What Berkshire Hathaway Just Did With $7.8 Billion of Its Own Money
Berkshire Hathaway spent more than $7.8 billion buying back its own stock in the second quarter of 2026. At the same time, its cash pile shrank to $364.7 billion, according to results reported August 8 (Reuters). The company's operating profit rose 16% from a year earlier to $12.98 billion for the quarter (Reuters).
A stock buyback is simple in concept: a company uses its own money to buy shares back from the market. Fewer shares remain in circulation, so each remaining shareholder owns a slightly larger slice of the company. Think of it like a pizza — if you remove a slice and hand it back to the kitchen, everyone else at the table gets a bigger piece of what's left.
The $7.8 billion figure came from Berkshire's latest filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the government agency that oversees financial markets (Form 13F-HR, accession number 0001193125-26-054580, CIK 1067983). The buyback marks a step up from the cash-hoarding approach Berkshire had taken for much of the prior period. The cash drawdown from record levels signals that Berkshire found better uses for its money — either in its own shares or in select outside investments — than sitting in short-term U.S. government bonds.
The same filing details how Berkshire shuffled its investment portfolio. The company bought a new stake in Delta Air Lines and added to its existing Alphabet stake. On the sell side, Berkshire reduced or exited positions in Amazon, UnitedHealth Group, Visa, and Mastercard (Reuters via Facebook).
The filing also reveals new positions in Nucor (a steel company), Lamar Advertising (outdoor billboards), and Allegion (security products), along with renewed stakes in homebuilders Lennar and D.R. Horton (Reuters via Facebook). Taken together, the new additions lean toward industrial companies and housing, while the sales trimmed exposure to consumer technology, healthcare, and payments.
The 16% operating profit increase to $12.98 billion is what made all this spending possible. Operating profit strips out gains and losses from investments, focusing on how the underlying businesses actually performed. Berkshire itself prefers this number because its operations span insurance, railroads, utilities, and manufacturing.
The broader context here is one of new leadership. Greg Abel took over from Warren Buffett, and this quarter — with its buyback surge, cash drawdown, and portfolio reshuffle — represents the most concentrated burst of activity since that transition. The SEC filing provides the official record of Berkshire's stock holdings as of June 30, 2026, while the earnings and buyback figures come from the quarterly results release.
For anyone watching Berkshire as a signal for the wider market, three things stand out. First, the $7.8 billion buyback says management thinks its own shares are a good deal at current prices. Second, the cash drop to $364.7 billion, while still a massive sum, reverses a trend of piling up cash quarter after quarter. Third, the shift away from Amazon, UnitedHealth, Visa, and Mastercard toward industrials, housing, and advertising is a sector change worth noting, though the filing does not explain the reasoning behind individual decisions.
None of this is investment advice. These filings are backward-looking, showing positions as of roughly 45 days before they were made public. What they do offer is a clear snapshot of how one of the world's biggest investors chose to position itself at midyear 2026, alongside concrete evidence that both earnings and buyback activity are running at high levels.
