Final Trades: What Berkshire’s Latest Portfolio Moves Reveal About Warren Buffett’s Focus

This article is part of NDTV Profit's special series on Warren Buffett's investment guidelines, philosophy, top bets, and more, ahead of his retirement.

When the sun sets on 2025, one of the world's most renowned investors, Warren Buffett, will be formally calling an end to his six-decade career at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway. His final trades, executed in recent months, reveal much about how he views the current state of the markets.

Buffett has preferred to sit on a huge cash-pile of $382 billion, as Berkshire remained net sellers of equities for the 12th consecutive quarter in the three-month period ended September 2025. This, say analysts, is typical Buffett way of trading as the Oracle of Omaha has preferred to keep dry powder with him whenever the market looks frothy.

For someone who has mastered the art of value investing, staying muted appeared an apt strategy in 2025 — when analysts broadly said that Wall Street's valuations looked quite rich.

In this backdrop, avoiding FOMO-trades in a high-valuation market could be one of the biggest takeaways from Buffett in the year marking his departure from active investing.

While being cautious, Berkshire did execute some sharp portfolio adjustments in recent months, highlighted by selective investments in value-oriented stocks with strong "moats", and a rotation away from a highly-valued tech giant and some financial stocks.

Here's a look at some of the key final trades:

• Apple: Berkshire slashed its holding in Apple by 15% for approximately $10.6 billion in the third quarter of 2025. The move was aimed at booking profit, and diluting portfolio concentration, even as the iPhone-maker continues to remain its largest holding.

• Alphabet: Even as Buffett diluted the Apple holding, he made a fresh bet on a rival tech titan, whose stock is relatively undervalued. Berkshire picked up $4.3-billion stake, or 0.03% in the Google-parent, likely betting on its robust cash generation, strong moat in search, and advancements in artificial intelligence.

• Domino's Pizza: Among Buffett's key buy in the third quarter was Domino's Pizza, signalling that he was upbeat about the consumer company with a reliable business model. Berkshire raised its stake by 13%, picking up around 348,000 shares. The move, say analysts, was in line with Buffett's philosophy of "quality at a fair price", as the pizza chain has demonstrated robust unit economics and a reliable cash flow.

• Chubb: Berkshire added 4.3 million shares of Chubb to raise its stake in the insurance firm by around 16%. The decision aligned with Buffett's long-held strategy of focussing on the insurance sector, that forms a core part of Berkshire's business model.

• Bank of America: Berkshire continued to reduce its exposure to the financial sector, as it trimmed its holding in Bank of America in Q3 2025. It offloaded 37 million shares, or about 6% stake. Despite the sell-off, Berkshire continues to hold $29-billion worth shares, representing 11% of its overall portfolio, in the US' second-largest lender. The reduction of stake in BoA reflects a possible caution towards the banking sector amid lingering concerns over consumer debt.

• D.R. Horton: In what appeared to be a case of booking short-term gains, Berkshire sold off its entire holding in D.R. Horton in Q3, marking a quick exit from the homebuilder after buying its shares in Q1. All 1.5 million shares held in the company were sold off for $191 million. The exit came after the stock had witnessed a strong rally.

As seen above, the final trades executed by Berkshire under Buffett's watch underline the preference towards companies with strong economic moats, reliable business model, and stable cash generation.