Buffett’s Quiet Shift: Cash and the Coming Weather

Warren Buffett, a man who’s seen more market seasons than most, has stepped away from the daily helm of Berkshire Hathaway. Sixty-five years he guided that company, a textile scrap slowly woven into a vast and peculiar cloth of businesses. He didn’t build a kingdom so much as coax a living thing from hard ground, and now, a new kind of tending is required.

They say a man knows when the wind will change. Buffett always spoke of holding periods stretching toward forever, but a farmer doesn’t ignore a darkening sky. For three years, even as the market climbed, he’s been quietly drawing in his sails, selling pieces of the holdings. Not a panicked retreat, but a careful reckoning. He’s been trading stocks for cash, and in the last quarter, he’s been piling that cash high, like cordwood against a winter that feels long coming.

The Stones He Laid Down

Berkshire Hathaway moved over twelve and a half billion dollars worth of stock in the last quarter. The details trickled out with the SEC filings, a slow reveal of what Buffett and his team were letting go. Six names stood out, each a story in itself.

Apple (AAPL +2.73%)
Bank of America (BAC +1.70%)
Verisign (VRSN 1.21%)
DaVita (DVA +5.21%)
D.R. Horton
Nucor

He’d been trimming Apple and Bank of America for some time, and not out of any failing of the companies themselves. It’s a matter of price. A good field yields a good harvest, but even the richest soil can’t justify a ruinous price. Apple, a mighty engine, keeps churning out wealth, returning it to shareholders. But the market had begun to ask a premium, as if hoping for miracles. And Bank of America, once a struggling farm, had been coaxed back to life. But the land itself had become dear.

Verisign was a different matter. He let Berkshire’s stake dip below ten percent, avoiding the need to report every transaction. A quiet withdrawal, like a river changing its course. And DaVita, a company tending to those in need, saw its shares bought back by the company itself, a kind of self-preservation. He wasn’t abandoning the stock, just allowing the company to reclaim a piece of itself.

He used some of the proceeds to acquire other holdings, but one investment dwarfed them all. He wasn’t chasing the flash of new growth, but seeking the solid ground of security.

Where the Rain Will Fall

Berkshire spent nearly six and a half billion on equities, but almost ten billion more went into U.S. Treasury Bills. Short-term debt, yielding around 3.7 percent. Not a king’s ransom, but a safe harbor in a gathering storm.

These bills aren’t about getting rich quick. They’re backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. A promise, as solid as the land itself. And they don’t carry the same risk as longer-term bonds, which can be tossed about by the winds of inflation and changing interest rates. He learned that lesson in the seventies, and he doesn’t intend to repeat it.

As he wrote, he believes in keeping ample liquidity. Safety over yield. A pragmatic wisdom, born of years spent watching the seasons turn. The yield isn’t spectacular, but neither is a dry well in a drought.

Treasury bills are, for all intents and purposes, cash. Berkshire even includes those maturing within three months as cash on its balance sheet. It’s a substantial pile, now making up nearly a third of the company’s value. A signal, if you listen closely.

It’s harder for a giant like Berkshire to find good investments. They need to deploy hundreds of millions, even billions, at a time. The universe of possibilities shrinks accordingly. A small farmer can plant a row of beans; Berkshire needs an entire field of wheat.

Individual investors might want to consider building their own reserves, trimming the overvalued from their portfolios. There are still opportunities to be found among smaller companies, those hidden gems that offer true value. But Berkshire’s heavy tilt toward cash might not be the best path for everyone. It’s a different kind of tending, suited to a different kind of field.

Buffett isn’t predicting a crash. He’s simply preparing for a change in the weather. A prudent farmer always has a storehouse full, just in case the rains don’t come.

2026-02-05 14:53

The Stones He Laid Down

Where the Rain Will Fall

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