(That is the Warren Buffett Watch e-newsletter, information and evaluation on all issues Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You may join right here to obtain it each Friday night in your inbox.)
Only one week after Berkshire Hathaway’s revelation final Friday that it bought 17.8 million Class A shares of Google’s father or mother, Alphabet, within the third quarter (July-September), that place has elevated in market worth by $415 million to nearly $5.35 billion.
GOOGL gained 8.4% this week whereas its greatest tech rivals fell considerably as Nvidia’s robust earnings failed to beat fears of an “AI bubble.”
Alphabet shares began the week with a 3.1% increase on Monday, apparently in response to the information of Berkshire’s buy.
Wednesday’s launch of Google’s new Gemini 3 AI mannequin, which is receiving optimistic opinions, gave the inventory one other push greater.
(Google’s AI momentum is reportedly starting to fret Sam Altman at OpenAI.)
Whereas the complete analysis of the transfer clearly cannot be made till months or years from now, somebody in Omaha might be smiling proper now.
Warren Buffett is getting the credit score in plenty of headlines, as he normally does, with many publications assuming he’s liable for every part Berkshire does.
We all know that is not the case, nonetheless, since portfolio managers Ted Weschler and Todd Combs are in a position to act as “free brokers.”
As I famous final week, Alphabet would not really feel like Buffett’s “form of inventory.”
CNBC.com’s Yun Li writes the funding “probably” was the work of Weschler or Coombs, noting they’ve been behind a lot of Berkshire’s “tech-leaning” investments, together with its Amazon stake, now price $2.2 billion.
(Even earlier than that place was first disclosed in 2019, Buffett went out of his method to inform CNBC’s Becky Fast it wasn’t his resolution and “no persona change has taken place.”)
Warren Buffett and Greg Abel walkthrough the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Assembly in Omaha, Nebraska on Might 3, 2025.
David A. Grogen | CNBC
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Nir Kaissar recollects Buffett’s well-known refusal to put money into a enterprise he would not totally perceive, which stored him out of the web bubble within the late Nineties, calling AI “orders of magnitude extra sophisticated than promoting books or pet meals on-line.”
He provides, “Mix opaque expertise with premium valuations, and also you’re positive to lose Buffett.”
Kaissar says he has the impression CEO-designate Greg Abel might have simply proven us a “very totally different strategy than Berkshire’s shareholders are used to – notably, a brand new willingness to pay extra now for doubtlessly greater progress down the street, an opportunity Buffett not often took, if ever.”
Berkshire has not responded to my noon electronic mail asking for clarification on who determined to make the Alphabet buy. The corporate nearly by no means reveals who purchased what.
BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ARCHIVE
Buffett on what ‘understanding’ a enterprise means (2000)
Warren Buffett explains that when he says he would not perceive tech shares, he means he would not perceive the place the tech business will likely be in ten years.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: By way of these tech shares, you say that you do not perceive them… I can not think about you not understanding one thing.
WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, we perceive the product. We perceive what it does for folks. We simply do not know the economics of it 10 years from now.
That, I imply, you possibly can perceive all types — you possibly can perceive metal. You may perceive residence constructing. However in the event you take a look at a house builder and try to suppose the place it’ll be in 5 or 10 years, the economics of it, that is one other query.
I imply, it is not a query of understanding the product they end up or the means they use to distribute it, all of these type of issues. It is the predictability of the economics of the state of affairs 10 years out. And that — that is our downside.
BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
BRK.A inventory value: $755,320.00
BRK.B inventory value: $504.04
BRK.B P/E (TTM): 16.12
Berkshire market capitalization: $1,085,818,736,612
Berkshire Money as of September 30: $381.7 billion (Up 10.9% from June 30
Excluding Rail Money and Subtracting T-Payments Payable: $354.3 billion (Up 4.3% from June 30)
No Berkshire inventory repurchases since Might 2024.
(All figures are as of the date of publication, except in any other case indicated)
BERKSHIRE’S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS – Nov. 21, 2025
Berkshire’s prime holdings of disclosed publicly traded shares within the U.S. and Japan, by market worth, primarily based on at present’s closing costs.
Holdings are as of September 30, 2025, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F submitting on November 14, 2025, apart from:
The total checklist of holdings and present market values is accessible from CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
Please ship any questions or feedback concerning the e-newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, however we do not ahead questions or feedback to Buffett himself.)
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Additionally, Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are extremely really useful studying. There are collected right here on Berkshire’s web site.
— Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
