The Buffett Premium Isn't Dead: Berkshire Climbs Back to Record Territory
Berkshire shares just closed at their highest since Buffett announced his exit — and a surprising bet on an Italian app company is doing the heavy lifting.
Berkshire Hathaway closed Friday at its highest level since Warren Buffett shocked shareholders at the May 2025 annual meeting by announcing he would step down as CEO at the end of that year. The day before that Saturday surprise, both share classes had closed at all-time highs — then shed more than 14% over three months as investors fretted that the "Buffett premium" was dissolving with its namesake.
More than a year past the post-meeting low of August 2025, the recovery has been uneven, but Friday's close brought BRK.A to $798,000, just 1.4% below its all-time closing high of $809,350, with the B shares at $532.02, also 1.4% under their record of $539.80. A loss Thursday snapped a 10-session winning streak that had added 5%, but Friday brought gains of more than 1%. The B shares have cut their June 1 deficit of 17.5 percentage points against the S&P 500 by nearly two-thirds, to 6.0 points behind for the year.
What's driving the rebound
Several forces are converging. Higher short-term interest rates are helping lift the shares, according to Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Meyer Shields — Berkshire still holds roughly $360 billion in cash, and those higher rates mean, as Shields put it, "they'll be making more money" on that money. CNBC Pro notes investors may also be encouraged that Berkshire is finally spending some of that pile under CEO Greg Abel, with $4.5 billion in Q2 buybacks and investments in Alphabet, Taylor Morrison Home, and Lennar.
Insurance operations have benefited from a quiet hurricane season, and higher oil prices are flattering the $19 billion Chevron stake, which closed Friday at an all-time high after gaining almost 36% since the start of July. There's also a rotation story: as investors cool on high-flying AI and tech stocks, "old economy" names are catching a bid. Coca-Cola — a longtime Buffett favorite and now a $37.6 billion holding — also closed Friday at an all-time high, up 34% year-to-date, with its position gaining $2.4 billion in a single week to become Berkshire's third-largest stake.
The Bending Spoons surprise
The most unexpected contributor is an Italian tech company that buys cast-off internet names like AOL, Evernote, and Vimeo, uses AI to cut their costs, and plows the savings into more acquisitions. Bending Spoons began trading on Nasdaq in July, and Berkshire's bet of close to $1 billion on it is paying off — at least for now.
A news release revealed Berkshire is investing a further $330 million via 10 million newly issued shares at $33 apiece — about a 12% discount to Tuesday's $37.86 close — and disclosed for the first time that Berkshire had put $600 million into the IPO at $29 a share. That puts Berkshire at roughly 30.7 million shares, worth more than $1.4 billion at Friday's close — a 55.3% gain on $930 million invested. The new purchase alone shows a paper profit of nearly $141 million. Shares jumped 41% to $53.46 on Wednesday's news, then gave back some of Friday's tech sell-off to end at $47.07, still up 24.3% over three trading days.
It is decidedly not a typical Berkshire value play — the stock trades at a large multiple of earnings, and even Barron's Andrew Bary noted the surprise given the valuation. But Morningstar's Greggory Warren argues the Bending Spoons bet, alongside the now-$36 billion Alphabet stake, shows "the firm is finally moving out of its comfort zone to find places to put capital to work, which should be viewed as a positive for long-term investors."
Who at Berkshire made the call remains unknown — we may learn more when the September 30 portfolio snapshot is disclosed next month. But the market's verdict is clear: the post-Buffett Berkshire is finding its footing, one uncharacteristic bet at a time.
Written by the BidAsk Newsroom. Based on reporting from the sources below.
