(This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday night in your inbox.) Berkshire shares rise as Wall Street swoons amid artificial intelligence fears. Berkshire Hathaway shares strongly outperformed the S&P 500 index this week as investors moved money away from falling technology stocks and into what appears to be the relative safety of a traditional conglomerate with relatively little exposure to artificial intelligence amid fears that massive spending on data centers will not pay off. A month ago, Berkshire’s widely held B shares underperformed the S&P by 13.6 percentage points for the year. With the help of three more record closings this week, Berkshire is now 5.8 percentage points ahead of the benchmark index. Zoom In IconArrows Pointing OutBerkshire rose more than 5% this week while the S&P nearly fell 2.7%.Zoom In IconArrows Pointing OutZoom In IconArrows Pointing OutTwo weeks ago, Berkshire’s stock prices completely erased the roughly 15% drop it suffered in the three months following Warren Buffett’s surprise announcement at the 2025 shareholder meeting that he would quit the CEO position at the end of that year. They are now up 6% from the record closes they hit on the Friday before Buffett’s reveal in May. 3, 2025Zoom IconArrows Pointing OutAlphabet Slide Cited as Example of ‘Disappointing’ Stock PicksZoom IconArrows Pointing OutBloomberg Suggests “As Cracks in AI Trading Start to Show, Berkshire’s Sudden Momentum [into AI] It may seem ill-timed.” On June 30, the position had a market value of $37.8 billion and was the third-largest shareholding in Berkshire’s portfolio. Since then, both Class A and Class C shares have fallen about 20% and the stake is now valued at $30.2 billion, falling behind Coca-Cola’s $38.3 billion to the No. 4 position in portfolio. (In just over a week, we’ll find out whether Berkshire made any changes to its position in Alphabet during the third quarter ended September 30.) Zoom In IconArrows Pointing OutBloomberg quotes CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert as saying: “I think part of this may be a conscious decision to increase its exposure. But the article notes that “for dedicated value investors and long-time Berkshire watchers, those nerves may not really matter,” and Keefe Bruyette & Woods analyst Meyer Shields says Abel likely sees bets on AI as a long-term bet on the technology’s potential, in line with the “conservatism that would be expected at Berkshire Hathaway.” at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center in Sparks, Nevada, October 9, 2026. Hyperscaler’s spending on AI data centers has fueled a surge in technology sector bond issuance. Daniel Cole Reuters At Barron’s, however, Andrew Bary sees what he estimates is a $3 billion loss at Alphabet as part of a “disappointing” long-term trend in Berkshire stock picking. “The company hasn’t created much value from stock picking over the current decade” even though “the S&P 500 has returned 150% since the end of 2019 and tech stocks have quadrupled.” While Berkshire’s investments in five Japanese “trading houses,” Chevron and Chubb have done well, “there have been many losers or just mediocre investments that have closed.” It cites Verizon, HP, Paramount (now Skydance), General Motors, Constellation Brands and Pool.While it estimates Berkshire’s Occidental Petroleum investment is up about 20% from what it paid, OXY is “far behind most energy stocks” amid this year’s big surge in crude oil prices. Bary also lists stocks whose price has continued to rise after Berkshire reduced its holdings, with Apple being the worst offender. That stake has dropped 75% since 2023 to what Bary estimates is an average selling price of about $200 per share, well below AAPL’s current $342. Despite those sales, Apple is Berkshire’s largest holding with a market value of $78 billion. The stock has risen 1,200% since Berkshire began buying it in early 2016, at a time when many thought the company had seen its best days. Going forward: improving Berkshire’s operating companies and making new acquisitions. His conclusion: “Barring a market crash, stock investing may no longer be core to Berkshire.” And if new holdings in Berkshire are revealed soon, it may not be a good idea to buy them. The record has not been excellent. a continued rally that lifted shares of the satellite radio company to a 52-week high this week. On Thursday morning last week, Sirius On Friday, Monday and Tuesday, Berkshire purchased more than 924,000 shares at an average price of $29.10 as the stock continued to gain ground, ending Tuesday at $30.80. Berkshire revealed the purchases late Tuesday, which apparently helped fuel an additional 8.4% gain as the stock closed at $33.40 on Wednesday. It hit a 52-week intraday high of $33.76 on Thursday, but ended lower on Friday at $32.40. 18.6% since the publication of results and has gained 62.0% so far this year. It is the first addition to Berkshire’s stake since late July and early August of last year. In 2025, it purchased a total of 7.3 million shares at an average price of $21.86. Power, a unit of Berkshire Hathaway’s PacifiCorp, is asking California regulators for a 57% rate increase that would increase the typical residential electric bill by $120 a month. The Wall Street Journal calls it a “surprising request even in an era of rising electricity costs.” The company says the increase would be partially offset by a 14% decrease effective Jan. 1. The sparsely populated and densely forested area is more resistant to forest fires. The utility faces about $637 million in fire liability claims in 2020 and 2022. This week, Reuters reports, the Oregon Supreme Court heard arguments on whether to revive a jury verdict that could expose PacifiCorp “to tens of billions of dollars in potential damages for its role in four Oregon wildfires in 2020.” INTERNETSome links may require a subscription: CNBC BUFFETT ARCHIVE HIGHLIGHTS Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (2017) ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Thomas Kimay (PH) is here. He is a 27-year-old shareholder from Kentfield, California. And I have to preface this question by saying that he was here 17 years ago, when he was 10 years old, and he asked you a question from the audience asking if the Internet could hurt some of Berkshire’s investments. At that time, you said you wanted to see how things would develop. You have now updated the question. (Buffett laughs) “What do you think about the implications of artificial intelligence on Berkshire’s business, beyond autonomous driving and GEICO, which you’ve already talked about? And it may not be good for a given business, but let’s take it to the extreme. Suppose a person could press a button and essentially, through various machines and robotics, all kinds of things, generate all the production that we have in this country. So, everyone… there’s as much production as we have, you know, in instead of 150 million people employed, just one. You know, is the world better off or not? Well, we would certainly work a lot fewer hours a week, work weeks, etc. I mean, it would be a good thing, but it would require a huge transformation in the way people relate to each other, what they expect from the government, you know, all kinds of things and, of course, as a practical matter, more than one person would still work. But pushing the idea that way is one of the consequences of making great progress. in artificial intelligence. And that’s enormously prosocial, eventually it’s enormously disruptive in other ways. And it can have enormous problems, in terms of a democracy and how it reacts to that… CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, you’re painting a very funny world where everyone is in commerce. And the commerce is that I give you golf lessons and you dye my hair and the rest of us just do business. iconArrows pointing outExpand iconArrows pointing outBRK.A share price: $856,612.00BRK.B share price: $570.89BRK.BP/E (TTM): 14.35Berkshire market cap: 1,222,245,324,463Berkshire Cash as of June 30: $365.5 billion (down 8.0% from March 31)Excluding Rail Cash and subtracting Treasury bills payable: $359.2 billion (down 3.8% from March 31)Berkshire repurchased $4.5 billion of its shares in the second quarter of 2026.BERKSHIRE’S TOP STOCK HOLDINGS – November 6 2026 Expand icon Arrows point out Top publicly traded stock holdings disclosed by Berkshire in the U.S. and Japan, by market value, based on latest closing prices Holdings are as of June 30, 2026, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing dated August 14, 2026, except: The complete list of holdings and Current market values are. available on CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker. QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS Send me any questions or comments about the newsletter at alex.crippen@cnbc.com (sorry, we don’t send questions or comments to Buffett himself, you can subscribe here. Additionally, it is recommended that you read Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders website.– Alex Crippen, editor, Warren Buffett Watch.
