/https://media.cnbc.com/dims/origin/108343257/Spider-Man-Brand-New-Day.jpg "Spider-Man Smashes Box Office Records with ‘Brand New Day’ Preview Haul")
Berkshire Hathaway’s B shares have seen a year-to-date decline of 1.8%, lagging behind the S&P 500’s 10.7% gain as 2026 progresses. Despite a strong June, the conglomerate’s performance trails the broader market, with the S&P 500 holding a significant lead. Meanwhile, Berkshire executives Greg Abel and Ted Weschler were in attendance at the exclusive Sun Valley conference.
Warren Buffett, in a 2024 video, expressed concerns about the potential for AI to fuel financial scams, citing a convincing deepfake of himself as an example.
(This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.)
Berkshire Gains Ground, but Still Trails S&P as '26 Enters Second Half
As the second half of 2026 begins, Berkshire Hathaway's B shares are showing a year-to-date decline of 1.8%. This performance places them 12.4 percentage points behind the S&P 500, which has achieved a 10.7% gain. When dividends are included, the S&P 500's total return rises to 11.4%, widening its lead over Berkshire to 13.1 percentage points.
A robust performance in June significantly narrowed Berkshire's deficit, reducing the gap by nearly a third from its 17.5 percentage point margin on June 1, the largest losing margin of the year to date.
Despite a strong showing in June, the second quarter (up to July 10) has been challenging for Berkshire, with a gain of just over 3% compared to the benchmark's significant 16% advance, largely driven by tech stocks. This performance erased Berkshire's slight 1.8 percentage point lead held at the end of March.
In the preceding year, Berkshire Hathaway underperformed the S&P 500 by 5.5 percentage points, excluding dividends. This deficit expanded to 7.0 percentage points when dividends were taken into account.
Berkshire Executives Attend Exclusive Sun Valley Conference
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel and portfolio manager Ted Weschler were observed at the prestigious Allen & Co. annual media and technology conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. While not featured in Forbes' article on the event, their presence was confirmed by CNBC and Reuters photographers. They joined an exclusive gathering of industry leaders, including figures like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.
Warren Buffett, a long-time attendee, has not participated in the Sun Valley conference in recent years. He famously cautioned investors at the 1999 conference about the potential for disappointment despite the internet's transformative power.
BUFFETT & BERKSHIRE AROUND THE INTERNET
Some links may require a subscription:
- Financial Express (India): Warren Buffett vs. Indian grandmothers: Who wins the great gold debate
HIGHLIGHTS FROM CNBC'S BUFFETT ARCHIVE
AI Could Make Financial Scams a 'Growth Industry' (2024)
Warren Buffett expressed concern in 2024 about the potential for AI to amplify financial scams, citing a convincing AI-generated video of himself that he found unsettling. He drew parallels to the development of nuclear weapons, highlighting the uncontrollable nature of powerful technologies.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: How do you think about the role of technological advances, especially generative AI, on more traditional industries? Thank you...
WARREN BUFFETT: I don't know anything about AI. But I do — I do have — I don't — that doesn't mean I deny its existence or importance or anything of the sort.
And last year I said, you know, that we let the genie out of the bottle when we developed nuclear weapons, and that genie has been doing some terrible things lately.
And the power of that genie is what, you know, scares the hell out of me. And on, the other hand, I don't know any way to get the genie back in the bottle.
And AI is somewhat similar. It's out — it's part-way out of the bottle. And it's enormously important, and it's going to be done by somebody...
Now AI, I had one experience that does make me a little nervous. And I'll just explain it.
Very recently — fairly recently — I saw an image in front of my eyes on the screen, and it was me, and it was my voice and wearing the kind of clothes I wear. And my wife or my daughter wouldn't have been able to detect any difference. And it was delivering a message that no way came from me.
So — it — when you think of the potential for scamming people, if you can reproduce images that I can't even tell, that say, I need money, you know, it's your daughter, I've just had a car crash. I need fifty thousand dollars wired.
I mean, scamming has always been part of the American scene. But this would make me, if I was interested in investing in scamming, it's going to be the growth industry of all time.
And it's enabled in a way — you know, obviously AI has potential for good things, too, but I don't know how you — based on the one I saw recently, I practically would send money to myself over in some crazy country. (Laughter)
So I don't have any advice on how the world handles it because I don't think we know how to handle what we did with the nuclear genie.
But I do think, as someone who doesn't understand a damn thing about it, that it is — it has enormous potential for good and enormous potential for harm, and I just don't know how that plays out.
BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
Four weeks
Twelve months
BRK.A stock price: $739,750.00
BRK.B stock price: $493.71
BRK.B P/E (TTM): 14.70
Berkshire market capitalization: $1,064,452,706,579
Berkshire Cash as of March 31, 2026: $397.4 billion (Up 6.5% from Dec. 31)
Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $380.2 billion (Up 3.0% from Dec. 31)
Berkshire repurchased $234 million of its shares in Q1 2026.
BERKSHIRE'S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS - Jul. 10, 2026
Berkshire's top publicly traded equity holdings in the U.S. and Japan, as of March 31, 2026, are detailed, with specific notes on Alphabet and Mitsubishi's valuations. The complete list is available via CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
Holdings are as of March 31, 2026, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway's 13F filing on May 15, 2026, except for:
- Alphabet, which includes the $10 billion in shares that Berkshire agreed to buy directly from the company, as announced on June 1, 2026. Berkshire has not yet formally disclosed whether the transaction has been completed. The entry is a combination of Class A and Class C Alphabet shares. The market price is a weighted average of the prices of the two classes.
- Mitsubishi, which is as of April 30, 2026
The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
For questions or comments regarding the newsletter, please contact Alex Crippen at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. Subscriptions can be managed here. Warren Buffett's annual shareholder letters are available on Berkshire's website.
-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
