Greg Abel Berkshire quarter — The first full quarter of the Greg Abel Berkshire era carried a familiar look: little trading, a huge cash reserve, and the conglomerate staying largely on the sidelines of a booming market. But one number stood apart from the Buffett years.
Berkshire Hathaway repurchased $9.6 billion of its own stock last quarter, the busiest stretch for buybacks in years. The figure, disclosed in Saturday’s third-quarter earnings report, was the clearest sign yet that Abel is willing to put Berkshire’s money to work in a way that differs from his predecessor’s recent approach.
A light touch on stocks
The company was a net seller of equities during the quarter, buying $2.4 billion and selling $2.8 billion. That was a sharp pullback from the second quarter, when Berkshire bought a net $20 billion of stocks. It also echoed the final years of Warren Buffett’s six-decade tenure, when the celebrated bargain hunter had trouble finding deals at attractive prices during a historic stock-market rally.
Buffett stepped down as chief executive at the end of 2025 and as chairman this September. Abel has otherwise kept close to Buffett’s approach in his first year, a strategy that resembles the classic advice for successors: if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.
Berkshire’s cash pile slipped by roughly $8 billion to $357 billion, after accounting for $20.5 billion in Treasury payables. Even so, the reserve has more than doubled since the end of 2023, a reflection of Buffett’s long struggle to find value.
Buybacks draw attention
The acceleration in buybacks, made in consultation with Buffett, appears to have been well timed. Berkshire stock rose from below $500 at the end of September to a record above $570 this week.
David Kass, a finance professor at the University of Maryland and a longtime Berkshire analyst, called the surge in buybacks a pleasant surprise. He said the combination of heavier repurchases and net stock selling last quarter signals caution about current market valuations beyond Berkshire itself.
Berkshire owns dozens of businesses, including Geico, See’s Candies, and Duracell, and holds multibillion-dollar stakes in public companies such as Apple, Coca-Cola, and American Express. Investors will learn what it bought and sold only next week, when the company files its third-quarter portfolio disclosure.
Insurance weighs on operating results
Berkshire reported $12.7 billion of operating income, down 6% from the same quarter a year earlier. Kass described a disappointing decline in insurance underwriting income, along with lower insurance investment income, as the main drag.
Those declines offset higher profits at BNSF Railway, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and the manufacturing, service, and retailing businesses.
The quarter offers an early portrait of Abel’s priorities: restraint in the stock market, a cash position that remains enormous, and a willingness to lean on buybacks when Berkshire’s own shares look attractive. For now, the new chief executive is preserving much of the Buffett playbook while making at least one notable adjustment.