Abel's First Quarter at the Helm of Berkshire: Clearing out Amazon, Significantly Increasing Alphabet
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New Berkshire CEO Greg Abel exited Amazon entirely in Q1 and more than tripled the Alphabet stake into a top-five holding — a real-money statement on what post-Buffett Berkshire considers worth owning long-term.
Where did Abel swing the axe first?
Berkshire's 13F filing shows Abel exited 16 positions in Q1, including all 2,276,000 Amazon shares.
Buffett had already cut ~77% of the Amazon stake in his final quarter as CEO; Abel cleared out the rest in one move.
This means → not a tentative trim but a complete exit executed as a relay across two CEOs.
Why walk away from a stock that more than doubled?
Berkshire first bought Amazon in Q1 2019; split-adjusted, the stock rose from roughly $80 to over $200 — a handsome gain.
But Amazon now trades at about 32× earnings, expensive even against a market sitting near all-time highs.
In plain terms = the profit is banked; the remaining upside no longer justifies the price tag.
Where did the Amazon money go?
Abel added 36,403,656 Class A shares (GOOGL) and opened a new 3,585,215-share Class C position (GOOG) in Alphabet.
Alphabet now ranks among Berkshire's top five holdings, with the stake more than tripling.
This means → Abel is not shrinking Berkshire's tech exposure — he is moving chips from one giant to another.
What makes Alphabet attractive to Abel?
Google Search dominates global internet search; its traffic share has held between 89% and 93% for a decade.
Google Cloud posted 63% year-on-year revenue growth in Q1, outpacing Amazon's AWS.
In plain terms = search is a near-irreplaceable toll booth, and the cloud business is gaining on rivals — both engines are running.
What does this trade reveal about Abel's stock-picking logic?
Alphabet's forward P/E — the multiple the market pays for expected future earnings — sat at roughly 17× a year ago, well below Amazon's 32×.
Abel exited about a third of Berkshire's positions in Q1, a move read as concentrating capital in high-conviction, fairly valued assets.
This reflects a new CEO extending Buffett's preference for durable moats while applying even stricter valuation discipline.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.