Tracking Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio – Q1 2026 Update (NYSE:BRK.A)

Berkshire Hathaway reduced its 13F portfolio from about $274B to $263B in Q1 2026 and cut positions from 40 to 26, with Apple still the largest holding at roughly 22% of the portfolio. The biggest moves were a 225% increase in Alphabet, a large reduction in Chevron, and full exits from Amazon, Domino’s, and UnitedHealth, while Berkshire also repurchased $234M of its own shares at 144% of book value. The filing also shows continued accumulation in Chubb and New York Times.

Analysis

The main signal here is not portfolio shrinkage; it is a sharper preference for balance-sheet optionality and self-help over long-duration operating risk. Cutting exposure to cyclical credit, healthcare, and internet retail while adding to cash generative franchises suggests a manager who sees late-cycle dispersion widening and wants fewer idiosyncratic blowups. The largest positive read-through is for high-quality compounders with durable underwriting or pricing power, because capital is being redeployed toward businesses that can compound through a higher-cost-of-capital regime.

The Alphabet increase matters more than the headline size implies. It signals willingness to own scalable cash flow when the market still discounts regulatory and AI-capex uncertainty, which is often when asymmetric entry points exist. That also creates a second-order pressure on adjacent megacap platforms: if one of the most conservative allocators is comfortable expanding exposure to search/ads/AI cash generation, the burden shifts onto other large-cap tech names to prove durable monetization rather than just narrative optionality.

The exits from AMZN, DPZ, and UNH are a warning on multiple fronts: e-commerce margin normalization may not be enough to offset heavier capital intensity, restaurants are vulnerable to input-cost and traffic elasticity, and managed care carries policy headline risk that can overwhelm fundamentals for quarters at a time. The portfolio moves suggest the next 3-6 months may favor boring, high-visibility compounders over high-expectation growth or politically exposed healthcare. The repurchase activity below book also implies management is still willing to deploy capital into its own equity when intrinsic value is perceived to be materially above reported book, which is a soft floor signal for BRK.B relative to the broader market.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long GOOGL vs short AMZN, 3-6 month horizon: express a quality/cash-flow divergence trade. Risk/reward favors GOOGL if ad monetization and AI attach continue while AMZN faces margin and capex scrutiny; stop if AMZN re-accelerates operating leverage or GOOGL faces fresh regulatory escalation.
• Reduce or hedge UNH exposure over the next 1-2 quarters via put spreads or a partial short against a basket of managed care peers. The move suggests policy/event risk is not being paid enough by the market; downside can gap quickly on reimbursement headlines, while upside is usually slower.
• Long CB on dips, 6-12 month horizon: the incremental buying reinforces the compounding case for specialty insurance with underwriting discipline. Favor pullbacks into market volatility; risk/reward is attractive if rates stay elevated and catastrophe losses remain within normal bands.
• Short DPZ or pair long consumer staples / short restaurant beta for 1-3 months. The thesis is that a premium delivery name is more exposed to demand elasticity and promo intensity than the market prices after a risk-off ownership signal.
• Maintain or add to BRK.B on any market-wide drawdown as a low-volatility capital allocation hedge. The company’s own buyback behavior and portfolio compression argue for relative outperformance in a risk-off tape, with limited fundamental downside versus the index.