(This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, delivering news and insights regarding all matters related to Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can subscribe here to have it sent to you each Friday evening.)
Just a week following Berkshire Hathaway’s disclosure last Friday about acquiring 17.8 million Class A shares of Google’s parent, Alphabet, within the third quarter (July-September), this position has appreciated in market value by $415 million to nearly $5.35 billion.
GOOGL rose by 8.4% this week while its largest tech competitors experienced significant declines as Nvidia’s solid earnings couldn’t mitigate concerns over an “AI bubble.”
Alphabet shares kicked off the week with a 3.1% increase on Monday, seemingly as a reaction to the announcement of Berkshire’s purchase.
The unveiling on Wednesday of Google’s latest Gemini 3 AI model, which is gaining favorable reviews, provided an additional boost for the stock.
(Google’s AI advancements are reportedly starting to concern Sam Altman at OpenAI.)
Although a comprehensive assessment of the move won’t be possible until months or years later, someone in Omaha is likely smiling at the moment.
Warren Buffett is receiving much of the credit in various headlines, as is customary, with numerous outlets presuming he oversees all activities at Berkshire.
We understand that is not entirely accurate, as portfolio managers Ted Weschler and Todd Combs are able to operate as “free agents.”
As I mentioned last week, Alphabet does not appear to align with Buffett’s typical investment style.
CNBC.com’s Yun Li commented the investment “likely” was handled by Weschler or Coombs, noting they have been responsible for several of Berkshire’s “tech-focused” investments, including its Amazon stake, which is currently valued at $2.2 billion.
(Prior to the disclosure of that position in 2019, Buffett made a point to inform CNBC’s Becky Quick that it wasn’t his individual decision and “no personality change has occurred.”)
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Nir Kaissar reflects Buffett’s well-known hesitation to invest in businesses he doesn’t fully comprehend, which kept him clear of the internet boom in the late 1990s, emphasizing that AI is “orders of magnitude more intricate than selling books or pet food online.”
He remarks, “Merging obscure technology with high valuations guarantees you will lose Buffett.”
Kaissar conveys his belief that CEO-designate Greg Abel may have just illustrated a “noticeably different approach than what Berkshire’s shareholders are accustomed to – particularly, a new willingness to invest more now for potentially elevated growth in the future, a risk Buffett rarely embraced, if at all.”
Berkshire has yet to respond to my midday inquiry seeking clarification on who decided on the Alphabet acquisition. The company rarely discloses who is behind specific purchases.
BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET
Some links might necessitate a subscription:
- CNBC Inside Wealth: Byron Trott’s rise as Warren Buffett’s favored banker among America’s wealthiest families
- The Times of London: Insights from Warren Buffett’s farewell letter
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ARCHIVE
Buffett on the meaning of ‘understanding’ a business (2000)
Warren Buffett describes that when he claims not to understand tech stocks, he signifies a lack of clarity about where the tech sector will be in ten years.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Concerning these tech stocks, you assert that you don’t grasp them… I find it hard to believe you don’t understand something.
WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, we comprehend the product. We recognize what it offers to individuals. We just can’t predict its economics a decade from now.
That encompasses various industries — you can grasp steel. You can understand home construction. But when you consider a home builder and ponder its future in five or ten years, in terms of economics, that’s another matter.
It’s not about understanding the product they produce or the methods they employ to distribute it, all those types of aspects. It relates to how predictable the economics of the situation will be ten years down the line. And that — that’s our hurdle.
BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
In the last four weeks
Over the past twelve months
BRK.A stock price: $755,320.00
BRK.B stock price: $504.04
BRK.B P/E (TTM): 16.12
Berkshire market capitalization: $1,085,818,736,612
Berkshire Cash as of September 30: $381.7 billion (Increased by 10.9% from June 30)
Excluding Rail Cash and After Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $354.3 billion (Increased by 4.3% from June 30)
No repurchases of Berkshire stock since May 2024.
(All data are current as of the publication date, unless otherwise specified)
BERKSHIRE’S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS – Nov. 21, 2025
Berkshire’s leading holdings of publicly disclosed traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, ranked by market value, based on closing prices today.
Holdings are as of September 30, 2025, as detailed in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on November 14, 2025, with the exception of:
- Mitsubishi, which is as of August 28, 2025. Prices listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange are converted to U.S. dollars from Japanese yen.
The complete list of holdings and their current market values can be accessed from CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
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Additionally, Buffett’s annual shareholder letters are highly recommended for reading. They can be conveniently found here on Berkshire’s website.
— Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
