Buffett's Berkshire added a new stock to its portfolio. It rose 38% in the third quarter

Warren Buffett's investment company Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a new position: it acquired Class A shares of Google's holding company Alphabet during the third quarter. This follows a Form 13F filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Alphabet's Class A shares rose 38% during the third quarter - from July 1 to September 30. At the same time, Berkshire continued to reduce its stakes in Apple and Bank of America. This was the penultimate quarter for Berkshire under Buffett's leadership.

As of Sept. 30, Berkshire owned about 17.9 million Alphabet shares, with a total value at the time estimated at $4.3 billion. That corresponds to 0.31% of the total number of Alphabet Class A shares outstanding, Bloomberg wrote. In Berkshire's portfolio, the securities ranked tenth in terms of share size, CNBC reported. The same number of Alphabet Class A shares is now worth about $5 billion, based on Nov. 14 prices, MarketWatch noted.

Alphabet's shares of A and C classes at the extended trading on November 14 rose by about 2.5%. They ended the main session with a decrease of 0.78%. Berkshire class B shares were losing about 0.14% on the postmarket after falling by 0.8% on the main trades.

In the third quarter, Berkshire increased its stake in pizza chain Domino's Pizza by 13%, and also expanded its stake in insurer Chubb by almost 16%. Berkshire bought 4.3 million shares of the latter, bringing the value of its stake in Chubb to $8.8 billion (as of the end of the quarter). Stakes in construction company Lennar, advertising company Lamar Advertising and entertainment company Sirius XM Holdings also increased.

At the same time, the Buffett-led company continued to cut its position in Apple, reducing the paper's share of the portfolio by another 15% over the quarter to $60.7 billion (as of Sept. 30). However, the iPhone maker is still Berkshire's largest investment, taking up nearly a quarter of its portfolio.

In addition, the conglomerate sold 37.2 million shares of Bank of America: now it owns 7.7% of securities of the credit organization, writes Bloomberg. This share was worth at the end of September just under $30 billion. Also Berkshire reduced in the companies Verisign (immediately by 32%) and DaVita and completely got rid of a stake in the construction company D.R. Horton. Horton. Overall, Buffett's company sold more shares (by $6.1 billion) than it bought, for the 12th consecutive quarter, CNBC noted.

Alphabet's Class A shares are now worth 46% more than they were at the start of 2025. The stock was falling at double-digit rates in February and March. The situation changed dramatically in September, when the antitrust case ended better than expected: after that, Alphabet shares rose 14% in September and 16% in October.

The acquisition of Alphabet shares is an unexpected move for Berkshire, given that Buffett prefers to invest in traditional "value stocks" and is cautious about fast-growing technology companies, CNBC writes. Although Berkshire has owned Apple stock for years, Buffett himself has repeatedly emphasized that he views Apple more as a consumer company rather than a technology bet. Most likely, the purchase of Alphabet shares was made by Berkshire's investment managers - Ted Weschler or Todd Combs, the channel suggested. One of them initiated the purchase of Amazon securities in 2019: Berkshire still owns a $2.2 billion stake in the retailer, CNBC added.

In 2018, Buffett admitted he "missed" an early opportunity to invest in Google, even though he understood the potential of the company's advertising model. "I saw how the product worked, and I knew what their margins were," the billionaire said. - But I didn't know enough about the technology to know if this was really the company to stop the competitive race."

Warren Buffett will leave the post of CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of 2025: from January 1, 2026 the company will be headed by Greg Abel. In his annual Thanksgiving letter, Buffett said that he plans to more actively transfer his fortune, including Berkshire Hathaway shares, to his children's foundations. In doing so, he promised to maintain "a significant number of Class A shares" for some time after his retirement. Buffett rated Berkshire's business outlook as "moderately above average."

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor