Does Berkshire Hathaway have more cash than stocks? At every quarter-end since September 2024

What counts as cash, and what counts as stocks

Berkshire Hathaway, the company Warren Buffett ran as chief executive until the end of 2025, reports its finances every quarter. This piece compares two amounts from its balance sheet. The first is cash : the cash and cash equivalents of its insurance and other businesses, the short-term US Treasury bills those businesses hold, and the cash of its railroad, utilities and energy businesses. By June 2026 most of it was Treasury bills. The second is stocks : mostly the shares Berkshire owns in listed companies such as Apple, American Express and Bank of America, valued at their market price on the last day of each quarter. A small part, such as preferred shares and warrants bought in private deals, is not traded, and Berkshire values it with its own models.

That stock figure is not everything Berkshire owns. It leaves out the companies Berkshire controls outright, such as the BNSF railroad and Geico, which are not valued at market prices on the balance sheet. It also leaves out large stakes it accounts for differently, chiefly its common shares in Kraft Heinz and Occidental Petroleum. The comparison is between Berkshire's cash and its stock portfolio, not between cash and the whole company.

Stocks led by a wide margin until 2024

At the end of 2018, Berkshire's stocks were worth $173 billion and its cash $112 billion. Because the stocks are valued at market prices, that line moves with the market as well as with Berkshire's own buying and selling. In March 2022 it reached $391 billion, the highest in this record, while cash stood at $106 billion.

Over the next two years the stock portfolio stayed below that high, and cash built up. Then, in the first nine months of 2024, Berkshire sold $133 billion of stock and bought $5.8 billion. Reporting at the time named Apple and Bank of America among the main sales. Buffett had said in May 2024 that selling some Apple shares made sense because he expected the federal tax rate on the gains to rise, according to a Reuters report carried by CNN.

By the end of September 2024, cash was $325 billion and stocks $272 billion. It was the first quarter-end in this record, which starts at the end of 2018, when cash was the larger. Quarterly balance sheets show only the order at each quarter-end. They cannot say on which day cash moved ahead, or what happened between quarter-ends.

Cash stayed ahead, then net buying returned

Cash stayed ahead at every quarter-end after that, though it did not rise at every one. It was $373 billion at the end of 2025, against $298 billion of stocks. In January 2026, Greg Abel succeeded Buffett as chief executive, a change the board had approved in May 2025. Buffett remains chairman. The filings do not say whether the change of leader played any part in what Berkshire bought or sold. In the first quarter under Abel, Berkshire still sold more stock than it bought. Cash reached $397 billion at the end of March 2026, its highest in this record.

The second quarter of 2026 reversed that. From April to June, Berkshire bought $23.5 billion of stock and sold $3.7 billion, buying about $19.8 billion more than it sold. The stock portfolio rose by $35.7 billion in the quarter, to $324 billion. Net purchases explain only part of that rise. Berkshire's quarterly report also records a rise over the quarter in the value of shares it already held, which makes up most of the rest. Over the same months Berkshire also bought back its own shares, as CNBC reported. At the end of June 2026, cash stood at $366 billion, $42 billion more than stocks.

Does the order hold on other measures?

Two details could change the picture. At the dates checked below, neither does.

The first is how cash is counted. The cash figure here is the gross balance-sheet amount, the one used by the news reports cited here. Berkshire's own figure in its quarterly report is narrower in two ways. It counts only the insurance and other businesses, leaving out the railroad, utilities and energy cash. It also subtracts Treasury bills bought but not yet paid for at the quarter-end. On that basis Berkshire held $359.2 billion at the end of June 2026, rather than the $366 billion counted here. That is still more than the $324 billion in stocks.

The second is the stakes left out of the stock figure. Adding Kraft Heinz, Occidental and the other stakes Berkshire accounts for the same way, at the $30.1 billion they were carried at on the balance sheet, takes the September 2024 stock figure to $302 billion, still below $325 billion of cash. In June 2026 they were carried at $19.9 billion, after write-downs in 2025, which makes $344 billion against $366 billion. These stakes are carried at an accounting value, not their market price, so these sums mix two kinds of valuation.

What Buffett said about it

Berkshire's filings report what it held, bought and sold, not what it intends. Buffett addressed the cash in his letter to shareholders in February 2025. "Despite what some commentators currently view as an extraordinary cash position at Berkshire, the great majority of your money remains in equities," he wrote. He was counting the businesses Berkshire owns outright. He wrote that their value, which is not quoted on any market, "remains far greater than the value of the marketable portfolio". He added that Berkshire "will never prefer ownership of cash-equivalent assets over the ownership of good businesses, whether controlled or only partially owned." Coverage at the time noted that the letter did not say why Berkshire had been selling. This piece offers no view on that, or on what Berkshire will do next.

The figures run to June 2026. Berkshire's report for the quarter to September 2026 was not yet on the SEC's EDGAR system when this was written, in early November 2026. It may move both lines.

• Berkshire Hathaway 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 June 2026 (SEC EDGAR)]
• Berkshire Hathaway 10-Q for the quarter ended 31 March 2026 (SEC EDGAR)]
• Berkshire Hathaway 10-K for 2025 (SEC EDGAR)]
• Berkshire Hathaway 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 September 2024 (SEC EDGAR)]
• Berkshire Hathaway 10-K for 2018 (SEC EDGAR)]
• SEC EDGAR, Berkshire Hathaway 10-Q filings, checked in early November 2026]
• Berkshire Hathaway 8-K of 8 May 2025 (SEC EDGAR)]
• Warren Buffett, letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, February 2025]