Berkshire Hathaway Ends 14-Quarter Selling Streak as Greg Abel Deploys $19.8 Billion Into Stocks

For 14 straight quarters, Berkshire Hathaway sold more stock than it bought. That streak is over.

Berkshire reported second-quarter operating earnings of $12.98 billion, up 16% from $11.16 billion a year earlier, according to CNBC. Manufacturing, service and retailing earnings jumped 24% to $4.47 billion. Berkshire Hathaway Energy profit surged 27% to $891 million. BNSF Railway posted a 6% gain to $1.56 billion.

Net profit, which includes investment gains and swings with the stock market, came in at $25.67 billion, more than double the $12.37 billion reported a year earlier, according to finance.biggo. That jump came mostly from paper gains, not operations. After-tax investment gains hit $12.68 billion, with unrealized equity portfolio gains alone adding roughly $10.9 billion. Berkshire itself has cautioned, per finance.biggo, that these paper gains don't reflect a real improvement in operating strength. Operating earnings are still the number that matters.

Not every business had a good quarter. Insurance underwriting earnings fell 13% to $1.73 billion, and insurance investment income dropped 9% to $3.06 billion, according to CNBC. Finance.biggo reported that GEICO's auto insurance underwriting profit plunged 45%, a sharp divergence from the strength in energy and manufacturing.

Abel Puts the Cash to Work

Greg Abel, who took over from Warren Buffett at the start of the year, is finally spending the money.

Berkshire's cash pile fell to $365.5 billion at the end of June from a record $397.4 billion three months earlier, according to CNBC. The company became a net buyer of equities for the first time in 14 quarters. According to the Motley Fool, citing Berkshire's SEC filings, the company purchased nearly $23.5 billion in stocks during the quarter and sold only about $3.7 billion, for net purchases of roughly $19.8 billion.

Berkshire also repurchased approximately $4.5 billion of its own shares in the quarter, up sharply from just $235 million in the first three months of 2026. Ground.news called it the largest quarterly buyback since 2021 and noted Berkshire followed that with more than $3.3 billion in additional repurchases in July. The Motley Fool put the shift in context: Berkshire bought back no stock at all in 2025 and only about $2.9 billion in 2024.

The biggest single move was a $10 billion investment in Alphabet, disclosed earlier this year, which now places Google's parent company among Berkshire's top five equity holdings alongside longtime stakes American Express, Apple, Bank of America and Coca-Cola, according to CNBC. Buffett told CNBC he initiated the Alphabet position after consulting with Abel. This detail is significant given the timing, since it undercuts any narrative that Abel is operating without Buffett's input.

Finance.biggo also reported that Berkshire closed its OxyChem acquisition during the first half of the year. The Taylor Morrison Home Corp. deal, a $6.8 billion homebuilder acquisition, closed after the second quarter ended, according to the Motley Fool, so its full financial impact won't show up until third-quarter results. Together, the two acquisitions total around $16.2 billion.

Shareholders Get Results, But Questions Remain

Buffett spent years telling shareholders he couldn't find good values in the market. That caution built the largest cash fortress in corporate America. Shareholders have been pushing for Abel to actually use it.

Now he is. But shares of Berkshire are up just 3% on the year, badly trailing the S&P 500's 13% gain, according to CNBC, though the stock has picked up 9% over the last three months.

The strongest case for skepticism here comes straight from the Motley Fool: net stock buying and a buyback restart look constructive, but nobody should treat this as a "screaming buy" signal just because Abel spent some cash. Buffett ran Berkshire for six decades and built a track record that took generations to establish. One good quarter of capital deployment from his successor doesn't replicate that.

There's also a real information gap right now. Investors won't know exactly which stocks Berkshire bought and sold in the second quarter until the company files its 13F disclosure with the SEC, which the Motley Fool says will likely happen after markets close on August 14. Until then, the Alphabet stake is the only confirmed major purchase. The rest of that $19.8 billion in net buying is still a mystery.

Berkshire still sits on $365.5 billion in cash. Whatever Abel does with the rest of it will be the real test of whether this quarter marked a genuine strategy shift or just a one-time deployment tied to a handful of specific deals.