Berkshire Hathaway’s second-quarter 10-Q, filed Saturday, put a fresh number on one of the most-watched piles of money in global markets: $324.9 billion in short-term U.S. Treasury bills and $40.6 billion in cash, for a combined liquid position of $365.5 billion as of June 30, 2026. The T-bill line alone is larger than the entire balance sheet of most listed companies and, at current yields, generates several billion dollars a quarter in risk-free interest.
The composition of that pile matters as much as its size. Berkshire is not sitting on idle cash — it is running a corporate Treasury desk at institutional scale, and its choices ripple through short-end funding markets, buyback signaling, and the debate over where U.S. equity valuations should trade.
Where the $365 billion sits
The 10-Q breaks the liquid position into three lines across the two reporting segments. Berkshire’s Insurance and Other segment holds the bulk of the T-bill portfolio; the Railroad, Utilities and Energy segment carries a smaller operating cash balance.
| Line item ($B) | Jun 30, 2026 | Dec 31, 2025 | H1 change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash — Insurance & Other | 35.1 | 47.7 | −12.6 |
| Cash — Railroad, Utilities & Energy | 5.5 | 4.2 | +1.4 |
| Short-term U.S. Treasury bills | 324.9 | 321.4 | +3.5 |
| Total cash + T-bills | 365.5 | 373.3 | −7.8 |
Two things stand out. First, T-bill holdings grew modestly in the first half of 2026 — even as short-end yields fell from roughly 4.14% to 3.74% (three-month bill) over the past year, according to Treasury market data. Second, the total liquid position actually slipped by $7.8 billion in H1, marking one of the first sequential declines after several quarters of near-continuous accumulation.
That deceleration is not a pivot — the buffer is still by far the largest in Berkshire’s history — but it is a notable directional shift after years of unbroken cash build.
What the pile earned
Interest, dividend, and other investment income at the Insurance and Other segment totaled $5.86 billion in Q2 alone, per the earnings statement. That is roughly consistent with the T-bill stack rolling at ~3.7% annualized after netting dividends and other yield. Management specifically flagged that after-tax corporate investment income rose $91 million year over year in Q2 despite the lower rate backdrop, “primarily due to increased investments in U.S. Treasury Bills.”
The scale is worth pausing on. At current three-month T-bill yields near 3.74%, a $325 billion book generates on the order of $12 billion in gross interest per year — more than the entire net income of many S&P 500 constituents, earned with zero credit risk.
Buybacks: still modest against the pile
Berkshire repurchased roughly $4.8 billion of its own stock in the first half of 2026, based on the increase in treasury stock at cost from $78.9 billion at year-end to $83.7 billion at June 30. That took the equivalent Class A share count from 1,438,223 to 1,431,693 — a 0.45% net reduction.
The pace remains a fraction of the free cash generated by the operating businesses. Per Note 18 of the 10-Q, the board’s buyback authorization requires that repurchases not reduce consolidated cash, cash equivalents, and Treasury bill holdings below $30 billion. With the current buffer at more than 12× that floor, the constraint is philosophical, not mechanical: management is choosing not to lean harder on buybacks at prevailing prices.
Why capital markets care
Three implications flow from a corporate treasury pile this size.
1. Bill demand backstop. Berkshire is a persistent, price-insensitive buyer of very short-dated Treasuries. That matters when the Treasury is running a heavy bill-heavy issuance calendar. Weekly bill auctions settle into a market where one buyer alone is rolling roughly $300B+ of paper. Fluctuations in Berkshire’s appetite can shift bid-to-cover at the margin.
2. A revealed-preference signal on equity valuations. Buffett has repeatedly framed the choice between T-bills and equities as an intrinsic-value calculation. When Berkshire keeps adding to bills rather than deploying into either its own stock or new acquisitions, the message the market reads is that broad U.S. equity valuations remain rich relative to Berkshire’s internal hurdle rate. The H1 slowdown in accumulation is the first hint of that message softening.
3. Interest income as an earnings floor. The $5.9 billion of quarterly interest and dividend income is itself a durable, low-volatility earnings stream. With reported Q2 net earnings of $25.7 billion — more than double the year-ago quarter, largely because of $16.1 billion of mark-to-market investment gains on the equity book — the T-bill line quietly delivers roughly the same amount every quarter regardless of what stocks do. That is exactly the kind of ballast Berkshire prizes.
The one number to watch next
The pile is still enormous, but it stopped growing in H1. If the T-bill line ticks lower in the Q3 10-Q — or, more decisively, if buybacks accelerate and drive the buffer meaningfully below $360 billion — that will be the first sign that Berkshire sees prices worth paying, either for its own shares or for something new. Until then, the world’s most-watched cash pile continues to earn 3.7% and wait.
Sources
- Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended June 30, 2026 — balance sheet, statements of earnings, Note 18 (buyback authorization).
- Federal Reserve H.15 Selected Interest Rates — U.S. Treasury bill yields.
- U.S. Treasury — Upcoming Auctions — T-bill issuance calendar.
- YCharts: 3-Month Treasury Bill Rate — 3.74% as of Aug 6, 2026.
Disclosure: This article is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice.