BRK-B: $115 Oil and $373B Cash Meet a Market Crash
Berkshire Hathaway's energy bet just got richer. WTI crude at $115.21 and Brent above $121 have pushed the combined Occidental Petroleum and Chevron positions past $52 billion in estimated value — a $4 billion increase in under a month. OXY at $62.84 with 265 million shares and CVX at $200.51 with 130 million shares are printing money while the rest of the S&P 500 gets hammered by tariff fears. BRK-B at $477.38 trades at 1.43x book value with $373 billion in liquid assets. The April tariff selloff has pushed the stock 12% below its $542 high, compressing the P/B ratio to the cheapest level since Abel took over. Buffett told investors the selloff is "nothing" — then confirmed he's still making investment calls and authorized a mystery purchase that won't surface until SEC filings require it. Abel, for his part, invested his entire $15 million after-tax salary in BRK stock and resumed buybacks for the first time since May 2024. The arithmetic is straightforward. A company earning $49 billion in annual operating income, holding the largest corporate cash reserve in history, and sitting on a $52 billion energy portfolio catching a once-in-a-decade oil spike — trading at 1.43x book while the VIX screams above 30 and tariffs reshape global trade. Q1 2026 earnings land May 2. Abel's first full quarterly report arrives with $373 billion in dry powder and a market giving him more targets by the day.