Berkshire's new CEO overhauls portfolio, dumping a slate of stocks

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(This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.)

ABEL OVERHAULS PORTFOLIO

Notable positions cut, Alphabet more than tripled, Delta is back

Berkshire Hathaway’s equity portfolio got one of its biggest renovations ever during Greg Abel’s first three months as the company’s CEO, according to a new SEC filing.

Two new names, Delta Air Lines and Macy’s, have been added to the list, along with increases for four holdings.

Google parent Alphabet got the biggest boost as Berkshire increased the number of shares it owns by 224% in the first quarter.

Given its size, the increase is almost certainly an Abel move that was either endorsed, or possibly even suggested, by Warren Buffett.

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With a market value of $16.6 billion as of the end of the first quarter, the Google parent is Berkshire’s seventh largest equity holding.

At least for the short term, the decision to buy so many shares has been a spectacular success.

The stock has seen a 38% rally since the end of the first quarter, just over six weeks ago.

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Abel dramatically cuts the number of companies in the portfolio

As previewed by _The Wall Street Journal_last month, it appears Abel did sell many or all of the stocks that had been handled by portfolio manager Todd Combs, who moved to JPMorgan in early December.

Abel, or Ted Weschler, the portfolio manager still with Berkshire, probably sold some non-Todd stocks as well, but the company generally does not publicly identify who is responsible for individual names, so we don’t know for sure.

The holdings eliminated in the first quarter include the following:

• Visa
• Mastercard
• UnitedHealth
• Domino’s Pizza
• Aon
• Pool Corp.
• Amazon.com
• Heico
• Liberty Formula One
• Charter Communications
• Lamar Advertising
• Allegion
• Diageo
• Liberty Latin America Series C
• Atlanta Braves Holdings

The 2.3 million Amazon shares sold in the first quarter were all that remained after Berkshire sold 7.7 million of its 10 million share stake in the fourth quarter.

Constellation Brands, which has been associated with Combs, was all but eliminated with a cut of 95%.

Bank of America and Apple, which have been substantially reduced in previous quarters, were spared.

BofA was trimmed by less than 1% and Apple’s position was unchanged.

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A table with Berkshire’s entire equity portfolio appears later in the newsletter.

Chevron is biggest cut

Measured by market value, Chevron was the first quarter’s largest reduction.

The shares in the 35% cut were valued at more than $8 billion as of the end of the first quarter. The remaining stake was worth more than $17 billion at the time.

Especially given its large size, it is not thought to be a Combs stock.

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The stock was rising in the first quarter as Berkshire was selling but has dropped by 7.6% since the end of Q1.

It is still up 25.4% year-to-date amid elevated oil prices due to the Iran war.

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Back in the air with Delta

The second largest increase in Q1, after Alphabet, was the return of Delta Air Lines.

Berkshire purchased 39.8 million shares, currently valued at $2.8 billion.

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It is the first airline stock in Berkshire’s portfolio since the first quarter of 2020, when Buffett sold all the company’s shares in Delta, as well as American, Southwest, and United at a loss due to the massive reduction in air travel as the COVID-19 pandemic was gaining steam.

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He had purchased the stakes in 2016 as consolidation increased the carriers’ pricing power.

In early 2017, he told CNBC’s Becky Quick, “It’s true that the airlines had a bad 20th century. They’re like the Chicago Cubs. And they got that bad century out of the way, I hope.”

That was itself a return to a sector he had shunned for years after a troubled investment in US Airways he made in 1989.

In his 2007 letter to shareholders, Buffett wrote, “The worst sort of business is one that grows rapidly, requires significant capital to engender the growth, and then earns little or no money.  Think airlines.  Here a durable competitive advantage has proven elusive ever since the days of the Wright Brothers. Indeed, if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.”

Given his history with airlines, it seems unlikely Buffett was behind this latest return to the skies.

(CNBC’s Buffett Archive includes a collection of clips with his thoughts on airlines over the years.)

Macy’s and the Times

Berkshire tripled its stake in the New York Times to 15.1 million shares, currently worth more than $1.1 billion.

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And a new position in Macy’s sent the department store chain’s stock 5.3% higher after the closing bell, even though it’s worth just $59 million, even with the late gain included.

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Buffett-Curry charity lunch auction won by $9 million bid

An anonymous bidder is paying $9 million to have lunch with Warren Buffett, basketball star Stephen Curry, and entrepreneur/author Ayesha Curry.

The “A Seat at the Table” charity auction on eBay recently ended.

Buffett is personally adding an $18 million donation, double the winning bid.

The total proceeds of $27 million will be split between San Francisco’s Glide Foundation and the Currys’ Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation that is “working to transform the school experience for a generation of Oakland students.”

Buffett’s lunch auctions raised more than $53 million for Glide over two decades. In 2022, what was then called the “grand finale” of the series was won by an anonymous bidder for $19 million.

BUFFETT & BERKSHIRE AROUND THE INTERNET

Some links may require a subscription:

• Yahoo Finance: Investing GOAT Warren Buffett is clearly missed by team Berkshire Hathaway

• Fortune on MSN: I’m a Berkshire Hathaway investor and I was wrong about Greg Abel. Here’s why he’s a better fit than Buffett right now

• Bloomberg Opinion: Does Greg Abel Really Want to Continue Buffett’s Legacy?

• Business Insider on MSN: I flew 4,400 miles to Warren Buffett’s big bash. Even after retiring, he’s still the main attraction, and his legacy will live on

THE COMPLETE PORTFOLIO

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BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH

Four weeks

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Twelve months

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BRK.A stock price: $723,821.00

BRK.B stock price: $482.70

BRK.B P/E (TTM): 14.37

Berkshire market capitalization: $1,041,004,861,297

Berkshire Cash as of March 31: $397.4 billion (Up 6.5% from Dec. 31)

Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $380.2 billion (Up 3.0% from Dec. 31)

Berkshire repurchased $234 million of its shares in Q1 2026.

(All figures are as of the date of publication, unless otherwise indicated)

BERKSHIRE’S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS - May 15, 2026

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Berkshire’s top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, by market value, based on the latest closing prices.

Holdings are as of March 31, 2026, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on May 15, 2026, except for:

• Mitsubishi, which is as of August 28, 2025
• Mitsui, which is as of September 30, 2025

The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don’t forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)

If you aren’t already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.

Also, Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire’s website.

– Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch

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