The leadership timeline
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Jan. 1, 2026 | Buffett steps down as CEO; Greg Abel takes over | >Motley Fool |
| Feb. 28, 2026 | Abel's first shareholder letter praises Berkshire's concentrated core holdings | >Motley Fool |
| May 2026 | Q1 13F shows 16 exits, a new Delta stake and a larger Alphabet stake | >Forbes |
| Aug. 14, 2026 | Q2 13F shows Berkshire back to net buying | >Kiplinger |
| Sept. 18, 2026 | Buffett steps down as chairman; Howard Buffett becomes chairman | >NPR/AP |
The 96-year-old Buffett stays on as a director with the title chairman emeritus. His son Howard has sat on Berkshire's board since 1993 (>NPR/AP). "Father Time always wins," Buffett wrote (>CNN).
Buffett also made clear who is running the portfolio. "He has been making the decisions that matter for some time now, and I have not had to think twice about any of them," he said of Abel (>Motley Fool).
Q1 2026: the big cleanup
Abel's first 13F was a pruning job. Forbes reported that Berkshire's $263.1 billion portfolio held 29 companies at quarter end, 13 fewer than the quarter before. Berkshire was a net seller of almost $8.2 billion in stocks (>Forbes).
The 16 full exits: Visa, Mastercard, UnitedHealth, Domino's Pizza, Aon, Pool Corp., Amazon, Heico, Liberty Media (FWONK), Charter Communications, Lamar Advertising, Allegion, Diageo, both Liberty Latin America share classes, and Atlanta Braves Holdings.
The notable buys: - A new $2.6 billion Delta Air Lines stake, making Berkshire Delta's third-largest owner at 6.06%. - A larger Alphabet stake, worth $16.6 billion and now Berkshire's 7th-largest position.
What stayed put: Apple. Berkshire made no change to it in Q1, after trimming it in each of the three prior quarters.
All Q1 figures come from >Forbes.
By our arithmetic, 16 exits and a net drop of 13 names means three new holdings. The Motley Fool describes Abel's approach as cutting stakes in several smaller positions while building Alphabet into a top-five holding (>Motley Fool). The result is fewer, larger bets.
Q2 2026: back to buying
The second quarter flipped the direction. Kiplinger reported that Berkshire bought $19.8 billion of stock and sold $3.7 billion, a net purchase of $16.1 billion by our arithmetic. It also repurchased $4.5 billion of its own shares, its largest quarterly buyback since 2021, and bought back another $3.3 billion in July (>Kiplinger).
| Q2 move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Alphabet | Added about $10 billion via a private placement disclosed June 1; combined stake about $36.6 billion, the third-largest holding | >Kiplinger, >Yahoo Finance |
| Delta Air Lines | Stake raised 44% to more than 57 million shares | >Kiplinger |
| Homebuilders | Lennar stakes increased; $6.8 billion Taylor Morrison acquisition closed in July | >Kiplinger |
| Bank of America | Trimmed 5.9%, about $1.7 billion; eight straight quarters of selling have cut the stake 53% | >Yahoo Finance |
| Capital One | Cut 58% | >Yahoo Finance |
| Kroger | Cut 22% | >Kiplinger |
| Constellation Brands | Sold entirely; the only full exit of the quarter | >Kiplinger |
With the Alphabet additions, the combined stake ranks behind only Apple ($69.7 billion) and American Express ($51.9 billion), and ahead of Coca-Cola ($35.1 billion), per >Yahoo Finance.
What did not change
The core is intact. In his February letter, Abel praised concentration in companies Berkshire understands well, instead of treating it as a reason to trim (>Motley Fool).
The Motley Fool puts numbers on that core. At the end of 2025, Berkshire's combined cost basis in Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola and Moody's was $9.089 billion. The market value was $158.617 billion. Those four paid Berkshire $1.668 billion in dividends in 2025.
Cash is still enormous. Berkshire held $365.5 billion as of June 30, more than its public stock holdings, which were worth $360.1 billion at the September 17 close (>Motley Fool). Kiplinger notes that was down from a record $380 billion at the end of Q1.
The stock has lagged. Berkshire was up 1.3% for the year as of the Fool's September 20 article, against an 11.6% gain for the S&P 500.
Why the 13F is always behind
Every change above comes from Form 13F filings or company statements. Managers file a 13F within 45 days after each quarter ends, and short positions are not included, per the >SEC.
Berkshire's Alphabet deal shows the gap. The $10 billion private placement was announced on June 1. The 13F that confirmed it came out on August 14 (>Kiplinger). Anyone relying only on 13Fs saw it more than two months later.
How to use it on the Loomi.Ai Desk
Legends is the Desk feature built for this. Loomi's plan cards list "Top 7 Hedge Fund Portfolios to clone," and the $8 tier includes "Backtest Lab + Hedge Fund Legends."
- Read the filing date first. Loomi's own guidance: "Legends organizes disclosed fund holdings. Check the filing date and reporting period before comparing them with your own watchlist; a reported portfolio is not a live view of a fund's trades."
- Separate the core from the churn. Before you copy a new name, check how big it is in the portfolio. A $2.6 billion Delta stake is a very different signal from a position that is a fraction of a percent.
- Check the setup on your own chart. Use the Desk's scanners and the Backtest Lab to see how a stock Berkshire added has behaved before you act. Backtests are hypothetical.
Desk membership is $8/mo intro, then $20/mo, with a 3-day free trial that requires a payment method.
Put the research to work on your Desk
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FAQ
Who is running Berkshire Hathaway now? Greg Abel has been CEO since January 1, 2026. Howard Buffett became chairman on September 18, 2026, and Warren Buffett is chairman emeritus and a director (>NPR/AP).
What stocks did Berkshire sell under Greg Abel? In Q1 2026 it exited 16 positions, including Visa, Mastercard, Amazon and UnitedHealth (>Forbes). In Q2 it sold all of Constellation Brands and trimmed Bank of America, Capital One and Kroger.
What has Berkshire bought since Buffett stepped down as CEO? Delta Air Lines, a much larger Alphabet stake, more Lennar, and the Taylor Morrison acquisition, per Forbes and Kiplinger.
Is Berkshire still selling Apple? Apple was unchanged in Q1 2026 after three quarters of trimming (>Forbes), and it remained the top holding at $69.7 billion after Q2 (>Yahoo Finance).
Loomi.Ai provides educational market research, not financial advice. 13F data is delayed and does not show a fund's current positions.
Sources
- >Warren Buffett Steps Down as Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. 3 Predictions for What Comes Next Under CEO Greg Abel., The Motley Fool (Sept. 20, 2026)
- >Berkshire Portfolio Shifts As Abel Reshapes Buffett's Playbook, Forbes (May 16, 2026)
- >The Stocks Berkshire Bought and Sold in Q2, Kiplinger (Aug. 14, 2026)
- >Berkshire Hathaway adds $17 billion to Alphabet stake in Q2 2026, Yahoo Finance (Aug. 17, 2026)
- >Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway chairman, NPR / The Associated Press (Sept. 18, 2026)
- >Warren Buffett steps down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, CNN Business (Sept. 18, 2026)
- >Frequently Asked Questions About Form 13F, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission