NEW YORK, Jan 2, 2026, 06:51 ET
- Warren Buffett ended his 60-year run as Berkshire Hathaway CEO at year-end, with Greg Abel taking over.
- Berkshire’s last disclosed holdings showed Apple still the top stake, alongside a newly revealed Alphabet position.
- Analysts and investing outlets say Berkshire’s portfolio remains highly concentrated in a handful of stocks.
Warren Buffett has stepped down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, handing the reins of the $1.08 trillion conglomerate to Greg Abel as 2026 begins. Berkshire’s Class A shares slipped 0.1% on Dec. 31, Buffett’s final day as CEO, while the S&P 500 fell 0.7%.
The transition puts a spotlight on Berkshire’s scale as both an operating company and a major investor. A regulatory filing for holdings as of Sept. 30 showed Berkshire ended the quarter with $381.7 billion in cash and equivalents and a $283.2 billion equity portfolio, still led by Apple even after the company cut the stake to 238.2 million shares valued at $60.7 billion. The same filing disclosed a new $4.3 billion position in Alphabet, a rare technology addition for Buffett’s group.
Portfolio concentration is part of what investors are watching as Abel takes over. Apple, American Express and Bank of America together account for roughly half of Berkshire’s U.S. stock holdings, according to calculations by 24/7 Wall St based on regulatory filings.
Berkshire’s stock holdings are tracked closely because its biggest positions can shape performance, and disclosures can move sentiment around the underlying names. The company’s quarterly Form 13F is a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that shows what large investment managers owned at quarter end.
The September snapshot underscored how far Berkshire has moved from a period when Apple dominated the portfolio even more heavily. Berkshire has sold nearly three-quarters of the more than 900 million Apple shares it once held, though the iPhone maker remains its largest stock holding, the filing showed.
Alphabet’s position, by contrast, is modest in Berkshire terms. Still, it landed as the conglomerate’s tenth-largest U.S. stock holding at the time, and it stood out given Buffett’s long-running skepticism toward many technology businesses.
The filing also showed Berkshire remained a net seller of stocks in the July-to-September period. Berkshire continued trimming its Bank of America stake and added to some positions, including insurer Chubb and Domino’s Pizza, according to the same disclosure.
Outside the top three, Berkshire’s biggest equity bets still skew toward household brands and financial services. Forbes India pointed to long-held positions including Coca-Cola and a cluster of energy names, led by Chevron and Occidental Petroleum, as core parts of the portfolio alongside Apple and American Express.
Some investing outlets have framed the Alphabet entry as a step toward an “AI stock” exposure. The Motley Fool said Berkshire’s cash build and Apple trimming helped fund a newly disclosed stake in Alphabet, while Berkshire continues to keep significant funds in Treasury bills, short-term U.S. government debt. The Motley Fool
Alphabet competes with rivals including Microsoft across cloud computing and AI tools that are being integrated into consumer and enterprise products. For Berkshire, the addition offers a small expansion beyond Apple into a second mega-cap technology name.
Investors have long debated how much of Berkshire’s valuation reflects Buffett’s reputation as a capital allocator, versus the earnings power of its underlying businesses. “There is a huge halo effect (from Buffett),” said Lawrence Cunningham, a George Washington University law professor and author of several books on Buffett and Berkshire.
