Berkshire shares recover losses after Buffett announcement, trade at $542.19
Key Facts
Berkshire Hathaway shares recovered all the losses they incurred after Warren Buffett’s surprise announcement at the 2025 annual meeting that he would recommend stepping down as CEO, according to a CNBC summary. The recovery was complete about 18 months after the announcement, the report said, while Class B shares closed at $542.19 on October 23, 2026, according to EL7 data. That puts the shares back above their closing level before the announcement, but the available facts do not establish that the October 23 session marked an all-time closing high. EL7 data for that day also do not include the intraday trading range. Buffett’s announcement began a transition in executive leadership; it was not an announcement that he was leaving the company.
The transition decision came in two stages: Buffett said in May 2025 that he would recommend appointing Greg Abel as CEO, then Berkshire’s board appointed Abel as his successor effective January 1, 2026, according to Berkshire’s 2025 annual report. Abel therefore took over executive management at the start of the year, while Buffett remained connected to the company. Berkshire is more than a single-company business; its operations span insurance and reinsurance, utilities and energy, freight rail, manufacturing, services and retail. That diversity puts the group’s results and capital-allocation decisions at the center of investor attention during the leadership transition. Recovering the losses tied to the 2025 announcement removed that announcement’s price impact, without by itself establishing a change in investors’ assessment of the new management’s performance.
Portfolio moves in the second quarter of 2026 showed investment activity and share repurchases, the Associated Press reported. Berkshire invested $10 billion in Google’s parent company and repurchased about $4.5 billion of its own shares during the quarter. It increased its Alphabet holding by about 48.1 million shares, bringing it to about 106 million shares worth approximately $37.76 billion on June 30. Its holding in the company had stood at 17.8 million shares worth $5.6 billion at the end of the previous December, the agency said. Alphabet said it plans to raise $80 billion to fund the computing infrastructure needed to operate its AI offerings, as Berkshire expanded its investment in the company.
The moves extended to other sectors: Berkshire increased its holding in homebuilder Lennar by about 30% in the second quarter and established a small new position in D.R. Horton, worth $580,504 at the end of June. It also increased its stakes in Delta Air Lines and Macy’s, which were worth about $5.37 billion and $173 million, respectively, on June 30, according to AP. Meanwhile, cash holdings fell to $365.5 billion from nearly $400 billion at the end of March. The company completed its $6.8 billion acquisition of homebuilder Taylor Morrison in July, after the deal had not closed when the second-quarter figures were prepared. The figures reflect a mix of new investments, share repurchases and the use of part of the company’s large cash balance.
CFRA analyst Cathy Seifert linked some factors that could encourage investors to operating performance and buybacks, pointing to “the ability to deliver 10% operating revenue growth during the quarter.” The assessment places operating revenue growth alongside the group’s second-quarter capital-allocation decisions. The comment does not establish that those factors alone explain the share move, but offers an analyst’s reading of operating data and buyback policy. Berkshire remains a broadly diversified group, spanning insurance and energy to rail, manufacturing and retail, making the performance of its different units part of the assessment. The company will report third-quarter results on November 7, 2026, the next date markets will watch after the shares recovered losses tied to the leadership-transition announcement.
Governance arrangements evolved after Abel took over as CEO: Buffett will step down as board chairman and become chairman emeritus, while his son Howard will take over as chairman, according to AP. Buffett will remain a board member after stepping down as chairman. This means the transfer of the executive role to Abel did not end Buffett’s presence in the company’s governance, even as his leadership role changed. Berkshire lists its common shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbols BRK.A and BRK.B. The November 7 date for third-quarter results comes under this new arrangement, after a year in which Abel’s transition to the CEO role was completed.