{"id":661585,"date":"2026-05-24T03:12:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T03:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/661585\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T03:12:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T03:12:19","slug":"lingering-mysteries-from-berkshires-portfolio-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/661585\/","title":{"rendered":"Lingering mysteries from Berkshire’s portfolio update"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here<\/a> to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.)<\/p>\n

Lingering mysteries from Berkshire’s portfolio update<\/p>\n

The\u00a0large reduction in the number of stocks<\/a>\u00a0in Berkshire Hathaway’s\u00a0equity portfolio<\/a>\u00a0that was revealed in last Friday’s\u00a0first quarter 13F SEC filing<\/a>\u00a0was perhaps bigger than expected but it wasn’t a total surprise.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0had reported<\/a>\u00a0new CEO Greg Abel<\/a> would be selling many or all of the stocks formerly managed by Todd Combs, who\u00a0left for a job at JPMorgan<\/a>\u00a0late last year.<\/p>\n

It’s harder to explain how the two new names,\u00a0Delta Air Lines<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Macy’s<\/a>,<\/a>\u00a0got into the portfolio.<\/p>\n

Berkshire<\/a> almost never reveals who makes buy and sell decisions for individual stocks, but the rule of thumb had been Warren Buffett<\/a> handled the larger positions, and one of the two (now one) portfolio managers were responsible for the smaller positions.<\/p>\n

Abel, who now has overall responsibility for the company’s investments, replaces Buffett in that construction.<\/p>\n

The Oracle, however, is still coming into the office five days a week as chairman, and in late March he told\u00a0CNBC’s Becky Quick\u00a0he is still making investment calls<\/a>\u00a0but won’t do anything Abel thinks is “wrong.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Presumably, Abel also wouldn’t do anything that Buffett opposes.<\/p>\n

Staff loads packages on a Delta Air Lines plane at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York City, on April 23, 2025.<\/p>\n

Jeenah Moon | Reuters<\/p>\n

That makes the reintroduction of Delta to the portfolio after a\u00a0six-year exile<\/a>\u00a0something\u00a0of a mystery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Buffett, who\u00a0suggested in early 2008<\/a>\u00a0that a “farsighted capitalist” should have shot down Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk, would presumably be unwilling to give an airline stock a third chance after a\u00a0troubled 1989 US Airways investment<\/a>\u00a0and a money-losing 2016 return to the sector that\u00a0he dropped in 2020<\/a>\u00a0at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

And, in fact,\u00a0the Wall Street Journal\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0Monday that Buffett told the paper he wasn’t involved in the Delta decision.<\/p>\n

But it added Berkshire “can’t seem to quit its love affair with airlines” as Abel showed “an early fondness for them, too.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Writing for\u00a0The Motley Fool<\/a>,\u00a0Geoffrey Seiler was disappointed that Abel appeared to be repeating Buffett’s mistakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At Barron’s, though, Andrew Bary<\/a>\u00a0thinks Delta was “likely” a purchase by Ted Weschler, Berkshire’s remaining portfolio manager.<\/p>\n

At $2.6 billion, as of March 31, it “exactly matches the increased authority of about $3 billion that he got this year as his responsibility went to 6% of the portfolio from 5%, based on\u00a0Abel’s comments in his annual letter<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Bary also notes Weschler “has a value bent, and Delta is the industry leader valued at around 10 times earnings.”<\/p>\n

Either way, it is at least a short-term success.<\/p>\n

The Delta holding is now valued at $3.0 billion, a 14.5% increase from the end of the first quarter.<\/p>\n

That includes an 8.4% jump this past week to a record-high close of $76.14.<\/p>\n

Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsDid Buffett buy a ‘tiny’ Macy’s stake?<\/p>\n

Berkshire’s new Macy’s position is also a short-term win, but the total value is just a fraction of the Delta buy.<\/p>\n

It’s gone from $55 million as of March 31 to $63 million now, an increase of 14.2%, including a 12.2% rally this week.<\/p>\n

Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards<\/p>\n

Usually, a position that accounts for less than 0.02% of Berkshire’s equity portfolio would be seen as the work of a portfolio manager.<\/p>\n

But in that\u00a0March interview with\u00a0CNBC<\/a>,\u00a0Becky asked him if he is still making new purchases and he replied, “Got one tiny purchase, but we aren’t finding things that \u2014 we weren’t finding them before.”<\/p>\n

CNBC thinks<\/a>\u00a0he may have been referring to the Macy’s stake but notes he could also have been talking about an international purchase or other investment that would not have to be included in the 13F filing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square in New York, Dec. 23, 2021.<\/p>\n

Scott Mlyn | CNBC<\/p>\n

Barron’s\u00a0also believes<\/a>\u00a0Buffett’s comment could have been a reference to the Macy’s position.<\/p>\n

It sees the retailer’s “significant real-estate holdings” as a plus and recalls that in 2015, Buffett personally bought for his own account an 8% stake in Seritage Growth Properties, which controlled stores and real estate spun off by Sears.<\/p>\n

“It would be notable if the Macy’s buy was done by Buffett. It would show that at 95, he still loves the investment game and can’t resist a bargain-priced stock even if the size of the holding is too small to matter at Berkshire.”<\/p>\n

Berkshire keeps buying in Japan<\/p>\n

Two new filings in Japan show Berkshire is continuing to build its positions in at least two of the country’s enormous “trading houses<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Its Mitsubishi<\/a> stake\u00a0increased to 11.1%<\/a>\u00a0as of April 30, up from 9.7% previously, and its Sumitomo<\/a> stake\u00a0rose to 10.3%<\/a>\u00a0as of May 12, up from 9.3%.<\/p>\n

Abel has been involved in Berkshire’s Japanese investments for the past several years and almost certainly is behind the additional purchases.<\/p>\n

Berkshire may be buying more shares of its other Japanese stocks but only needs to file updates when a holding ratio increases by 1% or more.<\/p>\n

The total value of the six stocks, as currently disclosed, is almost $46 billion.<\/p>\n

Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsBUFFETT & BERKSHIRE AROUND THE INTERNET<\/p>\n

Some links may require a subscription:<\/p>\n

BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCHZoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsZoom In IconArrows pointing outwards<\/p>\n

BRK.A stock price: $728,641.00<\/p>\n

BRK.B stock price: $486.38<\/p>\n

BRK.B P\/E (TTM): 14.48<\/p>\n

Berkshire market capitalization: $1,048,584,611,864\u00a0<\/p>\n

Berkshire Cash as of December 31: $373.3 billion (Down 2.2% from Sept. 30)<\/p>\n

Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $369.0 billion (Up 4.1% from September 30)<\/p>\n

Berkshire repurchased $234 million of its shares in Q1 2026.<\/p>\n

BERKSHIRE’S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS – May 22, 2026Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards<\/p>\n

Berkshire’s top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, by market value, based on the latest closing prices.<\/p>\n

Holdings are as of March 31, as reported in\u00a0Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing<\/a>\u00a0on May 15, except for:<\/p>\n

The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com’s\u00a0Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS<\/p>\n

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at\u00a0alex.crippen@nbcuni.com<\/a>. (Sorry, but we don’t forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)<\/p>\n

If you aren’t already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also, Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected\u00a0here on Berkshire’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch<\/p>\n

Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[41737,116,28,122,5244,5237,43278,1534,81584,112,117995,221437,117993,221438,21,724],"class_list":["post-661585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-berkshire-hathaway-inc","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-coca-cola-co","tag-delta-air-lines-inc","tag-greg-abel","tag-jpmorgan-chase-co","tag-macys-inc","tag-markets","tag-mitsubishi-corp","tag-mitsubishi-ufj-financial-group-inc","tag-sumitomo-corp","tag-sumitomo-mitsui-financial-group-inc","tag-united-states","tag-warren-buffett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}