Warren Buffett turns 96 on Sunday, still very much in the action at Berkshire Hathaway even though he handed over the CEO role last year. As chairman, he continues to make the big calls on equities, including building a stake in Alphabet that now stands at $36.6 billion.
Berkshire shareholders, though, have little to celebrate in the stock’s recent performance. After a post-earnings rally that pushed the Class B shares to an intraday high of $537.74 on Aug. 10 — their best level since before Buffett’s May 2025 announcement that he would step down as CEO — the stock has pulled back, closing Friday at $505.00. That leaves it up just 0.5% year to date, trailing the S&P 500’s 12.7% gain by 12.2 percentage points.
Why the lag? Barron’s, as cited in the CNBC newsletter, lists several possible explanations: uncertainty over Greg Abel’s leadership as CEO, disappointment that Berkshire hasn’t been cutting its still-huge cash pile more aggressively, the company’s continued refusal to pay a dividend, and its failure to land a mega-acquisition of $100 billion or more.
Berkshire’s cash position did shrink in the second quarter, but it remains enormous. As of June 30, the company held $365.5 billion in cash, down 8.0% from March 31. Excluding rail cash and subtracting T-bills payable, the figure was $359.2 billion, down 3.8% from the prior quarter. Berkshire also repurchased $4.5 billion of its own shares in Q2 2026.
Trump trades Berkshire in June
Berkshire Hathaway is among the stocks frequently bought and sold in President Donald Trump’s investment portfolio, according to his June disclosure forms filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Of the 1,051 transactions listed, five involve Berkshire: four specify Class B shares, one just lists Berkshire Hathaway Inc. There were three purchases and two sales, making Trump a net buyer for the month thanks to a June 18 purchase of between $1 million and $5 million. His annual report for 2025 shows he holds between $1 million and $5 million worth of Berkshire shares.
The disclosure forms only list transaction ranges, not exact amounts. Bloomberg, which reviewed thousands of trades in earlier disclosures, said the patterns “bear the hallmarks of overlapping portfolio-management strategies, often index-based and much of it likely automated, and all of it difficult to disentangle.” The Trump Organization has said third-party financial institutions manage the trading using “automated, model-based portfolios and direct indexing strategies” with no input from the president or his family. Critics argue that Trump, top administration officials, and members of Congress should not own individual stocks to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
Buffett on trade: ‘We should be looking to trade’
Buffett also weighed in on trade policy, responding to a question about his 2003 Fortune article proposing import certificates — which he acknowledged were effectively a tariff — versus his more recent characterization of tariffs as an “act of economic war.” He said the import certificates were distinct in design, aimed at balancing imports and exports and helping developing countries, but he emphasized the broader principle: “We should be looking to trade with the rest of the world, and we should do what we do best, and they should do what they do best.”
He added that the U.S. has succeeded remarkably as a nation, but it’s a mistake to alienate the rest of the world. “It’s a big mistake, in my view, when you have seven and a half billion people that don’t like you very well, and you’ve got 300 million that are crowing in some way about how well they’ve done,” he said. He argued that a more prosperous world makes the U.S. more prosperous and safer for future generations.
Berkshire’s market capitalization stood at roughly $1.08 trillion as of the latest data, with no change in the company’s stance on dividends. As Buffett celebrates another birthday, the stock’s sideways drift may test shareholders’ patience, but the chairman shows no signs of stepping back from the decisions that matter most.
Source: www.cnbc.com — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/29/buffett-remains-active-at-96-but-berkshires-shares-arent-doing-much.html
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