Apple and Alphabet’s presence in Berkshire’s top holdings spotlights Abel’s continued tilt toward blue-chip tech

Berkshire Hathaway’s investment portfolio continues to show how its longtime approach to stock picking can evolve as the business world shifts. In a recent market roundup, Yahoo Finance pointed to Apple and Alphabet as two of Berkshire’s leading holdings, placing both companies among the conglomerate’s biggest bets.

The report framed the development as a window into Greg Abel’s investing style. Abel, who has been overseeing Berkshire’s non-insurance operations and investment mindset, has often been described as adhering to the same broad discipline that characterized Warren Buffett’s playbook: concentrate on recognizable businesses, prefer durable cash generation, and avoid chasing trends. The Yahoo Finance discussion ties those principles to Berkshire’s growing willingness to hold large positions in technology companies.

Apple and Alphabet are not new names for Berkshire, but their prominence among top positions matters because it underscores how Berkshire’s equity book has moved deeper into sectors that increasingly drive consumer and enterprise spending. Apple’s scale in devices, services, and ecosystem economics, and Alphabet’s role through Google and cloud-related offerings, are widely understood reasons such firms can fit the “business quality” criteria that Buffett-style investing emphasizes, according to the general framing reflected in the market write-up.

Still, the details that investors typically look for, such as the size of each position, changes versus prior quarters, or the specific rationale Berkshire provided for the latest buying or trimming, were not spelled out in the post. Without those figures, readers should treat the headline takeaway as portfolio-level positioning rather than a quarter-by-quarter audit of Abel’s decisions.

Berkshire’s broader pattern has been to build a portfolio around companies it expects to compound value over long stretches. In that context, the inclusion of Apple and Alphabet among top holdings indicates that “quality” in the Berkshire lens increasingly includes technology platforms and ecosystems, not just traditional industrial or financial names.

For tech companies, the significance is practical. Berkshire is typically not an activist investor and rarely trades rapidly, which can make its large holdings feel more like long-term endorsement than short-term momentum. When major positions include firms like Apple and Alphabet, it can also influence market perception about how “defensive” or cash-generative technology can be, especially in periods when investors debate the durability of tech valuations.

The sector context also matters. The technology industry has matured into a mix of hardware-adjacent services, recurring revenue streams, and enterprise software and cloud spend. Companies with strong ecosystems and predictable demand profiles can fit more neatly into conglomerate-style investing frameworks than earlier generations of tech startups did.