positions came from previous portfolio managers

• The portfolio had become too crowded

• Abel no longer saw a clear edge in owning them

That is less “these companies are broken,” and more “every holding has to re-earn its spot.”

Still Patient, Just Pickier

Despite the flashy Google buy, Berkshire is still not chasing this market.

The company remained a net seller of stocks for the 14th straight quarter and ended Q1 with a record cash pile of $397B.

In plain English: Abel is buying selectively, while holding a giant pile of dry powder in case the market turns.

That matters because it shows the foundation has not changed:

1. Buy only when the price makes sense

2. Hold cash when bargains are scarce

3. Avoid chasing hype for hype’s sake

4. Stay patient, even when the crowd is getting greedy

The difference is where Abel seems willing to look.

• Google? Yes.

• Delta? Apparently.

• A bloated portfolio full of legacy positions? Not so much.

MARKET MOOD
Nvidia Turns Arm Into AI Royalty 💸

Winners

Arm Holdings ($ARM) - Market Cap: $317.3B (Week-to-Date: +42.6%)

Arm ripped higher after Nvidia made the CPU royalty story impossible to ignore. Nvidia now expects roughly $20B in CPU revenue this year, with much of that tied directly to Arm’s chip architecture. That means more AI chips, more CPU usage, and more royalties flowing to Arm. As AI shifts from training to inference, Arm looks positioned to collect a per-chip toll the whole way.

IBM ($IBM) - Market Cap: $237.8B (Week-to-Date: +15.4%)

IBM jumped after reports that it landed a major role in a new $2B U.S. quantum computing initiative. Investors took it as validation that IBM still has a seat at the table in next-generation computing. Quantum revenue is years away, but steady software growth and a reliable dividend give investors something real to hold onto in the meantime.

AST SpaceMobile ($ASTS) - Market Cap: $37.3B (Week-to-Date: +15.0%)

This week pushed AST SpaceMobile closer to looking like a real business instead of a space-age science project. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile announced a joint venture built around satellite-to-phone coverage, which is exactly what AST specializes in. The company also received FCC approval to expand U.S. service and recently hit nearly 99 Mbps speeds directly to smartphones from space.

Losers

Intuit ($INTU) – Market Cap: $84.9B (Week-to-Date: -21.9%)

Intuit delivered a quarter that looked fine on paper, but immediately raised questions. The company cut its TurboTax revenue forecast and announced plans to lay off roughly 3,000 employees as part of an AI-focused restructuring. Investors are beginning to worry that generative AI could weaken the “guided help” model that made TurboTax and QuickBooks so dominant in the first place.

Analog Devices ($ADI) – Market Cap: $187.6B (Week-to-Date: -8.0%)

Analog Devices makes the behind-the-scenes chips used in factories, telecom equipment, cars, and industrial systems. The company crushed earnings expectations and raised guidance, helped by strength across nearly every business line. Yet the stock still dropped. After a huge run into earnings, investors treated strong results as a reason to lock in gains instead of buy more.

Walmart ($WMT) – Market Cap: $967.2B (Week-to-Date: -7.7%)

Walmart’s earnings report looked solid. The future guidance did not. Management warned that freight costs, tariffs, and aggressive promotions could pressure profits going forward, making it this week’s clearest “good quarter, nervous outlook” story. Even retail’s biggest winner is starting to feel margin pressure.

CHART OF THE WEEK
Bond Yields Hit Nearly 20-Year High ⚠️

The 30-year Treasury yield just hit 5.2%, its highest level since 2007. That means bonds are selling off, and the world’s “boring” market is suddenly demanding attention.

• The 10-year yield is near 4.6%, up from below 4% before the Iran war began.

• Mortgage rates have risen to 6.8%, their highest level since July.

• Traders have gone from expecting three Fed cuts in 2026 to pricing in the possibility of a rate hike.

• Trump wants lower rates, but even he recently conceded that incoming Fed Chair Kevin Warsh can “do what he wants to do.”

We’ve seen bond market pressure create policy changes before, including during last year’s tariff rollout. But the Iran conflict is a different beast. Washington can soften its own stance, but it can’t control whether the other side takes the off-ramp.

Stocks may have moved on from Iran, but the bond market is still pricing in sticky inflation, fewer rate cuts, and a lot less room for error.

FAST FACTS
Stock Pickers Lose, Coffee Drinkers Win ☕

📉 Stock picking rarely wins: Just 28% of mutual funds are beating the S&P 500 this year, as AI megacaps leave diversified portfolios in the dust. [Read]

🆓 Claim your free coffee here: Capital One is bringing back free Monday drinks at its bank cafés through September 7 to celebrate the MLB season. [Read]

🚀 SpaceX finally opens its books: The rocket giant filed to go public under $SPCX, setting the stage for the biggest IPO ever as soon as mid-June. [Read]

🤖 OpenAI clears Musk hurdle: A jury sided with OpenAI in Musk’s lawsuit, removing a major legal cloud as the company races Anthropic toward a blockbuster IPO. [Read]

💍 Young couples split the bills: Only 4 in 10 married couples fully combine finances now, with Gen Z and millennials leading the shift toward separate accounts. [Read]

💸 The IRS might owe you: Millions of Americans could qualify for Covid-era penalty and interest refunds, but protective claims must be filed by July 10. [Read]

WORDS TO REMEMBER
Great Investments Need Room To Grow 🧠