Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter. Warren Buffett continued to sell stocks in the first three months of 2025 amid a broad market sell-off, according to a regulatory filing ahead of the historic 60th annual meeting of his holding company Berkshire Hathaway.
The figures showing he offloaded stocks for the tenth consecutive quarter came in a quarterly earnings report that also noted Berkshire’s insurance arm took a $1.1bn hit from wildfires in California in January. 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 pile, which rose to another record of $348bn as money poured in from Buffett’s sprawling business empire, which spans insurance, manufacturing, utilities, and one of North America’s biggest railways, along with the interest paid on his portfolio of US Treasuries.
Investors at the gathering in Omaha will pore over the figures for clues to 94-year-old Buffett’s investment outlook ahead of a question-and-answer session with shareholders on Saturday. Around 40,000 shareholders are expected to attend the event in person, 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 this year in case it was Buffett’s last time presiding over the meeting.
The conversation will be the first time that Buffett weighs 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. When Trump shared a social media post on April 4 suggesting that Buffett supported his economic policies, Berkshire put out a statement saying “such reports are false”.
In a March interview with CBS News, Buffett called tariffs “an act of war, to some degree” and said they amounted to a tax on goods. “The tooth fairy doesn’t pay them,” he said. 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 the hit from the California fires. Wildfires raged for days across Los Angeles, destroying thousands of homes in some of the country’s wealthiest neighborhoods.
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 authorized no share buybacks in the first quarter.
Additional reporting by Eric Platt
Source: Financial Times
(Note: This content has been rewritten for a WordPress platform, referencing the original HTML tags, headings, and key points.)
