Will Berkshire stay in bank stocks after Buffett's exit?

• Key insight: The future of Berkshire Hathaway's banking-related investment strategy is murky. The firm recently downsized its financial-services portfolio, as Warren Buffett gave up the CEO job and another leader with deep banking ties left the company.
  
• What's at stake: Under Buffett's leadership, Berkshire has been a major investor in the U.S. banking sector since the 1960s.
  
• Expert quote: "I don't think, late in a financial cycle, there'd be a lot of interest in increasing their bank exposure today." — Christopher Bloomstran, president and chief investment officer at Semper Augustus Investments

Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway into a trillion-dollar conglomerate in no small part on the strength of bank stocks.

The 95-year-old investor's recent departure from the CEO job — along with the fact that his successor, Greg Abel, spent much of his career as a business operator in the energy sector, and the exit of another top Berkshire executive with deep experience in the financial services sector — has raised questions about whether the firm will shift its banking-related investment strategy.

On May 15, Berkshire filed a quarterly report that shed early light on what that strategy will look like following Buffett's exit as CEO. During the first quarter, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company sold its positions in the payment giants Visa ($2.9 billion) and Mastercard ($2.3 billion), the filing showed. The firm also continued to reduce its large stake in Bank of America (down to $25 billion from $28.5 billion at the end of last year), maintaining a pattern of BofA stock sales that began during Buffett's tenure.

At the same time, Berkshire left unchanged its relatively small positions in Capital One Financial ($1.3 billion) and Ally Financial ($1.1 billion), as well as its massive, longstanding investment in American Express ($45.9 billion).

Berkshire Hathaway's banking-related investment strategy has historically mattered less during good economic times than it has during crises. But the company has hundreds of billions of dollars of cash on hand, which it could put to use during the next period of major economic upheaval, just as it did in 2008.

Buffett first bought a stake in Amex in the 1960s. In Abel's February 2026 letter to Berkshire shareholders, he identified Amex as one of four companies — the others were Apple, Coca-Cola and Moody's — that are core parts of Berkshire's investment portfolio. Berkshire owned 151.6 million Amex shares at the end of the first quarter, or about 22% of the banking and payments firm.

During remarks at Berkshire's annual meeting on May 2, Abel preached from the same investing gospel that Buffett has long espoused.

He advocated patience, explaining that Berkshire's holdings of cash and U.S. Treasuries are an asset, and noting that the firm is willing to wait for the right opportunities to deploy its capital. He spoke about Berkshire's long time horizon for its investments. He said that Berkshire wants to invest in companies that have capable management teams and deliver strong returns.

Abel also mentioned one other factor in making investment decisions, which was notable in light of his comparative lack of experience in the banking sector: "Do we understand this business? Do we understand the opportunity, and more importantly, do we understand the risks?"

Shifting leadership

Abel became Berkshire Hathaway's CEO on Jan. 1. Though he is Buffett's hand-picked successor, his background is very different from his predecessor's.

Buffett is a legendary investor whose decisions have had an outsized impact on the insurance and banking sectors, among many other industries, over more than six decades. In banking, Buffett's notable investments included longtime stakes in Wells Fargo and M&T Bank, as well as a post-financial crisis investment in Goldman Sachs. He also did a stint as chairman and CEO of the investment bank Salomon Brothers at a time of crisis for the company during the early 1990s.

Today, Buffett remains Berkshire's chairman. He recently told CNBC that he still goes to the office five days per week and maintains a hands-on role.

Abel, by contrast, spent most of his career as an executive at an energy company that is now known as Berkshire Hathaway Energy. In 2018, the Canadian-born executive became the parent company's vice chairman of the noninsurance operations, which paved the way for his ascension to the CEO role.

Another top Berkshire executive, Ted Weschler, made his name as an investor before Buffett hired him in 2012. Abel wrote in his February 2026 letter to shareholders that responsibility for the company's equity investments ultimately resides with the CEO, but that Weschler manages about 6% of the company's investments.

Buffett isn't the only high-level Berkshire executive to step away from his role recently. Todd Combs — investment manager at Berkshire and CEO of the company's Geico insurance subsidiary — took a job at JPMorganChase, heading up a $10 billion strategic investment group.

Combs was a longtime JPMorgan director who stepped down from the bank's board in January, when he started his day-to-day role at the megabank.

The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Berkshire had already unloaded stocks that were managed by Combs. That timing lines up with Berkshire's recent disclosure that it liquidated its positions in Visa and Mastercard during the first quarter.

Even before those stock sales, Berkshire had reduced its exposure to the financial-services sector.

"Warren has meaningfully shrunk Berkshire's ownership of its banking holdings over the last few years," said Christopher Bloomstran, president and chief investment officer at Semper Augustus Investments, which has held a stake in Berkshire since 2000. "Wells Fargo is gone. M&T Bank, which was in the portfolio for decades, is gone."

What's left is the large stake in American Express, which has a very low cost basis because Berkshire has owned the shares for so long; the steadily declining investment in Bank of America; and the substantially smaller positions in Capital One and Ally, both of which were established earlier this decade.

'Be opportunistic … on Berkshire's terms'

Throughout his investing career, Buffett has sought to be opportunistic, buying stakes in companies facing short-term challenges that have driven down their stock prices. He bought his first Amex shares after the company suffered a large fraud involving supposed shipments of vegetable oil that turned out to be partly seawater, hurting its share price.

Amid the 2008-2009 financial crisis, Berkshire made a highly profitable investment in Goldman Sachs. And in 2011, Bank of America was coming off a quarter in which it lost $8.8 billion, largely because of costs related to the subprime mortgage crisis, when Berkshire bought a large stake.

"A simple rule dictates my buying," Buffett once wrote. "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."

In an interview before Berkshire disclosed its latest stock sales, Bloomstran told American Banker that he expects Berkshire Hathaway to wait until the next major economic calamity to deploy more capital into the banking sector.

"I don't think, late in a financial cycle, there'd be a lot of interest in increasing their bank exposure today," Bloomstran said. "I wouldn't rule it out at some point when you go through a crisis, and banks in general are pretty cheap."

Bloomstran singled out JPMorgan, with its myriad income streams, as a likely candidate for a Berkshire investment when the time is right. He noted that Berkshire's executives long had visibility into the nation's largest bank because Combs held a seat on JPMorgan's board. And he said that Berkshire holds JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon in high regard.

Buffett has acknowledged that he didn't deploy enough of Berkshire's capital during the 2008-2009 crisis, Bloomstran noted.

"Greg has heard that," Bloomstran said. "Greg's charge — and I think he gets it — is to be opportunistic … but to do it on Berkshire's terms."