The mountain of cash at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B 1.44%increase; green up pointing triangle just keeps growing.
Berkshire’s tally of cash and equivalents has marched skyward for five consecutive quarters, reaching a record $157.2 billion at the end of September. Whether it finished 2023 at new heights is one question investors will look to answer when the Omaha, Neb., company releases its annual report Saturday.
Followers will parse Buffett’s accompanying letter for any plans the famed investor might have for that money as well as his thoughts on the economy and markets. Many are also eager to read any reflections Buffett might share on the life and contributions of Charlie Munger, his longtime partner and friend who died Nov. 28.
Investors got their most recent look at Berkshire’s stock-market moves when the company disclosed it had trimmed its flagship position in Apple in the fourth quarter while boosting its stakes in Chevron and Occidental Petroleum.
One tantalizing mystery: Berkshire wrote for a second consecutive quarter that it was requesting confidential treatment from the Securities and Exchange Commission for one or more holdings it omitted from its public 13F filing. One reason institutional investors can ask the SEC to keep a holding private is that disclosing it would reveal a continuing program of buying or selling a security. Investors can initially ask the SEC for confidentiality for up to one year.
Some observers have guessed that Berkshire bought a financial stock because of an increase in the third quarter in the company’s cost basis for stock investments in the category of banks, insurance and finance.
Meanwhile, the tower of cash leaves Buffett equipped to pounce should he spot an attractive business to add to the Berkshire empire, which includes insurer Geico, BNSF Railway and Dairy Queen. The cash also helps maintain what Buffett described in a February 2009 letter to shareholders as Berkshire’s “Gibraltar-like financial position.”
Many shareholders say they aren’t worried that so much investing firepower is sitting in cash—especially since higher yields mean that money is earning much more than in the recent past.
Berkshire had more than $125 billion in short-term investments in U.S. Treasury bills on Sept. 30. Yields on such short-term government debt rocketed higher as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in a bid to tame inflation. The yield on six-month Treasury bills, for example, was 5.35% Thursday, up from 0.71% in February 2022, according to Tradeweb ICE closes.