Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) initiated a stake in Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) in the third quarter but continued to lighten up on core holdings such as Apple (AAPL) and Bank of America (BAC).
Buffett, who will step down as CEO at the end of the year, continued to reduce Berkshire's exposure to equities as the market soared from its April low, according to a regulatory filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
In what was perhaps a nod to stretched valuations, Berkshire was once again an overall seller of stocks, with net sales of $6.1 billion in Q3. The holding company has now sold more stocks than it has bought for 12 consecutive quarters.
Over the past three years, Berkshire sold about $190 billion worth of equities. Also noteworthy is that Berkshire hasn't bought back its own stock since May 2024.
With a market cap of more than $1 trillion, Berkshire maintains a sort of "barbell" portfolio: $280 billion in stocks and more than $380 billion in cash.
Although Berkshire has become more cautious, it did do some shopping in Q3. In addition to buying GOOGL, the holding company increased stakes in five of its smaller holdings.
Before we get into Berkshire's most recent buys and sells, it's important to know that Buffett has always run a highly concentrated portfolio.
Excluding the company's Japanese brokerage stocks and other overseas equities, Apple alone accounts for more than a fifth of Berkshire's stock portfolio, according to data from WhaleWisdom. (That's down from more than 40% at its peak.)
Furthermore, Berkshire's top five U.S. equity holdings comprise about 70% of its portfolio value, while the top 10 account for 87%.
As Buffett likes to say, diversification is for those who don't know what they're doing.
Also, please note that Buffett handles the largest positions in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio. Buffett says his co-managers – Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, who is CEO of Geico – act independently. They're thought to manage about 10% of the portfolio. Buffettologists generally assume Berkshire's smaller buys and sells are the work of these colleagues.
Stocks Warren Buffett is buying
Berkshire has a massive stake in Apple and a modest position in Amazon.com (AMZN), but otherwise it hasn't been a big fan of the Magnificent 7. So it's something of a surprise that the holding company initiated a sizable stake in Alphabet.
Berkshire bought 17.8 million shares in GOOGL worth $4.3 billion as of the end of Q3. With a weight of 1.6%, the tech giant is now Berkshire's 10th-largest holding. While that seems significant, keep in mind that the position is still worth roughly half of No. 9 holding Kraft Heinz (KHC), which accounts for more than 3% of the portfolio.
GOOGL stock was negative for the year-to-date until mid-July and didn't start outperforming the S&P 500 until late August. With shares now up 45% in 2025 – vs 16% for the broader market – Berkshire appears to have spied a beaten-down bargain.
Elsewhere, Berkshire made minor additions to five other smaller holdings.
The company increased its stake in Chubb (CB), which it has held since the first quarter of 2024, by almost 16%, or 4.3 million shares. With a market value of $8.8 billion as of September 30, CB is Berkshire's eighth-largest holding.
Berkshire also continued to add to its investment in Domino's Pizza (DPZ), which it initiated in the third quarter of last year. The holding company increased its stake by more than 13% and now owns nearly 3 million shares in the pizza chain worth $1.3 billion. At less than 0.5% of the portfolio, DPZ is Berkshire's 22nd-largest position.
Berkshire also once again boosted its stake in Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI), this time by 4.2%. At a bit more than 1% of the portfolio, SIRI is Berkshire's 11th-largest holding.
Lastly, Berkshire made incremental and essentially immaterial additional investments in Lamar Advertising (LAMR) and Lennar (LEN).
Stocks Warren Buffett is selling
Buffett continued to pare back Berkshire's position in Apple, which, as recently as last year, accounted for roughly 40% of its U.S. holdings. The company sold more than 41 million shares over the course of the third quarter – a 15% reduction – but Buffett has hardly lost faith in the iPhone maker.
With nearly 240 million shares worth more than $60 billion as of September 30, AAPL remains Berkshire's largest holding by far, accounting for nearly 23% of its total value.
In another reprise from previous quarters, Buffett once again sold Bank of America stock, which has been a major holding since 2017. Berkshire reduced its investment in the nation's second-largest bank by assets by another 6.2% in Q3, selling more than 37 million shares.
With 568 million shares worth more than $29 billion as of September 30, BAC is Berkshire's third-largest holding, accounting for 11% of the portfolio value.
In other sales, Berkshire continued to sell VeriSign (VRSN), cutting the position by a third, or 4.3 million shares. With a bit less than 9 million shares worth $2.5 billion, VRSN now accounts for less than 1% of Berkshire's equity portfolio.
Other stocks Berkshire continued to ease up on included Nucor (NUE) and DaVita (DVA).
Lastly, Berkshire exited its position in homebuilder D.R. Horton (DHI), a stake it initiated the previous quarter.
