Greg Abel's First Quarter: How Berkshire's New CEO Is Reshaping the Portfolio

When Warren Buffett stepped down as Berkshire Hathaway's CEO, the investing world held its breath. Would Greg Abel maintain the Oracle's famously conservative style — or chart a new course? The Q1 2026 13F filing, released in May, finally gave us the answer. And it's more dramatic than most expected.

A Portfolio Under Construction

Berkshire entered 2026 with roughly 40 equity positions. By the end of Q1, Abel had pared that down to 29 — a sweeping consolidation that signals a deliberate preference for fewer, higher-conviction bets. The total equity portfolio shrank modestly from approximately $274 billion to $263 billion. Berkshire was a net seller for the quarter, buying roughly $16 billion in stocks while offloading $24 billion.

This isn't panic selling. It's curation. Abel appears to be stripping away positions that Buffett kept out of inertia or courtesy, and doubling down on the businesses he genuinely believes in.

The Blockbuster Buy: Alphabet

The single most striking move in the filing is Berkshire's Alphabet position. Abel increased the Class A stake by roughly 204%, nearly tripling the number of shares held to approximately 57.8 million. At quarter-end, the position was worth around $16.6 billion — vaulting Alphabet into Berkshire's top five equity holdings.

For a firm that spent six decades avoiding big tech, this is a seismic shift. Buffett famously regretted missing Google when it was a fledgling search engine. Abel isn't making that mistake twice. Alphabet combines AI infrastructure buildout, YouTube dominance, and a cash-generating advertising business that remains one of the most durable economic moats on the planet. In a recessionary environment, that combination is hard to beat.

You can track Alphabet's positioning across major institutional portfolios at InvestorLens to see how much conviction other top funds share with Berkshire.

The Clean-Outs: Visa, Mastercard, and More

As notable as the Alphabet surge is what Abel chose to exit entirely. The list of full sells is long and pointed:

• Visa and Mastercard — Berkshire had held both payment networks for years. Their removal is surprising given how well they fit the "toll booth" business model Buffett loved. Abel may see them as fully valued, or simply prefer a cleaner, more concentrated portfolio.
• UnitedHealth Group — Sold completely, amid ongoing regulatory and legal pressures on the health insurance sector.
• Amazon — A relatively recent Berkshire add, now gone. Abel appears less interested in capital-light e-commerce plays.
• Domino's Pizza, Aon, Pool Corp., Charter Communications, Heico, and several Liberty Media entities — all exited.

Sixteen positions in total were eliminated. That's a level of portfolio housecleaning rarely seen at Berkshire.

New Additions: Delta Air Lines and a Few Surprises

While Berkshire was mostly selling, Abel did open and expand some positions. Delta Air Lines emerged as the largest new holding, with 39.8 million shares purchased — valued at roughly $2.6 billion at quarter-end. That's a notable contrarian bet on commercial aviation at a time when macro uncertainty weighs on cyclicals.

Abel also nearly tripled Berkshire's stake in The New York Times Company, added to both share classes of homebuilder Lennar, and initiated a small position in Macy's. The Lennar add suggests Abel sees opportunity in housing even as mortgage rates remain elevated.

What Abel's Style Tells Us

Reading the 13F data through the lens of InvestorLens' macro consensus tools, a few themes emerge:

Concentration over diversification. Dropping from 40 to 29 holdings in a single quarter isn't accidental. Abel is betting that great businesses held in size outperform a sprawling collection of decent ones.

Tech tolerance. Alphabet is the clearest signal yet that Berkshire's circle of competence is expanding. The question is whether this is a one-time addition or the beginning of a broader embrace of high-quality technology compounders.

Cyclical caution, selectively applied. Exiting airlines at Tepper's Appaloosa while Abel buys Delta shows just how differently top investors read the same macro landscape. Track those diverging institutional bets at InvestorLens Flow.

The Bigger Picture

Berkshire's Q1 2026 13F is a rare opportunity to watch a portfolio legend-in-the-making set his initial terms. Abel isn't trying to be Buffett — he's building something new on top of a fortress balance sheet and a 60-year track record.

Whether the Alphabet conviction pays off, whether Delta rebounds, and whether cutting Visa and Mastercard proves brilliant or premature — those answers will unfold over the coming quarters. But one thing is already clear: the post-Buffett era at Berkshire is not going to be boring.

Track Berkshire's full holdings, see how they overlap with other top investors, and monitor new 13F disclosures as they drop at investorlens.capital/investors.

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Data sourced from public SEC 13F filings. Educational research only — not investment advice.