Sherwood News

Berkshire Hathaway invests in The New York Times, cuts stakes in Amazon and Apple

The latest SEC filing shows the company’s first media buy since 2020.

As Warren Buffett wrapped up his 60-year run as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of last year, the Omaha-based conglomerate made some bets in an industry it hadn’t touched in six years, according to its latest 13F filing, disclosed Tuesday.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, Berkshire Hathaway bought 5.1 million shares (worth $351.7 million) of The New York Times — a legacy newspaper that’s arguably transformed itself for the digital age better than any other, becoming a games-cooking-news powerhouse that now boasts nearly 13 million subscribers.

The move marks Berkshire’s return to the news media since 2020, when it sold off its newspaper holdings, including Buffett’s hometown daily, the Omaha World-Herald. Still, the Times barely registers in the company’s overall public portfolio, at just 0.12% — and that's a complete rounding error at Berkshire's scale, just 0.03% of its total market cap.

At the same time, Berkshire seems to be repositioning toward the old economy while paring back some of its tech exposure. The company trimmed its stake in Amazon by 77%, while cutting its Apple holding by around 4% — though the iPhone maker remains Berkshire’s largest holding.

Meanwhile, energy and insurance quietly bulked up, with stakes in Chevron and Chubb increasing by 6.5% and 8.7%, respectively.

Shares of The New York Times were up as much as 4% in early trading on Wednesday following the report, hitting a 52-week high, though they have since pared much of those gains.

Max Knoblauch46m

Record labels dip as Google adds AI music generation to its Gemini app

Google on Wednesday said it’s rolling out the ability for Gemini app users aged 18 and up to generate 30-second AI music tracks.

The tool is available globally, as Google launches beta access to its Lyria 3 generative-AI music model.

Addressing the potential for skirting the lines of copyright law (as seen in other recent DeepMind AI tools), Google said:

“If your prompt names a specific artist, Gemini will take this as broad creative inspiration and create a track that shares a similar style or mood. We also have filters in place to check outputs against existing content. We recognize that our approach might not be foolproof, so you can report content that may violate your rights or the rights of others.”

Shares of record labels including Universal Music Group and Warner Music dropped 2% on the news. Spotify briefly dipped before rebounding, and Sony shares also saw a slight decline.

Last month, Morgan Stanley published a survey that found up to 60% of Gen Z respondents listen to AI music, for an average of three hours per week. Earlier this year, Bandcamp banned all music wholly or substantially generated using AI.

Google’s AI music maker is coming to the Gemini app

Addressing the potential for skirting the lines of copyright law (as seen in other recent DeepMind AI tools), Google said:

“If your prompt names a specific artist, Gemini will take this as broad creative inspiration and create a track that shares a similar style or mood. We also have filters in place to check outputs against existing content. We recognize that our approach might not be foolproof, so you can report content that may violate your rights or the rights of others.”

Shares of record labels including Universal Music Group and Warner Music dropped 2% on the news. Spotify briefly dipped before rebounding, and Sony shares also saw a slight decline.

Luke Kawa2h

Figure Technology rises amid big appetite for its blockchain-native share offering

Figure Technology Solutions is rising in early trading after upsizing its secondary offering of “blockchain native” shares.

The offering is priced at $32, roughly a 13% discount to Tuesday’s closing price and below any closing price for Figure since the week of its IPO in September.

This is not a dilutive offering: selling shareholders are able to exit common stock at $32, and in exchange the buyers will receive “blockchain native” shares at a discount to the current share price, presumably to help more activity migrate to Figure’s Provenance Blockchain. Holders could then lend these securities for yield, borrow against them, or have the option of converting these blockchain-native shares into common stock.

This secondary offering was originally announced on February 13 along with the release of Figure’s preliminary Q4 results.

Hyunsoo Rim4h

Riot Platforms rises on activist push to accelerate AI data center pivot

Shares of major crypto miner Riot Platforms jumped as much as 5.6% in premarket trading Wednesday after activist investor Starboard Value urged the company, in a letter seen by Bloomberg, to accelerate its shift from bitcoin mining toward AI-focused data center operations.

Starboard Urges Bitcoin Miner Riot to Speed Up Shift to Data Centers

Luke Kawa15h

Applied Digital, WeRide, and Recursion Pharmaceuticals dip as Nvidia exits positions

Three stocks took a dip in after-hours trading on Tuesday after Nvidia’s 13F filing showed the chip designer sold its stake over the final three months of 2025 in:

Applied Digital, a data center operator in which Nvidia was the seventh-largest holder as of the end of Q3.
- That being said, Nvidia still has some quasi-direct Applied Digital exposure through its still substantial CoreWeave position. The neocloud acquired warrants in APLD last June.
WeRide, the Chinese self-driving firm.
Recursion Pharmaceuticals, which engages in AI-driven drug development.

Nvidia also sold its stake in Arm Holdings, but that was offset by some good news: part of Nvidia’s expanded pact with Meta will see Arm-based CPUs assume a more prominent role in data center environments, which may help boost its volumes and selling prices.

Nvidia added positions in Nokia, Intel, and Synopsys in Q4, all of which had been previously announced via press releases. Its CoreWeave and Nebius positions were unchanged relative to Q3.

Luke Kawa

16h

Nvidia enhances partnership with social media giant Meta to deploy “millions” of its GPUs

Winners: Nvidia, Arm. Losers: AMD, Broadcom, Intel, Arista.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang interviews Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the 2024 SIGGRAPH conference in Denver, CO on July 29, 2024.