Berkshire Hathaway's likely loss on its Alphabet investment highlights a disappointing trend in its stock picking.
The company hasn't created much value from stock picking during the current decade despite a favorable backdrop. The S&P 500 has returned 150% since the end of 2019 and tech stocks have quadrupled.
The decade is shaping up as one of missed opportunities and ill-timed sales for Berkshire with its $360 billion equity portfolio. Berkshire's equity market value is around $1.2 trillion.
Berkshire's best new investment was in a group of five Japanese trading companies it began buying around 2020 and whose combined stake value has more than doubled to almost $45 billion. Chevron is the other notable winner as the stock also has risen more than 100% since 2020 and Berkshire's stake now is valued at $20 billion. Chubb is up about 50% since Berkshire bought the stock about three years ago.
These investments have scored but Berkshire would have done about as well buying the S&P 500.
There have been plenty of losers or simply mediocre investments that have been closed out.
These include Verizon Communications, HP, Paramount, General Motors, Constellation Brands and Pool. Berkshire also has accumulated a 26% stake in Occidental Petroleum since 2022 that's now worth about $16 billion.
Even with the rally in oil stocks this year, Berkshire is up about 20% from its original cost, Barron's estimates, far behind most energy stocks. Occidental is one of the worst-performing stocks in the State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF since 2022.
Then there have been badly timed sales, notably Apple. Berkshire held over 900 million shares of Apple in 2023 and has steadily cut that stake by about 75% to 228 million shares at an average sale price that Barron's estimates is around $200 a share, against the current $340.
Berkshire also sold out of a group of bank stocks -- including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs Group -- between 2020 and 2023 at about a third of their current prices.
Former CEO Warren Buffett built Berkshire over the first three decades of his control from 1965 to 1995 on the back of successful stock investments like Coca-Cola and American Express and is widely regarded as one of the greatest stock-market investors ever.
Buffett, 96, is a 20th-century investor whose outlook was shaped by his association with Ben Graham, a great value investor and Buffett's mentor.
Aside from Apple, he hasn't been able to take much advantage of the tech boom and neither have his investment lieutenants -- Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, who left Berkshire for an investment role at JPMorgan Chase at year-end 2025. Buffett also has missed investment opportunities that are more in his wheelhouse, like General Electric and Eli Lilly.
Berkshire's long-standing investments have powered its $360 billion portfolio in recent years. These include American Express and Coca-Cola -- both bought between 30 and 40 years ago -- as well as Moody's and Apple, which remains Berkshire's largest equity investment at over $75 billion. American Express and Coke are second and third in the portfolio at $48 billion and $38 billion.
On the Alphabet stake, Barron's estimates that Berkshire has an unrealized loss of about $3 billion after the stock fell around 10% last week to $278 after disappointing earnings.
Berkshire holds some 106 million Alphabet shares now worth $30 billion, and we estimate its cost basis is over $300 a share, including $10 billion of stock purchased at around $350 in June as part of Alphabet's $85 billion equity-raising plan in June. Berkshire may have been late to the Alphabet party -- ironic considering that Buffett and former Berkshire vice chairman Charlie Munger talked about the appeal of the Alphabet business model a decade or more ago.
What's the future of the equity portfolio under CEO Greg Abel, who succeeded Buffett as CEO at the start of 2026. Abel wants to keep what he sees as core investments intact. These are Apple, Coke, Moody's and American Express.
But it's unclear whether he sees an opportunity to create much new value from the equity portfolio, rather than improving Berkshire's operations and making acquisitions like homebuilder Taylor Morrison and chemicals business OxyChem.
Weschler manages about 6% of Berkshire's investments, according to Abel's latest shareholder letter. Buffett originally planned to have Weschler and Combs run the entire portfolio when he retired as CEO, but that plan changed. Abel hasn't replaced Combs and Berkshire has made few new equity purchases this year aside from Alphabet.
Buffett, who initiated the Alphabet purchase, stepped down as chairman in favor of his son Howard Buffett in September. That raises the question of how active he will be with the equity portfolio at 96.
Even with missed opportunities and badly timed sales, Berkshire's stock has beaten the S&P 500 over the past five years with a 13.5% annualized return against 12% for the index. Berkshire is behind the index, 14.2% annualized to 15.3%, over the past 10 years.
The stock hit a record high Monday with the A shares now trading at $825,000, up more than 10% this year. The stock probably would be doing even better if Berkshire had better capitalized on new equity investments in recent years.
Berkshire's third-quarter U.S. equity holdings probably will be disclosed on Nov. 16 in its quarterly Form 13F filing. That could indicate whether Berkshire took advantage of the selloff in many non-tech companies in the period to accumulate new stock positions. Don't bet on it, given the limited activity in the first half of the year.
Barring a market rout, equity investing may not be central to Berkshire anymore.
And if any new Berkshire holdings are revealed soon, it may not be a good idea to buy them. The record hasn't been great.
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