BERKSHIRE UP 0.5% ON THE YEAR WHILE THE S&P RUNS 12.7%

🔴 Berkshire Hathaway is up 0.5% this year. The S&P 500 is up 12.7%.

That is a 12.2 percentage point gap on the most watched conglomerate in America, and it lands as Warren Buffett turns 96 on Sunday.

Per CNBC's Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, Buffett is no longer CEO but remains chairman and is apparently still making the big equity calls. That includes the recent build in Alphabet, now a $36.6 billion stake.

The stock did rally after Q2 earnings, hitting an intraday $537.74 on Aug. 10, its best level since the record close just before Buffett's May 2025 announcement that he would step down as CEO. It closed Friday at $505.00.

Meanwhile the cash keeps sitting there. Berkshire held $365.5 billion as of June 30, down 8.0% from March 31. Strip out rail cash and subtract T-bills payable and it is $359.2 billion. The company repurchased $4.5 billion of its own shares in Q2.

CNBC notes Barron's calls it "hard to say" why the stock is lagging, and lists possible reasons: uncertainty over Greg Abel as CEO, disappointment that the cash pile has not been spent more aggressively, the continued refusal to pay a dividend, and the absence of a giant acquisition of $100 billion or more.

So the question investors are actually asking: what is the cash waiting for?

Should Berkshire finally pay a dividend?

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