Last weekend, legions of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders descended on Omaha, Nebraska to attend Woodstock for capitalists - Warren Buffett’s name for his company’s annual meeting.
It was the first time Greg Abel, Buffett’s hand-picked successor, presided over the raucous celebration of Berkshire’s success.
But despite the new chief, one part of Berkshire's business is not changing: Its giant pile of cash.
Since the end of 2025, Berkshire's cash on hand has grown another 6 percent to $397 billion.
Some Wall Street analysts think Berkshire has been building cash reserves to prepare for a market meltdown, but the company's current horde dwarfs its holdings around the dot-com crack-up in 2000 and the financial crisis of 2008.
At the height of the dot-com crash in 2001, Berkshire held $68 billion in cash, more than half the company's market value at the time.
And when the US housing bubble was starting to pop in late 2007, Berkshire was sitting on $47 billion in cash.
At the annual meeting, Abel told shareholders that all the cash was 'dry powder' to ensure Berkshire is ready to jump on unbeatable investments at a moment's notice.
Warren Buffett has handed the reins over to Berkshire's new CEO, Greg Abel, but remains as the company's chairman. Some Wall Street analysts think Berkshire has been building cash reserves to prepare for a market meltdown.
Abel asked his investors not to look at the company's cash pile as a sign that it's uninterested in new investment opportunities.
'It allows us to act decisively, invest when others are tentative or fearful, and stand firm when financial storms roll through,' he wrote in Berkshire's quarterly update.
After the dot-com bubble burst, Buffett used his 'dry powder' to make Berkshire's first acquisition in the energy business, purchasing 76 percent of MidAmerican Energy for $9 billion.
The MidAmerican acquisition led to a series of energy sector investments that today are grouped into a business unit called Berkshire Hathaway Energy, which Buffett has referred to as one of his companies four 'crown jewels.'
'It’s not that we don’t see exceptional companies out there today that we’d love to own … but the price relative to the opportunity, the economic prospects of that company and the related risks - we’re not interested in acquiring those companies at that price,' said Abel.
The new Berkshire CEO is not the only Wall Street guru worried about risks right now - in a recent interview, billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones warned that the stock market was eerily similar to before the dot-com crash of 2000.
Jones warned of a major correction of 30 percent or more, and like Abel he said that valuations have gotten out of hand.
'Valuation matters a lot, and the stock market’s really high, and it’s going to be really hard to make money from here, I think, with any kind of long-term view,' said Jones.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel greets shareholders during the company's annual shareholders' meeting. Hedge fund giant Paul Tudor Jones agrees that stock market valuations have gotten out of hand.
This is exactly how much you need to have in the bank at every age to NEVER work again. The Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting began with a video tribute to Buffett, beginning with a clip showing the standing ovation Buffett received last year after he surprised shareholders by announcing that he would step down.
Buffett praised Abel and said he's glad that he made the decision to promote him now.
'He's very, very smart about businesses,' said Buffett in a live interview that aired during the meeting.
Abel is known to be a more demanding and hands-on boss than Buffett ever was - he reportedly asks tough questions and offers advice that his lieutenants appreciate, but he doesn't tell them exactly what to do.
And with Buffett remaining Berkshire's chairman and its largest shareholder, it's unlikely that Abel will make any drastic changes in Berkshire's approach.
