Berkshire Hathaway appears to have accelerated its stock repurchases in the second quarter.

Barron's estimates that Berkshire bought back anywhere from $5 billion to $11 billion of stock in the second quarter, based on calculations using information in Chairman Warren Buffett's securities filing on Tuesday when he announced annual gifts to four family foundations.

The resumption of more extensive repurchases could cheer Berkshire investors. The company restarted stock buybacks in March after a period of almost two years of no repurchase activity, but Berkshire bought back just $235 million of stock in the first quarter and none in the first two weeks of April.

The small amount of repurchases disappointed many Berkshire holders given the company's $1 trillion market value and its ability to buy back $50 billion or more of stock annually.

In his filing Tuesday, Buffett disclosed that he owns 188,290 of the company's Class A shares -- plus 1,162 B shares that are equivalent to less than one A share. His stake represented 13.2% of Berkshire's shares outstanding on July 14, the date of the filing.

This implies that Berkshire had about 1,426,446 A shares outstanding (with B shares converted to an equivalent amount of A shares) on that date -- 188,290 divided by 0.132. That total would be down by more than 11,000 A shares since April 14, the date of the Berkshire proxy and the most recent share count total.

Berkshire's stock price averaged about $721,000 from April 14 until the end of the second quarter. That would suggest about $8 billion in buybacks from April 14 to July 14, with the bulk presumably occurring in the second quarter.

But the calculation isn't so simple, Barron's estimates. The Buffett stake of 13.2% is taken only to one decimal point. It could be anywhere from 13.16% to 13.24% and round to 13.2%, Barron's estimates. That suggests a range of buyback activity from $5 billion on the low side to $11 billion on the high side.

Berkshire will disclose its share buyback activity in its second quarter earnings report and 10-Q due around Aug. 1.

Heavier buyback activity would be welcomed by many Berkshire holders given the company's huge cash reserves of almost $400 billion and a reasonable price on the stock. The Class A shares, which are up 0.3% to $735,421 Thursday, are down about 2% so far this year, way behind the S&P 500's total return of about 11%. The Class B shares are trading at $490.55, up 0.5% on the session.

The stock is trading at about 1.4 times book value, based on a Barron's estimate of June 30 book value. That price/book ratio is near the lower end of the range in recent years and is down from a peak of 1.8 times in May 2025, just before Buffett said he would step down as CEO at the end of 2025.

Book value is likely higher now than on June 30 due to a rally in the $300 billion-plus Berkshire equity portfolio led by Apple.

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com

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July 16, 2026 15:28 ET (19:28 GMT)

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