Greg Abel -- top stock picker and CEO -- reduced the company's portfolio in financial shares during the second quarter
By Krystal Hur
Berkshire Hathaway added to its stakes in Google's parent and America's home-building industry during the second quarter, while selling off its position in Constellation Brands.
The Omaha, Neb.-based conglomerate continued to double down on home builders after completing a $6.8 billion purchase of Taylor Morrison in July. Berkshire opened a position in D.R. Horton, which it previously owned before shedding its holding completely last year, while adding to its stake in Lennar.
Berkshire also bulked up its position in Macy's and the New York Times. The conglomerate pared its stakes in financial companies, including Bank of America, Capital One and Ally Financial. Berkshire also sold shares of steel manufacturer Nucor, Kroger and kidney-care company DaVita.
Berkshire disclosed its stockholdings in a regulatory filing Friday afternoon.
Berkshire, which first started buying Alphabet stock last year, has now accumulated some 106 million shares valued at roughly $38 billion. It is now one of the company's top five stock investments. The others are: American Express, Apple, Bank of America and Coca-Cola.
In June, Berkshire agreed to buy $10 billion in stock after Alphabet said it planned to issue $80 billion in equity to fund investments in data centers and computing capacity needed to train and run AI models.
The purchases help address a common question among Berkshire shareholders: Would Warren Buffett's company find a bigger way into the AI trade that has taken the markets by storm in recent years? In May, CEO Greg Abel said at Berkshire's annual meeting that some of its subsidiaries, including BNSF Railway, were exploring opportunities to use AI.
Some analysts say that they don't expect Berkshire to plow cash into stocks while the market is near a record high, and that its roughly $4.5 billion worth of buybacks of company shares during the second quarter is keeping shareholders satisfied for now.
"The jury is still out," said Steven Check, president of Check Capital Management, which owns some Berkshire stock. "None of us want to see Greg spending the money for the sake of spending the money."
Berkshire liquidated most of the roughly 15 positions during the first quarter that were managed by Todd Combs -- an investment manager who decamped for JPMorgan Chase -- Buffett told The Wall Street Journal in May. Buffett added that it is possible the conglomerate retained some of Combs's stocks, and it is unclear whether Berkshire ended June with any of those holdings.
Institutional investors managing at least $100 million in U.S. stocks and certain other equities must disclose their holdings at the end of each quarter in Form 13F filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Form 13Fs provide an outdated look at stock portfolios because investors have 45 days to submit the filings. Still, Berkshire's disclosures are widely parsed by market participants seeking insight into the decisions made by the company Buffett ran for decades.
Berkshire Class A shares have gained 0.1% this year, short of the S&P 500 index's 14% gain.