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.

2/18/26 9:34AM

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.

Tasha Matsumoto

30m

Stocks eke out gains on hopes for a path forward for reopening the Strait of Hormuz

Stocks rebounded on news that Iran is drafting a protocol with Oman to “monitor transit” through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.

Matt Phillips2h

AI server cluster maker Penguin Solutions takes flight

Small cap AI server-cluster maker Penguin Solutions surged Thursday, after posting better-than-expected Q2 revenue and profit numbers Wednesday after the close, along with an increase in full-year sales and profit guidance.

The company — which was known as Smart Global Holdings until July 2024 — has positioned itself as a provider of “end-to-end AI infrastructure solutions.”

Its Advanced Computing division designs and sells computers, cabling, and coolings systems, the server racks and clusters of racks AI data centers need. Its other main division sells flash and DRAM memory products.

It’s a pretty small company, with a fully diluted market cap of just over $1 billion and roughly 2,900 employees, according to FactSet.

The stock is volatile. Penguin dove during last year’s tariff tantrum that followed Liberation Day in April. Then it turned tail and doubled through early October, amid a surge of call options activity that tends to reflect retail interest. From the October peak, it then plunged by about 50%, before Thursday’s renaissance.

For what it’s worth, call options activity in Penguin is pretty busy today too — relatively speaking — with roughly 2,625 traded as of about 1:15 pm ET. That’s the most since early January, when the company last reported quarterly numbers. The average volume over the previous 25 trading sessions is about 325 calls a day, according to FactSet data.

Penguin Solutions Stock Takes Off On AI Bolstered Outlook

The company — which was known as Smart Global Holdings until July 2024 — has positioned itself as a provider of “end-to-end AI infrastructure solutions.”

It’s a pretty small company, with a fully diluted market cap of just over $1 billion and roughly 2,900 employees, according to FactSet.

Luke Kawa5h

Momentum returns to optics stocks as the release valve for AI optimism

Potentially imminent end to the war? Buy optics stocks.

Maybe not? Buy optics stocks anyway.

Effectively all the juice left in the AI trade is coming from optics (and memory) stocks. And the latter group is taking a bit of a breather today while the former continues to surge.

Shares of Ciena Corp., Lumentum, and Coherent are building on recent big gains and among the biggest gainers in the S&P 500 near midday, while Applied Optoelectronics is also surging on Thursday.

These companies all provide solutions that help information move around in data centers, and thus are key beneficiaries of the aggressive capex plans of hyperscalers. Nvidia has invested $2 billion apiece in Coherent and Lumentum in deals that also include purchase commitments.

Matt Phillips6h

Space stocks rip during a topsy-turvy day for the equity market

Satellite-services-from-space stocks surged Thursday after reports that Amazon is in talks to buy Globalstar, which provides voice and connectivity services from its satellite network. It also can’t hurt that the general mood around space is ebullient, following the successful launch of Artemis II on Thursday.

Planet Labs and ViaSat also soared on the news.

The gains for EchoStar — seen as a backdoor play at pre-IPO SpaceX exposure — and Rocket Lab were more muted, perhaps because a deep-pocketed competitor like Jeff Bezos getting serious about space services could complicate the plans of the two largest commercial space launch companies.

Rocket Lab and SpaceX see launch services as key to their aspirations of being major providers of voice and data services from low-Earth orbit satellites.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the dominant provider of such services, and the early rumors on the company’s planned IPO — expected to be the largest ever — suggest the market is very excited about the prospects for the industry.

Elsewhere in the space stock world, Intuitive Machines — a maker of space infrastructure that provides services to NASA for lunar missions — also rose.

Globalstar surges after FT reports that Amazon is in talks to buy the satellite group

Rocket Lab and SpaceX see launch services as key to their aspirations of being major providers of voice and data services from low-Earth orbit satellites.

Elsewhere in the space stock world, Intuitive Machines — a maker of space infrastructure that provides services to NASA for lunar missions — also rose.

Hyunsoo Rim, David Crowther

Can Sandisk do the double?

The S&P 500 just had its worst quarter in years. Here are the biggest winners and losers.

Sandisk and energy stocks soared while software names sank amid a broad sell-off in tech stocks.

Balancing balls of different sizes on pink seesaws creating equilibrium