What Berkshire’s filing actually showed
Berkshire Hathaway’s Form 13F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 17 disclosed the company’s U.S.-listed equity holdings as of December 31, 2025. The filing and its information table showed Berkshire cut its Apple stake again, sharply reduced Amazon, and pared Bank of America, while also revealing a new position in The New York Times. That new stake stood out because it was the only fresh name in a quarter otherwise defined by pruning. Reuters reported Berkshire owned about 5.07 million New York Times shares worth roughly $351.7 million at year end. The same report said Berkshire trimmed Apple by about 4%, slashed its Amazon stake by roughly 77%, and reduced Bank of America as well. The numbers reinforced a broader theme that had already been building across earlier quarters: Berkshire was still selling more than it was buying.Apple was still the centerpiece, but a smaller one
Even after another reduction, Apple remained Berkshire’s largest common-stock holding by a wide margin. That is important context. This was not a dramatic renunciation of Apple so much as another step in a longer process of cutting back a position that had grown enormous after years of gains. For Berkshire shareholders, that distinction matters. A modest trim to a giant position can still free up billions of dollars without changing the company’s overall identity. Apple remained central to Berkshire’s stock portfolio, but the continued selling suggested management was more interested in lowering concentration risk than in defending an outsized position at all costs. It also fit Buffett’s long-running preference for disciplined capital allocation over symbolism. Berkshire had no obvious need to prove loyalty to any one holding. If a position had become too large relative to the rest of the portfolio, or if better uses for cash eventually emerged, reducing it was entirely in character.Amazon and Bank of America tell a different story
Amazon was never a Berkshire-sized cornerstone in the same way Apple was, which made the scale of the reduction more notable. A sharp pullback there reads less like routine maintenance and more like a decision that the position no longer deserved as much room in the portfolio. Investors often associate Buffett with long holding periods, but Berkshire has never treated every stock as sacred. Some positions become permanent fixtures. Others remain opportunistic. Bank of America sits somewhere in between. It had been one of Berkshire’s most visible financial-sector bets for years, tied to a highly lucrative relationship that began with a 2011 investment. Cutting that stake further did not erase the history, but it did continue a pattern of dialing back exposure to a bank that had long ranked among Berkshire’s most consequential holdings. Taken together, the Apple, Amazon and Bank of America changes made the quarter look less like a search for the next big theme and more like a continued effort to simplify. Berkshire was not rotating aggressively into a new sector. It was narrowing the field.The one new stock was New York Times
The lone addition gave the filing its clearest headline turn. Berkshire disclosed a new position in The New York Times, a company with a very different profile from the mega-cap technology and banking names it was trimming. The stake was not big enough to redefine Berkshire’s portfolio, but it was large enough to draw immediate attention because it was the only new reported position. There is an understandable temptation to overread that move. A new Berkshire stake always invites theories about conviction, valuation and long-term strategy. But the cleaner takeaway is simpler. When Berkshire did decide to add something during the quarter, it added only one name. That underscores how selective the company had become. It is also worth noting that a 13F filing reveals holdings, not the internal debate behind them. Berkshire’s public filing does not assign each trade to Buffett personally, and Reuters noted that the company did not specify who directed the purchase. That nuance matters in any article that tries to frame these transactions as the final personal moves of Buffett’s career.Why the timing gave the filing extra weight
What investors can reasonably take from it
The filing does not prove that Berkshire has turned bearish on the market or abandoned confidence in its largest long-term holdings. It does, however, support a more measured conclusion: by the end of 2025, Berkshire remained highly selective, willing to keep harvesting gains in major positions, and hesitant to broaden the portfolio unless a new idea met a very high bar. That is a more grounded reading than the dramatic version. Berkshire did not empty the shelves. It did not unveil a wave of new ideas. It cut three closely watched holdings, added one new stock, and left investors with a portfolio that looked increasingly streamlined at the exact moment corporate control was shifting from one era to the next. For readers, that is the real story. Not that Buffett suddenly lost conviction, and not that Berkshire made a radical pivot, but that one of the most closely followed investing firms in the world used its final quarter under Buffett as CEO to get leaner, quieter and more flexible before Greg Abel took over.
Vince Coyner is a serial entrepreneur with an MBA from Florida State. Business, finance and entrepreneurship have never been far from his mind, from starting a financial education program for middle and high school students twenty years ago to writing about American business titans more recently. Beyond business he writes about politics, culture and history.
