Berkshire Hathaway reached new stock market milestones during the final trading week of October, although its weekly gains were modest. The company ended the month up 8.9%, outperforming the S&P 500, which lost 0.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite, which declined 5.3%. The gains came as investors moved away from technology and artificial intelligence stocks amid concerns about spending.
Berkshire's Class A shares set a closing record of $821,931 on Monday before finishing the week at $815,600, a gain of 0.3%. A jump to nearly $822,929 at Friday's opening remained below the intraday record of $824,765 established the previous Thursday. Berkshire had fully recovered from a decline that reached 15% after Warren Buffett announced last year that he would leave the chief executive role.
The more widely held Class B shares also recorded their highest closing price on Monday, at $548.56. On Friday, they reached $550.47 during trading, surpassing the previous Thursday's intraday record of $549.96. Their weekly advance was less than 0.1%. The shares narrowed their year-to-date shortfall against the S&P 500 to 2.8 percentage points from 3.5 points a week earlier, while leading the benchmark by more than two points over the past 12 calendar months.
The Nasdaq fell 2.9% on Friday, its steepest daily decline since June. Although Berkshire appeared to benefit from the shift away from AI stocks, its investment in Google parent Alphabet suffered. Alphabet shares dropped almost 13% on Thursday, wiping out around $500 billion in market value in the company's worst trading day since its 2004 public debut.
Alphabet's third-quarter results, released late Wednesday, showed negative free cash flow of $9.1 billion, compared with the $2.7 billion analysts had anticipated. The gap heightened investor concerns about the cost of expanding AI infrastructure. Revenue from web searches also fell short of estimates for a second consecutive quarter.
Buffett initiated Berkshire's Alphabet investment last year, and Berkshire added a $10 billion private placement in the second quarter of this year. The holding's value reached $40 billion in early August but had fallen by about a quarter to $29.6 billion by Friday, ranking fourth among Berkshire's equity investments. Those calculations use share counts from June 30 and could change when the September 30 portfolio disclosure arrives in two weeks.
Coca-Cola held third place, with Berkshire's position worth $37.6 billion, almost 16% above its late-July low of $32.5 billion. Barron's estimated that Berkshire probably paid more than $300 per Alphabet share, potentially close to $320, suggesting the investment was showing a loss.
Separately, Berkshire disclosed that it sold $69 million of DaVita stock on Tuesday, leaving 28.3 million shares valued at $5.3 billion. The sale followed a 2024 agreement to keep Berkshire's ownership at or below 45%, requiring reductions as DaVita buys back shares. DaVita remained up 65% for the year despite falling more than 23% in one August week following disappointing earnings.
