UnitedHealth soars but Berkshire's new stake may still be in the red

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UnitedHealth Groupshares have soared almost 30% since Berkshire Hathaway’s disclosure in mid-August that it hadpurchased a bit more than 5 million sharesbetween April 1 and June 30.

Minutes before thatSEC filing, UNH closed at $271.49. On Friday, it ended trading at $352.51.

Although UNH had already started to bounce from its lowest close of the year of $237.77 on Aug. 1, Berkshire’s endorsement of the troubled stock is responsible for at least a sizable chunk of its recent gains.

It is not clear, however, whether Berkshire’s investment is profitable (on paper) at this point.

The current price is up just 13.0% since its $311.97 close at the end of Q2 on June 30.

We don’t know exactly when Berkshire did its buying during the second quarter, so we can only look at a range of possible purchase prices.

(And, of course, it may have continued to buy in the third quarter. We won’t know about that until mid-November.)

At Q2’s high of $606.36 per share, Berkshire would have paid $3.1 billion for its stake, putting it 42% into the red.

At the low of $248.88, the 5 million shares would have cost less than $1.3 billion, giving it a 42% gain.

Using the average close for the period, the price comes in at $1.9 billion. Today’s value of $1.8 billion is around 8% below that level.

Since Berkshire’s buying was presumably triggered by the price slide early in the quarter, the actual purchase price is probably at the lower end of the range, but there still appears to be a significant chance the stake is the red, despite the stock’s recent gains.

Berkshire & Co., however, are usually in it for the long haul, and there are some bullish signs for the stock, which is still down 30% year to date.

After meeting with UNH’s management, analysts at Morgan Stanley said, “We are incrementally positive following discussions with UNH [management] where it had conviction in the turnaround.”

On Friday, Morgan Stanley’s Erin Wrightraised her price targetto $395 from $325.

And onTuesday’s “Lightning Round,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer said he doesn’t like to buy stocks that areunder investigation, but “there are some people who seem to know that the worst is over.”

In an unusual move for the normally passive investor,Buffett told CNBC he’s “disappointed” the company went ahead with those plans, even though it knew he, representing KHC’s largest shareholder, opposed a split.

CNBC.com’sYun Liquotes Gordon Haskett’s Don Bilson as saying, “Beyond any worries that investors might have with the plan itself, they must also grapple with the possibility that Buffett will now dump his stock.”

Because its stake is more than 10%, any sales would have to be reported publicly within two business days.

While the price ofBerkshire Ashares, the source of almost all his net worth, increased almost 10% over the past year, Buffett donated stock thenworth $6.0 billion this summerto the Gates Foundation and several family foundations.

Last fall, his Thanksgiving gifts to the family foundationstotaled $1.1 billion.

If Buffett had held onto all the shares he’s given away since 2006, he would now be worth approximately $350 billion.

That would put him in the #2 slot behindElon Musk’s $428 billionon the annual list, which uses stock values as of Sept. 9.

The next day,Oracleshares soared on astrong earnings report, adding around $100 billion to Larry Ellison’s net worth.Teslashares have also moved higher since then.

As a result, Buffett would be nearly tied withEllison’s $352 billionin our hypothetical real-time ranking, with Musk still well ahead at $463 billion.

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

Holdings are as of June 30, 2025 as reported inBerkshire Hathaway’s 13F filingon August 14, 2025, except for:

• Itochu, which is as ofMarch 17, 2025,andMitsubishi, which is as ofAug. 28. Tokyo Stock Exchange prices are converted to U.S. dollars from Japanese yen.

The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com’sBerkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me [email protected]. (Sorry, but we don’t forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)

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Also, Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collectedhere on Berkshire’s website.

— Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch