Warren Buffett Watch: It's Buffett, not Abel, who appears to be calling the shots on stocks

Two weeks ago, Berkshire Hathaway reported its huge cash reserves declined by billions of dollars during the second quarter, the first significant drop since early 2022.

It appeared to many, including me, that Greg Abel was making his mark as the company's new CEO by putting a " big chunk of Berkshire's cash to work. "

In the wake of last week's disclosure of exactly what it had in its equity portfolio as of June 30, it now looks like it's more complicated than that.

Barron's Andrew Bary makes the case that Abel hasn't been involved in stock calls at all and its Warren Buffett who "still likes making big investment decisions involving Berkshire's $350 billion-plus equity portfolio—and letting Berkshire holders know that he's still in the game" as he approaches his 96th birthday.

While Buffett was careful to note he often talks with Abel, and neither would do anything the other didn't approve of, he revealed in a CNBC interview last month he had "initiated" Berkshire's Alphabet investment.

That stock first appeared in the portfolio in last year's third quarter.

Bloomberg News reported that Berkshire's Q2 purchase of $10 billion in Alphabet shares directly from the company came after Abel gave a "rapid signoff" to the deal in response to a "stealthy weekend call" to Berkshire from Goldman Sachs, the firm putting together Alphabet's enormous equity offering .

Bary believes the second largest purchase in Q2, Delta Air Lines , was the work of portfolio manager Ted Weschler.

He notes Abel has "no formal portfolio management experience and doesn't appear to be making any notable stock-picking decisions" while "he has his hands full" running Berkshire's many operating companies and looking for new ones to buy.

Abel has been spending some of Berkshire's cash with his $6.8 billion acquisition of Taylor Morrison Home , although it didn't close until after Q2 ended.

The roughly $17 billion increase in Berkshire Hathaway's Alphabet stake during the second quarter made Google's parent the third largest holding in the company's equity portfolio , displacing Coca-Cola in that slot.

As of June 30, the end of the quarter, the Alphabet shares had a market value of $37.77 billion, $5.26 billion ahead of Coca-Cola's $32.51 billion.

Since then, however, Alphabet shares have dropped by 3.5% while Coca-Cola has rallied by 12.1%.

As a result, as of Friday's close, Alphabet's lead is just a razor-thin $20 million.

On two days, July 30 and August 20, Coca-Cola topped Alphabet by slim margins at the close.

Appeals court rejects bid to toss real estate commissions settlement A federal appeals court in St. Louis is upholding the 2024 settlement of a class action antitrust suit against Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary HomeServices of America and the National Association of Realtors , Reuters reports .

HomeServices agreed to pay $250 million of a more than $1 billion settlement to resolve claims that long-standing rules over the splitting of real estate commissions kept them artificially high.

As part of the settlement, the NAR agreed to revise those rules.

Some of the plaintiffs, however, think they were short-changed and went to court to block the deal.

This week's ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals backs a lower court's approval of the settlement.

A lawyer for some of the objectors tells Reuters they may ask the Supreme Court to review the case. "Everyone got next to nothing for the sake of settling. There's something just not right about that."

The settlement came after a 2023 jury trial found the defendants liable for $1.78 billion in damages . That award could have been tripled under U.S. antitrust law.

HomeServices CEO Chris Kelly is quoted as saying this week's court win provides "additional certainty" to the company, its agents, and its customers.

The unit's parent, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, still faces a separate proposed antitrust class action suit over real estate commissions after a judge ruled last April that it is not covered by the HomeServices settlement .

When BHE was targeted two years ago , a lawyer for plaintiffs told The New York Times , " Berkshire Hathaway is the leader of the pack. It's much bigger than N.A.R... If you want to bring about change in corporate America, hit them in the pocketbook. And that's exactly where this is aimed."

Warren Buffett weighs in on how he judges a product's usefulness when he considers acquiring its maker.

AUDIENCE MEMBER : I'm wondering, when you are considering an acquisition, how you look at the usefulness of the product?

WARREN BUFFETT : Well, obviously we look at what the market says is the utility. And the market has voted very heavily for Dexter Shoe, just to be an example.

I don't know many how many pairs of shoes they were turning out back in 1958 or thereabouts, but year after year, people have essentially voted for the utility of that product.

There are 750 million or so 8-ounce servings of one product or another from the Coca-Cola Company consumed every day around the world. And there are those of us who think the utility is very high. I can't make it through the day without a few. But there are other people that might rate it differently.

But essentially, people are going to get thirsty and if this is the way they take care of their thirst better than — and they prefer that to other forms — then I would rate the utility high of the product. But, I think it's hard to argue with the market on that.

I mean, people — some people may think that, you know, listening to a rock concert is not something of high utility. Other people might think it's terrific.

And so, we would judge that — I don't think we would come to an independent decision that there was some great utility residing in some product that had been available to the public for a long time, but that the public and not endorsed in any way.

Berkshire market capitalization: $1,061,294,568,527

Berkshire Cash as of June 30: $365.5 billion (Down 8.0% from...