Berkshire's Quiet Media Bet: NYT Stake Grows as Alphabet Dominates the Headlines
Published on 09/12/2026 at 18:10 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Buried beneath the fanfare surrounding Berkshire Hathaway's multibillion-dollar Alphabet buildout and Greg Abel's remarks on Japanese trading houses, a smaller but telling move emerged from the conglomerate's second-quarter 2026 regulatory filings: a modest top-up of its New York Times holding.
The stake rose 3.65% to 15.7 million shares as of June 29, 2026 — an increase of 553,465 shares from the prior quarter. While the dollar figure pales beside the Alphabet wager, the purchase fits a broader pattern Berkshire has been sketching out for months: a public equity book increasingly narrowed to a handful of heavyweight names. Press reports suggest roughly ten core holdings now account for the bulk of that portfolio.
A Half-Year of Heavy Buying
Filings paint a picture of a far more active Berkshire than a year ago. Stock purchases totaled $39.4 billion in the first six months of 2026, against just $7.1 billion in the year-earlier period, while sales reached $27.8 billion. Alphabet stood out as the single largest addition. On the other side of the ledger, Berkshire trimmed positions in Bank of America, Capital One and Kroger — though it also built up its Delta Air Lines stake during the same stretch.
The New York Times top-up slots neatly into this selective housekeeping. Even as the AI narrative commands attention, Berkshire continues to keep an eye on classic quality names.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Berkshire Hathaway?
Alphabet: Buffett's Call, Abel's Commentary
The $17 billion Alphabet purchase, disclosed in the August 14 filing with the U.S. securities regulator, lifted the search giant to Berkshire's third-largest equity position. The move was not Abel's initiative — Warren Buffett told CNBC back in July that he had personally set the investment in motion. Abel's CNBC interview roughly a week ago was therefore a matter of strategic framing rather than authorship.
What Abel did flag was where he sees the real constraints forming. Energy capacity and available land, in his view, are shaping up as the biggest bottlenecks for AI data-center expansion — a theme with obvious implications for a conglomerate that owns significant power infrastructure. In a separate interview in early September, he said Berkshire is pursuing two paths to monetize AI-related investment, though reporting on the specifics remained thin.
Portfolio Still Top-Heavy
Concentration remains the defining feature of the equity book. Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, Alphabet and Bank of America continue to make up a substantial share of the stock portfolio, according to current market coverage.
Shares Hold Their Ground
The stock has shown little reaction to the debate over AI strategy and capital allocation. Berkshire closed Friday at EUR 660,000.00, up 0.8% on the day. Over 30 days the shares are off 0.6%, but they have gained 3.6% since the start of the year. The current price sits 3.8% below the 52-week high of EUR 686,000.00 reached on August 10 — a retreat that appears largely to have absorbed the pullback from financial names earlier in the year.
For shareholders, the takeaway is twofold: the billion-dollar Alphabet bet still carries Buffett's original fingerprints, while Abel, as CEO, is increasingly the one providing the operational and strategic read on portfolio decisions — energy bottlenecks included. Whether that translates into concrete new business lines for Berkshire is a question the filings have yet to answer.
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