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Berkshire’s first quarter under Abel told us something

Hey there, bargain hunter.

Berkshire Hathaway moves slowly. Until it doesn’t.

In Q1 2026 — Greg Abel’s first full quarter as CEO — Berkshire was a net seller of equities for the fourteenth consecutive quarter. The cash flow statement in the 10-Q shows $24.1 billion in equity sales and $15.9 billion in purchases. Net selling: roughly $8.1 billion. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a deliberate posture, and it’s worth understanding what drove it.

Part of the explanation has been reported widely: Todd Combs, who had managed a portion of Berkshire’s equity portfolio alongside Ted Weschler since 2010, announced his departure in December 2025 to lead JPMorgan Chase’s new $10 billion Strategic Investment Group. He officially joined JPMorgan in January 2026. Multiple reports since then have suggested Berkshire liquidated the holdings previously tied to Combs’s sleeve of the portfolio — and if Weschler manages roughly $20 billion, the math implies Combs ran a comparable sum. That alone could account for the bulk of Q1’s selling.

Worth saying plainly: none of that has been officially confirmed by Berkshire. What is confirmed is the selling happened, the Combs departure happened, and the timing lines up.

Slight tangent — Combs wasn’t just a portfolio manager. He was also CEO of GEICO since 2020. That’s two roles disappearing at once. Berkshire moved quickly on the insurance side, naming longtime executive Nancy Pierce as GEICO’s new CEO. The equity portfolio side is less publicly resolved, but the Q1 numbers suggest Abel and the team moved fast there too.

What the business actually did

Selling stocks is one thing. Running the engine is another. On that front, the results were solid.

• Operating earnings: $11.35 billion in Q1 2026 — up 18% year over year from $9.64 billion in Q1 2025
• Net earnings: $10.1 billion, versus $4.6 billion a year earlier (the swing largely reflects smaller unrealized investment losses this quarter)
• Insurance underwriting profit: up roughly 28%, helped by a catastrophe-free quarter — a sharp contrast to Q1 2025, when California wildfires alone cost $860 million
• Insurance float: grew $500 million to $176.9 billion as of March 31
• Cash and Treasuries: $397+ billion at quarter end, up from $373 billion at year-end 2025
• OxyChem acquisition: closed January 2, 2026 for ~$9.5 billion, adding approximately $10.8 billion in assets

The operating businesses — insurance, BNSF, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, manufacturing — did what they’re supposed to do. Nothing broke. Nothing surprised to the downside in a big way. For a firm mid-transition, that’s meaningful.

The five holdings that actually matter

Berkshire’s own Q1 2026 10-Q states it clearly: the five largest equity holdings as of March 31, 2026 were American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, and Chevron — and together they represented the overwhelming majority of the equity portfolio’s fair value. Buffett confirmed at the May 2026 annual meeting that Apple remains the single largest equity position.

• Apple (AAPL) – the largest equity holding; Buffett confirmed this explicitly at the AGM. Berkshire has reduced the position over the past several quarters, but it still anchors the book.
• American Express (AXP) – Berkshire owns 151.6 million shares, representing 22.2% of AXP’s outstanding stock as of March 31. This one doesn’t move much — by design.
• Bank of America (BAC) – a major financial position; Berkshire trimmed in Q4 2025 per the 13F, but it remains a top-three equity holding.
• Coca-Cola (KO) – the old-school compounder. Berkshire has held it for decades and shows no indication of changing that.
• Chevron (CVX) – the energy anchor in the 13F portfolio. Berkshire added to CVX in Q4 2025, a notable move given the broader selling trend.

One note on Occidental Petroleum (OXY): Berkshire holds both OXY common stock (accounting for it under the equity method) and roughly $8.5 billion in OXY preferred stock as of March 31. That’s a substantial position — just not one that shows up in the standard 13F equity rankings the same way the top five do. It matters, it just sits in a different accounting bucket.

What I think is actually happening

Abel’s first quarter didn’t look like a philosophy change. It looked like a personnel change working its way through the portfolio.

The core five haven’t moved in any dramatic way. The cash pile grew. The operating businesses performed. And the selling — significant as the dollar figure looks — may have been the mechanical consequence of Combs leaving, not a statement about markets or valuations.

Here’s where I land: Abel has $397 billion in dry powder, a fortress balance sheet, and a portfolio he just simplified. The question for the next several quarters isn’t whether he’ll sell more. It’s whether he puts the cash to work — and in what. Large acquisitions are his background. Energy is his domain. The OxyChem deal in January was the first signal. It probably won’t be the last.

What I’m watching: whether the Q1 2026 13F filing (filed May 15, 2026) confirms which specific positions were exited, and whether any new names show up that reflect Abel’s own conviction rather than inherited exposure.

The Berkshire that looked like Buffett is becoming the Berkshire that looks like Abel. The five core names are the same. Everything around the edges is up for debate.