Warren Buffett's Successor, Greg Abel, Pared Down Bank of America, and Piled Into a Virtual Monopoly That's Now Berkshire's 3rd-Largest Holding
Key Points
Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio has meaningfully changed since Warren Buffett retired as CEO on Dec. 31.
Abel continued an eight-quarter streak of paring down Berkshire's stake in Bank of America -- and profit-taking likely tells only part of the story.
Meanwhile, an artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer has quickly become Berkshire's third-largest holding.
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Although earnings season is often the pinnacle of each quarter for investors, don't overlook the value of 13F-filing season. A 13F allows investors to track which stocks Wall Street's savviest money managers, including billionaire investors, have been buying and selling.
Arguably, no 13F release is more anticipated than that of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA)(NYSE: BRKB). Following Warren Buffett's retirement as CEO on Dec. 31, Greg Abel has been responsible for Berkshire's $358 billion investment portfolio. Based on Berkshire's latest 13F, detailing second-quarter trading activity, Buffett's successor continued to pare down Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and absolutely piled into virtual monopoly Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL)(NASDAQ: GOOG) for a second consecutive quarter.
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Warren Buffett retired as Berkshire's CEO on Dec. 31. Image source: The Motley Fool.
Berkshire's bosses are steadily ringing the register on Bank of America
Although Berkshire's new boss sent Constellation Brands to the chopping block and meaningfully cut his company's stakes in Kroger and Capital One Financial, it's the 30,230,000 shares of BofA that were sold in the second quarter that stand out.
This marks the eighth consecutive quarter that Bank of America stock has been sold by Buffett or Abel, with the total position now reduced by 53%, or nearly 549.5 million shares.
BAC Price to Book Value data by YCharts.
Profit-taking is the most logical reason behind this selling, but it may not be the only catalyst. Warren Buffett and Greg Abel are both unwavering when it comes to getting a good deal. When Buffett originally took a stake in BofA's preferred stock in August 2011, its common stock was trading at a 62% discount to its book value. As of Aug. 14, BofA stock commanded a 64% premium to book value.
Additionally, Bank of America is the most interest-sensitive among the United States' money-center banks. When the Federal Reserve undertook six rate cuts from September 2024 to December 2025, no big bank's net interest income was more adversely affected than BofA.
Image source: Getty Images.
Google parent Alphabet is now Berkshire Hathaway's third-largest holding
Despite significant purchases in Macy's and Delta Air Lines for a second straight quarter, the eye-opener of Berkshire's 13F, and the stock that single-handedly ended 14 consecutive quarters of net stock sales, is Google parent Alphabet.
Including a June 1-announced $10 billion private placement with Alphabet, Abel oversaw the purchase of 24,541,369 Class A shares (GOOGL) and 23,603,218 Class C shares (GOOG). At nearly $36.6 billion in combined market value between these two share classes, Alphabet has leapfrogged BofA and Coca-Cola to become Berkshire's third-largest holding.
Similar to his predecessor, Abel appreciates companies with sustainable moats. Alphabet holds a virtual monopoly on internet search, with a greater than 91% share of global search engine traffic in July. It also owns streaming platform YouTube, the second-most-visited social site on the planet.
GOOGLE'S $GOOGL Q2 EARNINGS HIGHLIGHTS
-- Evan (@StockMKTNewz) July 22, 2026
- Google total revenue: +24% YoY
- Search & Other Ads: +17% YoY
- Google Cloud: +82% YoY, backlog now at $514B
- 1P Model APIs: ~22B tokens per minute, up from 16B+ last quarter
- YouTube Ads: +13% YoY
- Gemini App: 950M monthly active... pic.twitter.com/cUdBZI9a6C
However, it's Alphabet's artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions that Abel may find the most attractive. Integrating generative AI and large language model capabilities into Google Cloud has rapidly accelerated sales growth for the world's No. 3 cloud infrastructure service platform. High-margin sales in this segment jumped 82% in the June-ended quarter.
It would appear that Alphabet is to Greg Abel what Apple was to his predecessor, Warren Buffett.
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Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Sean Williams has positions in Alphabet and Bank of America. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool recommends Capital One Financial, Constellation Brands, Delta Air Lines, and Kroger. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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