By Laurenz Van de Sande — CryptoNewsHub
New York — November 1, 2025 | 2:31pm CET
(This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter — news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.)
Berkshire worries grow as Buffett’s CEO handover nears
Two months from now Warren Buffett will no longer be Berkshire’s CEO, and investors appear to be getting increasingly nervous about the year-end transition.
On May 2 — the Friday before Buffett’s surprise announcement at the annual meeting that he plans to step down — Berkshire’s B shares closed at an all-time high just under $540 per share.
At that point, they were outperforming the S&P 500 by 22.4 percentage points for the year.
Today, they are 10.9 percentage points behind the benchmark index, a slight improvement from Wednesday’s 12.2-point gap, the biggest so far in 2025.
The B shares have dropped 11.5% since Buffett broke the news. That’s still above their early August low (down nearly 15%), but below their near-term closing high of almost $507 on September 4.
Analyst Concerns Emerge
BERKSHIRE’S TOP U.S. HOLDINGS – Oct. 31, 2025
Analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) are especially worried.
In a report dated October 26, they lowered their rating on Berkshire’s A shares from “market perform” to “underperform” and cut their price target to $700,000 from $740,000. The stock closed today at $715,740.
Under the headline “Many Things Moving in the Wrong Direction,” KBW’s Meyer Shields and Jing Li wrote:
“We believe GEICO’s likely underwriting margin peak, declining property catastrophe reinsurance rates, lower short-term interest rates, tariff-related pressure on the rails, and the risk of fading alternative energy tax credits will drive underperformance over the next 12 months.”
They attribute most of the stock’s underperformance relative to peers to Buffett’s May announcement and to “historically unique succession risk.”
That risk, they say, stems from “Buffett’s unrivaled reputation” and “unfortunately inadequate disclosure” that could deter investors once they can no longer rely on his presence.
Without Buffett, Wall Street may not give Greg Abel — the incoming CEO — the same leeway.
No More ‘Buffett Premium’?
Berkshire vs S&P 500 Comparison Chart
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article headlined “Berkshire’s New Normal… No ‘Buffett Premium.’”
KBW’s Shields is quoted as saying:
“There are people that have developed enormous confidence in Warren Buffett. For them, that’s where the investment thesis starts and stops.”
However, Chris Bloomstran, president of Semper Augustus Investments Group, disagrees.
He argued Berkshire was overvalued before the May meeting and noted its YTD gain of 5% still beats Progressive, down 14%. Bloomstran said:
“Everybody I know inside the Berkshire world has nothing but rave reviews and good things to say about Greg [Abel].”
Meanwhile, Henry Asher of Northstar Group added:
“You’re not going to cancel your shipment on Burlington Northern because Buffett isn’t there. The businesses will continue to produce mammoth amounts of cash flow, with or without Buffett.”
Annual Shareholder Letter Gets a New Author
The Journal also confirmed Greg Abel will write the annual shareholder letter starting next year.
Buffett previously said he won’t appear on stage at next May’s meeting as chairman.
In his last letter, Buffett foreshadowed the change:
“It won’t be long before Greg Abel replaces me as CEO and will be writing the annual letters.”
Buffett will still send personal letters to his three children and shareholders on November 10, accompanying his Thanksgiving philanthropic gifts.
DaVita Position Trimmed to Maintain 45% Stake
In a filing this week, Berkshire disclosed it sold 401,514 shares of DaVita for $54 million on Monday.
DaVita shares are down 8% this week after disappointing Q3 earnings due to higher patient costs and fewer treatments.
This small sale, however, isn’t about stock weakness — it’s to keep Berkshire’s stake below 45% as agreed in a 2024 arrangement.
DaVita’s recent buybacks reduced its outstanding shares, so Berkshire trimmed its holdings to 31.8 million shares (worth $3.8 billion) to return its stake to exactly 45.0%.
From the Archives
It’s Halloween — so here’s what scares Warren Buffett (2025 edition):
“We wouldn’t want to be owning anything that we thought was in a currency that was really going to hell… the natural course of government is to make the currency worth less over time.”
Buffett warned that currency devaluation remains a long-term global risk, as governments inevitably “push toward weaker currencies.”
Berkshire Stock Watch
Berkshire’s top publicly traded holdings (U.S., Japan, and Hong Kong) by market value, as of June 30, 2025 — per the 13F filing of August 14, 2025.
Exceptions:
Itochu: March 17, 2025 Mitsubishi: August 28, 2025
Tokyo prices are converted to USD from yen.
Full holdings and market values are available on CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
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