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For fourteen straight quarters, Berkshire Hathaway was a seller. Under Warren Buffett’s late tenure, cash piled up — eventually reaching a staggering $397 billion — as the Oracle of Omaha said publicly he simply could not find stocks worth buying at prevailing prices. Wall Street fretted, shareholders grumbled, and the media wondered if the greatest capital allocator in history had lost his edge or simply given up.
Then Greg Abel took over as CEO in January 2026. And on Saturday, the new man at the helm answered every critic at once.
Berkshire’s second-quarter 2026 earnings report revealed a dramatic pivot: the conglomerate became a net buyer of equities for the first time in over three years, deploying nearly $20 billion in net stock purchases during the quarter alone. Total share buybacks hit $4.53 billion — the largest quarterly repurchase since 2021 — signaling Abel’s conviction that Berkshire’s own stock remains undervalued. The cash pile dropped from $397.4 billion to $365.5 billion, a $32 billion drawdown that marks the sharpest single-quarter deployment in years.
The operating numbers were equally strong. Operating earnings climbed 16% year-over-year to $12.98 billion, fueled by a 24% surge in manufacturing, service and retail earnings ($4.47 billion) and a 27% jump in Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s profit to $891 million. BNSF, the company’s freight railroad, posted a 6% gain to $1.56 billion. Net income hit $25.67 billion — more than double the year-ago figure — driven by $10.9 billion in investment gains. Insurance underwriting was the lone soft spot, slipping 13% to $1.73 billion.
Abel’s biggest disclosed bet: a $10 billion stake in Alphabet, Google’s parent company, which Buffett himself told CNBC he had initiated in consultation with Abel. Alphabet now ranks among Berkshire’s five largest equity holdings alongside American Express, Apple, Bank of America, and Coca-Cola. The quarter also included the closing of Berkshire’s acquisition of homebuilder Taylor Morrison — a direct play on American domestic housing demand.
The message from Omaha is clear: Abel is not merely maintaining the Buffett legacy — he is accelerating it. While the financial media spent months speculating about whether Abel could fill Buffett’s shoes, the Q2 results show a CEO who spent his first quarter learning the terrain and his second quarter putting the pedal down. He is betting big on American companies, American housing, and American tech infrastructure at a moment when many on Wall Street are still hedging.
Berkshire shares are up just 3% on the year versus the S&P 500’s 13% gain — a gap Abel is now clearly motivated to close. If Q2 is a preview of what the Abel era looks like, shareholders who wrote off Berkshire as yesterday’s story may want to reconsider.
The Buffett era is over. The Abel era is open for business.
