Berkshire Hathaway Spent $7.8 Billion Buying Back Its Own Stock Last Quarter — and Reshuffled Its Portfolio

Berkshire Hathaway repurchased more than $7.8 billion of its own stock in the second quarter of 2026, while its cash pile declined to $364.7 billion, according to results reported August 8 (Reuters). The conglomerate's operating profit rose 16% year-over-year to $12.98 billion for the quarter (Reuters).

A buyback is when a company uses its own cash to purchase shares from the open market, reducing the number of shares outstanding and effectively returning money to remaining shareholders. The $7.8 billion figure, disclosed in Berkshire's latest Form 13F-HR filing with the U.S. SEC on EDGAR (accession number 0001193125-26-054580, CIK 1067983), marks a step-up in repurchases relative to the cash-hoarding posture that defined much of the preceding period. The cash drawdown from record levels signals that Berkshire found more uses for capital at current valuations — either in its own equity or in select external positions — than it did holding short-duration Treasury instruments.

The 13F filing, a quarterly report required of large institutional investors, details portfolio moves that show active rotation. Berkshire initiated a new position in Delta Air Lines and added to its existing Alphabet stake. On the sell side, the firm reduced or exited positions in Amazon, UnitedHealth Group, Visa, and Mastercard (Reuters via Facebook).

The filing also reveals new positions in Nucor, Lamar Advertising, and Allegion, along with re-established stakes in homebuilders Lennar and D.R. Horton (Reuters via Facebook). Taken together, the additions skew toward cyclical industrials and housing-related names, while the divestments trim exposure to consumer technology, healthcare, and payments infrastructure.

The 16% operating profit increase to $12.98 billion provides the earnings backdrop that makes the capital deployment possible. Operating profit excludes investment gains and losses, and is the metric Berkshire itself emphasizes as the cleaner gauge of underlying business performance across its insurance, railroad, utilities, and manufacturing segments.

The broader context here is one of capital allocation under a relatively new leadership structure. The buyback acceleration, the cash drawdown, and the portfolio reshuffle all occurred in the same quarter, and together they constitute the most concentrated burst of deployment activity since Greg Abel succeeded Warren Buffett. The 13F, filed with the SEC, offers the official record of equity holdings as of June 30, 2026, while the earnings and buyback figures come from the quarterly results release.

For savers and investors tracking Berkshire as a market bellwether, three data points stand out. First, the $7.8 billion buyback is a direct statement that management views Berkshire's own shares as attractively priced relative to intrinsic value — the per-share estimate of what a business is fundamentally worth — a stance the company is required by SEC Rule 10b-18 to back with actual capital at prevailing market prices. Second, the cash decline to $364.7 billion, while still enormous in absolute terms, reverses a multi-quarter trend of accumulation and suggests the marginal dollar is now being deployed rather than warehoused. Third, the portfolio rotation away from Amazon, UnitedHealth, Visa, and Mastercard toward industrials, housing, and advertising infrastructure reflects a sector tilt worth noting, though 13F filings capture a point-in-time snapshot and do not reveal the rationale behind individual decisions.

The new positions in Nucor (steel), Lamar Advertising (outdoor billboard REIT — a type of company that owns real estate and pays out most income as dividends), and Allegion (security products) diversify Berkshire's equity book into areas not previously emphasized, while the return to Lennar and D.R. Horton signals renewed interest in residential construction exposure. Delta Air Lines as a new holding adds an airline to the portfolio, a sector Berkshire has traded in and out of in prior years.

None of this constitutes investment advice, and 13F filings are inherently backward-looking, reporting positions as of a date roughly 45 days prior to the filing deadline. What the document does provide is a clear, audited snapshot of how one of the world's largest capital allocators chose to position its equity portfolio at midyear 2026, alongside concrete evidence that operating earnings growth and buyback activity are both running at elevated rates.