Berkshire's Cash Pile: Buybacks vs. 13F Stock Buys

The cash pile is finally moving

For years, the main question about Berkshire Hathaway was simple: when will it spend the cash? Under CEO Greg Abel, the answer in 2026 is "now, and in more than one way." According to reporting on Berkshire's second-quarter results, cash fell to $364.7 billion at the end of June from a record $380.2 billion three months earlier.

The interesting part for 13F readers is where that money went. Only part of it went into the stock portfolio you can see in the filing.

Three places the cash went

Buybacks. Berkshire repurchased about $4.5 billion of its own stock from April through June, then more than $3.3 billion in July. That followed nearly two years with no repurchases at all. Buybacks never appear in a 13F, because the filing only lists long positions in other companies' securities.

Whole-company deals. The reported cash figure also reflects roughly $6.8 billion spent in late July to buy homebuilder Taylor Morrison. An outright acquisition is another capital allocation choice that is invisible in the quarterly holdings report.

Public stocks. This is the part the 13F captures. Berkshire bought nearly $20 billion more stock than it sold in the quarter, ending 14 straight quarters as a net seller. That included about $10 billion added to its existing Alphabet stake.

Why this matters when you read the filing

If you only looked at the 13F, you would see a net buyer adding to a mega-cap tech name. That is a real signal, and you can follow it on our investors page. But it understates the total picture. Berkshire's deployment was split between buybacks, an acquisition, and market purchases. Treating the 13F as the whole story would overstate how much of the cash went into listed equities.

The reverse mistake is also common: assuming a falling cash balance means heavy stock buying. A lot of that decline came from other uses.

Buybacks are a valuation statement

When a company with Berkshire's reputation for patience resumes repurchases, it is implicitly saying its own shares are worth more than the price. Pairing that with a large Alphabet purchase suggests management sees value in more than one place at once. That does not make either call right, but it is useful context when you weigh how much conviction the 13F purchase carries.

Compare it with how other large holders behaved. You can check which names are drawing buyers across many portfolios on our overlap tool, and see net buying and selling across funds on the flow page. If Berkshire's Alphabet purchase lines up with accumulation elsewhere, the signal is stronger than one filer acting alone.

What to watch next

The next 13F deadline covers the third quarter, with filings due by mid-November. By then Berkshire will have had a full quarter of buybacks and the Taylor Morrison deal on the books. Questions worth tracking:

• Did equity purchases continue, or was Q2 a one-off after a long selling streak?
• Did Alphabet keep growing as a share of the reported portfolio?
• Did the cash balance keep falling, and how much of the drop came from buybacks versus market purchases?

Remember the usual limits: 13F data is a snapshot as of quarter-end, filed with a lag, and it excludes cash, buybacks, private deals and short positions. For a broader view of how institutions are positioned, see our macro consensus page.

The takeaway

Berkshire's cash is being spent through several channels, and the 13F shows only one of them. Read the filing for what it is: an accurate record of listed long positions, not a full account of how a company deploys capital.

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