Berkshire buys more Lennar shares, but pace of purchases slows

(This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.)

Berkshire Hathaway added to its bet on Lennar this week, raising its stake in the homebuilder to 11.2%, although the pace of its buying appears to be slowing.

In an SEC filing late Wednesday, Berkshire disclosed it bought a total of $53.6 million of Lennar's Class A shares and another $329,000 of the super-voting B shares on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

That puts the position at a total of 26.6 million shares valued at $2.1 billion based on Friday's closing prices.

At the end of the second quarter, Berkshire owned a 5.4% stake of 13.4 million shares valued at $1.2 billion. That was an increase of almost 30% from the 10.3 million shares it owned at the end of the first quarter, which was, in turn, an increase of 43% from 7.2 million shares at the end of last year.

As the stock continued to falter in the third quarter, Berkshire continued to buy in secret until its stake hit 10% in mid-September, triggering an SEC rule requiring it to disclose additional moves within two business days.

That prompted two filings last week revealing Berkshire bought almost $349 million of Lennar shares on six out of the seven trading days between Sept. 17 and Sept. 25.

That's an average of $58 million per calendar day.

This week the average is just under $18 million through Wednesday.

Since Berkshire has not made a new filing as of publication of the newsletter Friday night, it appears Berkshire didn't do any buying on Thursday.

That would put the 4-day average at $13.5 million.

We won't know if there was activity Friday until after Monday's filing deadline.

While Berkshire is making a bet that Lennar will benefit from a long-term recovery in the nation's troubled housing market, Morgan Stanley is pessimistic about the stock's more immediate future.

It started coverage Thursday with an "underweight" rating and a price target of $65 per share. That's a drop of almost 19% from today's close of $79.81, a 2.8% decline for the day.

The nation's housing market is struggling. Six straight weeks of increases have brought the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to 7.30%, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That's the highest it's been since late 2023.

CNBC's Diana Olick reports the high rates have deterred potential homebuyers, who are also seeing higher house prices compared to last year.

Warren Buffett has reclaimed the No. 10 slot on the Forbes ranking of the world's richest billionaires.

The publication reports Buffett moved ahead of Amancio Ortega Thursday afternoon after a month-long decline of almost 8% for the shares of Inditex, the fast fashion group the Spaniard founded that is best known for its Zara chain of stores. 

As of 5:15 PM ET Friday, Forbes estimates Buffett's net worth is $143 billion, $3 billion more than Ortega's $140 billion.

Buffett is the only non-tech name among the ten richest people in the world.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as of Friday, has the same names in its top 10, but there are some variations in the rankings and net worth.

Its No. 11, however, is Walmart's Jim Walton with $134 billion.

Bloomberg puts Ortega's fortune at $125 billion, dropping him to No.15 on its list. 

Warren Buffett explains why he put a slot machine on the third floor of his house when his now-adult children were growing up.

WARREN BUFFETT: The human propensity to gamble is huge.

Now, when it was legalized only in — pretty much in Nevada — you had to go to some distance, or break some laws, to do any serious gambling.

But as the states learned to — you know, what a great source of revenue it was, they gradually made it easier and easier and easier for people to gamble.

And, believe me, the easier it's made, the more people will gamble.

I mean, when I was — my children are here, and 40 years ago, I bought a slot machine and I put it up on our third floor.

And I could give me kids any allowance they wanted as long as it was in dimes. I mean, I had it all back by nightfall. (Laughter)

I thought — I thought it would be a good lesson for them.

Now they weren't going to Las Vegas to do it, but believe me when it was on the third floor, they could find it, you know.

And my payout ratio was terrible, too, but that's the kind of father I was. (Laughter)

The — but gambling, you know, people are always going to want to do it.

And for that reason, I particularly think that access — you know, in terms of friendly gambling or anything like that, I'm not a prude about it.

But I do think that to quite an extent, gambling is a tax on ignorance.

I mean, if you want to tax the ignorant, people who will do things with the odds against them, you know, you just put it in and guys like me don't have to pay taxes.

I really don't — I find that — I find it kind of socially revolting when a government preys on the weaknesses of its citizenry rather than acts to serve them. And, believe me, when a government — (Applause)

When a government makes it easy for people to take their Social Security checks and start pulling handles or participating in lotteries or whatever it may be, it's a pretty cynical act.

Berkshire Cash as of June 30: $365.5 billion (Down 8.0% from March 31)

Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $359.2 billion (Down 3.8% from March 31)

Berkshire repurchased $4.5 billion of its shares in Q2 2026.

Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, by market value, based on the latest closing prices.

Holdings are as of June 30, 2026, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway's 13F filing on Aug. 14, 2026, except for:

The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@cnbc.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)

Also, Buffett's annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire's website.