397 bn USD

Berkshire Hathaway is now sitting on close to $400bn in cash. Put differently, this is enough to buy almost any company in the S&P 500 — 478 of the 500 companies are smaller than Berkshire’s cash pile. In Europe, this war chest would also allow Berkshire to take out names like LVMH, Volkswagen and Sandvik combined in one move.

And yet, nothing.

Berkshire has now been a net seller of equities for 14 consecutive quarters, buybacks remain minimal, and no major acquisition has been announced, despite solid operating performance across its core businesses. This is not about fundamentals, it is about price.

When capital is not deployed at this scale, it usually means one thing: opportunities are not attractive enough. The cash is not idle, it is optionality. Waiting is part of the strategy.