Berkshire Hathaway portfolio shifts into a new era as CEO Greg Abel exits 16 stocks, revives buybacks, and bets big on Alphabet and Delta in his first quarter at the helm.
For more than five decades, Berkshire Hathaway was Warren Buffett. The portfolio was his autobiography: patient, concentrated, and grounded in the conviction that a great business bought at a fair price will reward shareholders across generations. When Buffett stepped down as CEO on January 1, 2026, handing the reins to Greg Abel, Wall Street wondered whether that identity would survive the transition. After one quarter under new management, the answer is taking shape, and it is more decisive than many expected.
Abel has moved swiftly. In the first three months of 2026, Berkshire closed out 16 equity positions, trimmed six others, and initiated two brand-new stakes while dramatically expanding an existing one. The moves amount to one of the most sweeping portfolio cleanups in the company’s modern history, and they offer the clearest read yet on how Abel thinks about capital allocation now that the spotlight is entirely his.
Cleaning Out the Combs Portfolio
The most visible thread running through Abel’s Q1 decisions is the unwinding of positions associated with Todd Combs, who departed Berkshire at the end of 2025 to join JPMorgan Chase. Combs had co-managed a sleeve of Berkshire’s equity holdings alongside Ted Weschler for more than a decade, accumulating a collection of smaller, diversified bets that stood in stylistic contrast to Buffett’s heavyweight concentration in a handful of names.
With Combs gone, Abel appears to have decided those positions had no natural advocate inside the organization. The result was a clean sweep. Gone are Visa and Mastercard, two payments processors Berkshire had owned since 2011. Gone, too, are Charter Communications, Diageo, UnitedHealth Group, Domino’s Pizza, Heico, Lamar Advertising, Formula One Group, Atlanta Braves Holdings, Pool Corp., Allegion, Aon, and both classes of Liberty Latin America. Amazon, which Berkshire had already slashed by 77 percent in the prior quarter, was closed out entirely.
While none of these exits individually changes the character of Berkshire’s portfolio, collectively they do something meaningful: they streamline accountability. Each remaining position now sits squarely under Abel’s direct oversight, with Weschler continuing to manage roughly five percent of the equity book.
Clearly, nobody can replace Warren on the stage. But I think the continuity with Greg brings confidence in the continuation of the operating component of the conglomerate.
What Abel Is Buying Instead
The exits grab headlines, but Abel’s additions reveal something more about his convictions. The biggest move was an aggressive expansion of Berkshire’s stake in Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Berkshire more than tripled its holding, adding enough shares to push its stake to 54 million shares valued at roughly $15.6 billion at the end of Q1. That makes Alphabet Berkshire’s seventh-largest U.S. equity holding, with a portfolio weight approaching six percent. A smaller initial position in Alphabet’s Class C shares was also established during the quarter.
The Alphabet bet stands out not merely for its size but for what it implies. Buffett long expressed discomfort with technology companies that he felt were outside his circle of competence. His eventual investments in Apple were a notable evolution. Abel appears to be taking that evolution a step further, treating a dominant, cash-generating technology platform as precisely the kind of durable business Berkshire has always sought.
Also noteworthy was the return to airline stocks. Berkshire initiated a stake in Delta Air Lines, buying approximately 39.8 million shares worth $2.6 billion. It is the first airline holding in the portfolio since 2020, when Buffett famously sold every airline position Berkshire owned at a loss as the COVID-19 pandemic grounded the industry. That Buffett, who remains chairman, appears to have endorsed or at least accepted the Delta purchase suggests a genuine reassessment of the sector’s long-term economics.
Berkshire also established a small position in Macy’s, the department store operator. At just $55 million, the stake is essentially immaterial to a company of Berkshire’s scale, but it signals an interest in consumer discretionary exposure at a moment when valuations in that sector have been pressured.
The New York Times was another story. Berkshire tripled its stake in the media company during Q1, taking its holding to 15.1 million shares worth roughly $1.3 billion. That makes the Times Berkshire’s 17th-largest investment, up from 30th place when the position was first established at the end of 2025. The addition of homebuilder Lennar rounding out the buying list, with Berkshire adding three million shares to bring its total to ten million.
Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Shifts
Buys New and expanded positions, Q1 2026
| Company | Ticker | Move | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alphabet Class A | GOOGL | +224% | 7th-largest holding at $15.6B |
| Delta Air Lines | DAL | New | 39.8M shares, $2.6B |
| New York Times | NYT | +3x | Tripled stake to 15.1M shares |
| Macy’s | M | New | Small position at $55M |
| Lennar | LEN | +43% | Total stake now 10M shares |
Trimmed Reduced positions, Q1 2026
| Company | Ticker | Move | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chevron | CVX | −35% | Still 5th-largest at $17.5B |
| Bank of America | BAC | −<1% | 513M shares, 3rd-largest holding |
| Constellation Brands | STZ | −95% | Position nearly eliminated |
| DaVita | DVA | −5% | 11th-largest holding |
Exited Full exits, Q1 2026
| Company | Ticker | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Visa | V | Closed — held since 2011 |
| Mastercard | MA | Closed — held since 2011 |
| Amazon | AMZN | Closed after prior -77% reduction |
| UnitedHealth Group | UNH | Closed |
| Domino’s Pizza | DPZ | Closed |
| Charter Communications | CHTR | Closed |
| Diageo | DEO | Closed |
| Formula One Group | FWONK | Closed |
| Atlanta Braves Holdings | BATRK | Closed |
| Heico | HEI | Closed |
Capital Allocation
The Return of the Buyback
Perhaps the most symbolically significant move of Abel’s young tenure is not any individual stock trade but rather the return of share repurchases. Berkshire spent $234 million buying back its own stock in March 2026, ending nearly two years of buyback inactivity that had puzzled investors given the company’s enormous cash pile.
Buffett was always clear that repurchases made sense when Berkshire’s shares traded below intrinsic value. The fact that Abel has resumed them suggests he believes the stock is attractive at current levels, despite Berkshire’s market capitalization surpassing one trillion dollars. It is also a signal of capital discipline. With more than $380 billion in cash on the balance sheet, doing nothing was becoming increasingly difficult to justify.
Analysts and investors have been watching carefully for signs that Berkshire might pursue large acquisitions under Abel, particularly overseas. Abel has spoken publicly about an interest in international equities and in deploying the cash pile into whole-company acquisitions. The yen-denominated bond issuances Berkshire has periodically conducted have fueled speculation about a deepening relationship with Japanese trading houses and other international holdings. The portfolio changes in Q1 do not answer those questions definitively, but they do demonstrate that Abel is not content to simply inherit and hold.
Concentration Gets Concentrated Further
Even with all the changes, Berkshire remains a top-heavy portfolio. Apple alone accounts for more than twenty percent of the equity book, down considerably from its peak above forty percent but still dominant. The top five U.S. equity holdings comprise roughly 67 percent of the portfolio’s value, and the top ten account for 90 percent.
What has shifted is the composition within that concentration. With the Combs-associated names gone, the portfolio’s long tail has been cut significantly. The remaining holdings are, on balance, larger and more central to Abel’s own investment thesis. The concentration is now less about the top five names and more evenly spread across the top ten, which is a modest but meaningful structural adjustment.
For investors who have followed Berkshire for decades, the speed and breadth of Abel’s first quarter remains striking. Buffett was famously reluctant to sell, once remarking that his preferred holding period was forever. Abel has signaled that he reads that philosophy not as a directive against selling but as a directive toward clarity. Keep what you understand and believe in. Exit what no longer fits. Deploy capital where the case is compelling.
The Question of Continuity
The deeper question hanging over Omaha is not whether Abel will manage a portfolio well. His track record in running Berkshire Hathaway Energy and overseeing the company’s operating businesses gave the board confidence that he could handle both sides of the organization. The question is whether Berkshire retains the cultural gravity and investor loyalty that Buffett’s singular presence generated over six decades.
Analysts note that Abel has been careful to preserve the Omaha culture while demonstrating his own judgment. His first annual letter leaned into transparency and operational rigor. The portfolio actions in Q1 reflect a clear-eyed assessment of what Berkshire actually needs to own rather than what it has accumulated over time.
What comes next will matter as much as Q1. The cash pile remains enormous. The appetite for a large acquisition has been mentioned but not satisfied. The international signals are intriguing but incomplete. Over the next several quarters, the outline of a distinctly Abel-era Berkshire will come into focus, built on Buffett’s foundation but drawn with a different hand.