Berkshire Q1 13F: Buffett Cuts Visa, UNH, Delta
Berkshire Hathaway's Q1 2026 13F shows clean exits from Visa, UnitedHealth and Delta as cash builds past $190B. Buffett signals a defensive market pivot.
Berkshire Hathaway's Q1 2026 13F landed late Friday and reads like a defensive playbook. The holding company fully exited three flagship positions in a single quarter — Delta Air Lines, Visa, and UnitedHealth. Sunday-evening US futures are thin but already bidding defensive names and the long end of the curve.
The Exits
As of March 31, 2026, Berkshire is out of consumer travel (DAL), digital payments (V), and managed care (UNH). Combined position value at the time of sale was roughly $18 billion. Cash has rebuilt to an estimated $190 billion-plus, a fresh all-time high and the largest defensive cash hoard the firm has ever carried into a Q2.
The thread is consistent. Visa is into the teeth of real-time payments and stablecoin-rails competition that the network has not yet credibly answered. UnitedHealth remains tangled in Medicare Advantage rule-tightening and active DOJ probes. Delta is a pure consumer cyclical with a soft premium-leisure Q1 print and cautious Q2 guides across the major carriers. Buffett isn't trimming — he is cutting clean.
Why It Matters Now
Berkshire's 13F has been the macro seismograph for decades. When Buffett walks from consumer cyclicals, sells payments-disruption risk, and exits healthcare-regulatory exposure in the same quarter, the read-through is unambiguous: he does not trust the US consumer setup, regulatory cost is climbing, and the Fed put is weaker under Warsh.
The macro setup is unforgiving. Apollo's Marc Rowan stamped a 35% probability on a market shock just days earlier. Warsh's Friday remarks pointed to a less market-friendly reaction function and to a Fed willing to tolerate equity drawdowns to restore inflation credibility. Berkshire's pivot lines up with both calls.
The Trade
Watch the open. The reflex "buy-what-Buffett-bought" trade inverts here — V and UNH have historically printed 3–5% intraday drawdowns on confirmed Berkshire exits. DAL is thinner, but the read carries straight to the airline complex (AAL, UAL, LUV) and to broader consumer-discretionary names.
Index-level, the cash build is the real signal. A $190 billion cash hoard is, in practice, a structural short on US risk at these multiples. If you respect the read, defensive ETFs (XLP, XLU) and 10-year Treasuries belong on the long side until the Q2 13F prints in August.