Berkshire $BRK-B starts spending!

Berkshire bought back its own shares for about $4.5 billion, while in the first quarter it was only $235 million.

For the first time in a while, it also became a buyer of stocks again. It channeled roughly $10 billion into Alphabet $GOOG and completed the acquisitions of Taylor Morrison and the chemical division of OxyChem. As a result, the cash pile declined for the first time after a long string of records, specifically from $397 billion to $365 billion.

Buybacks

The company's management initiates them only when they consider the stock undervalued relative to its intrinsic value, so the increase is an indirect message of how Abel views the company's current valuation.

Insurance remains a weaker spot, where profit fell and GEICO is grappling with higher claims.

And now some numbers

Berkshire Hathaway $BRK-B reported operating profit of $12.98 billion for the second quarter, a 16% increase year-over-year.

Although net profit more than doubled to $25.67 billion, this largely reflects unrealized gains from the stock portfolio and a low base of comparison, so it says little about the health of the business.

Do you own a company whose Class A shares are the most expensive on the stock exchange?