Warren Buffett sells stocks for 10th quarter in a row

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Warren Buffett continued to sell stocks in the first three months of this year and told investors in his holding company Berkshire Hathaway that he had not seen big opportunities to spend its mounting cash pile.

Figures showing he offloaded stocks for the tenth consecutive quarter came on Saturday in a quarterly earnings report that provided the backdrop to Berkshire’s historic 60th annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.

Attendees at the event queried when Buffett might finally unleash some of the company’s financial firepower. Buffett sold $4.7bn in stocks in the three months to March 31, more than the $3.2bn he purchased.

That helped swell Berkshire’s cash reserves, which rose to another record of $348bn as money poured in from a sprawling business empire that spans insurance, manufacturing, utilities and one of North America’s biggest railways, along with the interest paid on his portfolio of US Treasuries.

Asked about the huge cash reserves, Buffett said: “Things get extraordinarily attractive very occasionally.” At some point, he said, the company would be “bombarded with offerings that we’ll be glad we have the cash for”.

Tens of thousands of Berkshire’s shareholders attended the event, with high-profile figures including Hillary Clinton and Apple chief executive Tim Cook in the crowd. Some attendees said they made the trek to Omaha in case it was Buffett’s last time presiding over the meeting, often called the “Woodstock for Capitalists”.

The event provided Buffett with the first opportunity to weigh in on markets and the economy since US President Donald Trump last month launched a trade war by unveiling plans to slap new tariffs on imports from most other nations.

Buffett tries to avoid commenting on politics, but during a marathon question-and-answer session, the 94-year-old sharply criticised tariffs without mentioning Trump. He said: “There’s no question that trade can be an act of war.”

“Trade should not be a weapon,” he said. “We should be looking to trade with the rest of the world. We should do what we do best and they should do what they do best.”

He later shrugged off a question about American exceptionalism, arguing that the country has undergone waves of cataclysmic change ever since its founding.

Berkshire has built big investments abroad in recent years. Buffett recently increased its stake in Japan’s five biggest trading houses, which he said on Saturday it intends to hold for the next “50 years”.

The 60th annual meeting convened against one of the most uncertain economic backdrops in recent memory, to which Berkshire itself was not immune in the first few months of the year.

Changes in net profit at Berkshire largely reflect swings in the value of its $264bn equity portfolio and other investments. In the first quarter, bottom line earnings were $4.6bn, down from $12.7bn in the first quarter last year.

Buffett directs shareholders to pay more attention to operating profit, which was $9.6bn, down from $11.2bn. The decline largely reflected lower insurance underwriting profits, including a $1.1bn hit from the California fires. Wildfires raged for days across Los Angeles, destroying thousands of homes in some of the country’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.

Berkshire Hathaway shares have been on a tear in 2025, rising 20 per cent to close on Friday at a record $809,808.50 for the “A class” stock. Berkshire once again authorised no share buybacks in the first quarter.

At the end of the meeting, Buffett announced that he planned to retire at the end of the year. The nonagenarian referenced his age and mortality on multiple occasions during his time on the stage, often lightening the mood with jokes that drew laughs from the crowd.

Lawrence Cunningham, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, and the author of five books on Buffett, said: “He could live to 104 or 110, but the actuarial tables indicate the increasing likelihood of him not being here next year.”

Additional reporting by Eric Platt