Overview
- Berkshire’s first-quarter 2026 SEC filing, disclosed this week, shows about $397.4 billion parked in cash and short-term U.S. Treasury bills.
- The cash build follows roughly 13 quarters of net equity selling that produced an aggregate gap of about $187 billion and continued through Warren Buffett’s handover of CEO duties to Greg Abel.
- Management has made only limited, large-scale uses of the pile so far, including an agreement to buy homebuilder Taylor Morrison and a roughly $10 billion commitment tied to Alphabet, each representing a small slice of the reserve.
- Broad market indicators are at unusually high levels — the Buffett Indicator hit an all-time closing high in early June and the Shiller CAPE stood around 41–41.6 in early July — a backdrop that Buffett and others have cited as a reason for caution.
- Short-term Treasuries yielding near 3.7% generate roughly $12 billion a year on the hoard, which lowers pressure to invest immediately and means Berkshire could have outsized market influence if it deploys large sums in a future downturn; ongoing insurance-business cost pressures are an additional factor shaping allocation timing.