Key Points
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Berkshire’s cash and Treasury bills dropped to $364.7 billion at the end of June from $380.2 billion three months before.
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In the second quarter, Berkshire bought almost $20 billion more stock than it sold.
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Berkshire’s Class B stock finished Nov. 4 at $579.09, a new closing high.
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Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKA)(NYSE:BRKB) will post its third-quarter earnings release and 10-Q on Saturday, Nov. 7, at around 7 a.m. Central time. And it goes into the report with its stock at a record. The Class B shares finished Nov. 4 at $579.09, a new closing high, after climbing around 4% that day. They’re up about 15% so far this year.
But the number I’ll check first on Saturday is the cash. Berkshire finished June with $364.7 billion in cash and Treasury bills, down over $15 billion from $380.2 billion at the end of March.
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The pile is still around 29% of Berkshire’s market value at the Nov. 4 close.
The fall came when Berkshire finally put money to work. In the second quarter, it bought almost $20 billion more stock than it sold, ending a 14-quarter run of net selling.
Warren Buffett. Image source: Getty Images.
Berkshire would rather own businesses
A giant cash balance can look like a sign that Berkshire thinks stocks are overpriced. But Warren Buffett, now Berkshire’s chairman emeritus, has written that cash isn’t where Berkshire wants to hold its money.
“Berkshire will never prefer ownership of cash-equivalent assets over the ownership of good businesses, whether controlled or only partially owned,” Buffett wrote in his 2024 shareholder letter.
In other words, the pile tends to build when Berkshire can’t find enough to buy at prices it likes. And it isn’t all extra. CEO Greg Abel said in his first annual letter that some of the money is needed to support Berkshire’s insurance operations.
The pile also builds by itself. Berkshire’s businesses brought in $21.7 billion in operating cash flow in the first half of 2026. After $10.6 billion spent on property and equipment, that left around $11 billion, or about $5.5 billion a quarter, before any stock purchases, buybacks or acquisitions.
Showing how closely the cash figure tracks Berkshire’s stock trading, the pile grew from around $373 billion at the end of 2025 to $380.2 billion at the end of March. It was a quarter when Berkshire sold around $8.1 billion more stock than it bought. Then the pile dropped to $364.7 billion in June, as Berkshire’s stock buys far outpaced its sales. A year before, in the third quarter of 2025, Berkshire had sold around $6.1 billion more stock than it bought.
A single purchase made up a big share of the second quarter’s buying. Berkshire agreed to put $10 billion in Alphabet through a private placement announced on June 1, part of a stock sale to fund Alphabet’s artificial intelligence spending. Without it, net buying would’ve been almost $10 billion — still a clear shift from the selling before it.
Part of the third quarter is already public
Berkshire has already disclosed two big uses of cash in the third quarter. On July 24, it closed its purchase of homebuilder Taylor Morrison for around $6.8 billion in cash. And it bought back over $3.3 billion of its own shares in July, plus around $4.5 billion in the second quarter.
These two moves totaled more than $10 billion, or almost as much as its businesses had left over in the full first half. So a cash pile coming in a bit below $365 billion may mainly reflect deals Berkshire has already disclosed.
The 10-Q also shows buybacks by month. Abel has said Berkshire will buy back shares when they trade under its estimate of intrinsic value (what the whole business is worth).
With the shares now at a record, any buying in August and September may signal Abel still thinks the stock is cheap at higher prices.
What would a bigger drop in cash mean?
If the pile falls well under $365 billion (say, to the low $350 billions), Berkshire probably kept buying stocks, its own shares or both after July. This might signal Abel is still finding things worth owning.
If the pile rises back toward $380 billion instead, the second quarter may have been a one-time opportunity built around the Alphabet deal, not a new habit.
Of course, the cash number also changes with acquisitions and with what the businesses earn. So the net stock buying in the cash flow statement is arguably the better sign.
To me, a second straight quarter of net purchases would count more than any earnings line in the release.
So a smaller cash pile is the result I’d rather see this Saturday. That would mean Berkshire is still finding places to put its money, even at today’s prices.
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Daniel Sparks and his clients have positions in Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
