Shares of the Times rose 4% to $76.99 in after-hours trading.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Berkshire said ‌it owned about ⁠5.07 ⁠million Times shares worth $351.7 million at the end of 2025. Berkshire’s filing contained the Omaha, Nebraska-based company’s U.S.-listed stock holdings as of December 31, which comprise most of its equity portfolio.

Berkshire said that during the fourth quarter, it also sold 4% of its stake in iPhone maker Apple, still its largest equity holding at $62 billion, and 77% of its 10 million shares in online retailer Amazon.com.

The quarter marked the end of Buffett’s 60-year run leading Berkshire. Greg Abel succeeded him as chief executive on January 1, though Buffett remains chairman.

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Berkshire’s filing ⁠does not ‌say whether investments were directed by Buffett, Abel or portfolio manager Ted Weschler. Another portfolio manager, Todd Combs, left in December for JPMorgan Chase.
Stock prices routinely rise when Berkshire reveals new stakes, ⁠reflecting what investors view as a seal of approval from Buffett. It was unclear whether that will continue under Abel. Berkshire has not named a new chief investment officer to replace Buffett, or said how it will divvy up equity investments.

BUFFETT, FORMER PAPER CARRIER, CALLED THE TIMES A SURVIVOR

Buffett delivered newspapers as a teenager, and had long defended the industry before selling Berkshire’s newspaper business, including its hometown Omaha World-Herald, to Lee Enterprises for $140 million in 2020. Berkshire also became Lee’s only lender.

Loathe to sell entire businesses, Buffett told Berkshire shareholders in 2018 that only the Times, the Wall ‌Street Journal and perhaps the Washington Post had digital models strong enough to offset declining print circulation and advertising revenue.

The Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has since encountered its own struggles, and this month laid off approximately one-third ⁠of its employees.

During the fourth quarter, Berkshire also bought and sold several other stocks, adding to its holdings in Chevron and Chubb and selling some Aon and Bank of America stock.

More details about Berkshire’s investments may appear in the company’s annual report and Abel’s first shareholder letter on February 28.

Investors and analysts have said Berkshire has been cautious about valuations, having gone more than a year with no stock buybacks and a decade without a giant acquisition.

Berkshire also owns dozens of businesses including the BNSF railroad, Geico car insurance, energy and manufacturing companies, and retail brands such as Brooks, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom and See’s.

1143 GMT – OPEC+ is forecast to resume oil output increases after pausing hikes in the first quarter, according to Kpler’s senior crude analyst Naveen Das. The alliance is expected to unwind the remaining portion of its 1.66 million barrels per day in voluntary cuts over six months. However, not all member countries can fully meet their quotas—Russia, for example, has limited capacity to increase output. As a result, Das doesn’t anticipate a major downside impact on Brent crude prices, which Kpler currently forecasts at an average of $65 a barrel this year. OPEC+ members are scheduled to meet virtually on March 1 to discuss production policy for the coming months. (giulia.petroni@wsj.com)

Oil Broadly Steady Ahead of U.S.-Iran Talks

0902 GMT – Oil prices are broadly steady ahead of a second round of talks between the U.S. and Iran this week. Brent crude rises 0.1% to $67.60 a barrel, while WTI is flat at $62.30 a barrel after posting weekly losses last week. “Absent any Middle East supply disruption, the scope for a sustained move above $70 appears limited, given continued emphasis on ample supply and indications that some OPEC members see room to resume output increases in April,” analysts at Saxo Bank say. Traders are also keeping a close eye on the U.S.-brokered talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials aimed at ending the four-year war. (giulia.petroni@wsj.com)

FUNDAMENTALS

* Spot gold rose 0.2% to $4,886.69 per ounce by 0110 GMT, after declining more than 2% to a more than one-week low on Tuesday.

* ‌U.S. gold ⁠futures for ⁠April delivery was steady at $4,904.50.

* The dollar held its ground on the day as geopolitical risks kept markets on edge and investors awaited minutes of the Federal Reserve‘s January meeting for cues into future rate cuts.

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* A stronger dollar makes greenback-priced bullion more expensive for other currency holders.
* Mainland Chinese, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea markets are closed for the Lunar New Year holidays, ⁠which means low ‌volumes and possibly volatile moves, traders said. * The Fed could approve “several more” rate cuts this year if inflation resumes a decline to ⁠the central bank’s 2% target, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said on Tuesday, downplaying a recent weak consumer price report as masking strong service price increases.

* Markets currently expect three 25-basis-point Fed rate cuts this year, per CME’s FedWatch Tool. * Non-yielding bullion tends to do well in low-interest-rate environments.

* Meanwhile, Iran and the U.S. reached an understanding on Tuesday on main “guiding principles” in talks aimed at resolving their longstanding nuclear dispute, but that ‌does not mean a deal is imminent, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said.

* Meanwhile, negotiators from Ukraine and Russia concluded the first of two days of U.S.-mediated peace ⁠talks in Geneva on Tuesday, with U.S. President Donald Trump pressing Kyiv to act fast to reach a deal to end the four-year conflict.

* Spot silver fell 0.8% to $72.86 per ounce after dropping over 4% in the last session.

* Spot platinum gained 0.9% to $2,025.80 per ounce, while palladium added 0.5% to $1,690.54.

DATA/EVENTS (GMT)

0700 UK Core CPI YY Jan 0700

UK CPI YY Jan 0700 UK CPI Services MM, YY Jan

0745 France CPI (EU Norm) Final MM, YY Jan

0745 France CPI MM, YY NSA Jan

1300 US Durable Goods Dec

1300 US Housing Starts Number Dec

1415 US Industrial Production MM Jan

1900 Federal Open Market Committee issues minutes from its meeting of January 27-28.

After dropping as much as 1.5% at its lows of the session, the S&P 500 information technology sector erased declines to close up 0.5% as gains in Nvidia and Apple overcame declines in Microsoft and Oracle .

Worries about artificial intelligence disrupting business models had sparked a selloff in software firms, brokerages and trucking companies the previous ‌week, leading to Wall ⁠Street’s three main ⁠indexes to record their biggest weekly decline since mid-November.

“There’s a lot of different trends going on in terms of where investors want to put money right now and you see that in this market where you just see spikes up and spikes down, on maybe not a daily basis, but on a regular basis,” said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York.

“The market is looking very short-term here and there will be a return to AI plays being very much in favor.” Potential risks from Chinese AI players exacerbated the uncertainty. On Monday, Alibaba unveiled a new AI model, Qwen 3.5, designed to independently execute complex tasks.

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Even with the rebound in technology names, software stocks remained under pressure, with the S&P 500 software index ending down 1.6% with Intuit and Cadence Design the worst-performing in the index on ⁠the day with declines ‌of more than 5%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 32.26 points, or 0.07%, to 49,533.19, the S&P 500 gained 7.05 points, or 0.10%, to 6,843.22 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 31.71 points, or 0.14%, to 22,578.38. The S&P 500 financials index was among the best-performing of the 11 major ⁠S&P sectors on the day. Gains in banks such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase helped nudged the Dow into positive territory from a decline of 0.7% earlier in the session. Consumer staples, down 1.5%, was the worst-performing S&P 500 sector on the session, dragged lower by a 7% tumble in General Mills after the cereal maker cut its annual core sales and profit forecasts.

This week, the personal consumption expenditure report – the U.S. Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge – will be in focus for insights into inflation and how it could impact the central bank’s rate-cut trajectory. The data follows cooler-than-expected consumer inflation data last week that slightly raised bets on interest-rate cuts this year.

Traders are pricing in a chance of roughly 63% for a rate cut of at least 25 basis points at the Fed’s June meeting, the first with odds above 50%. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said the Fed could approve “several more” ‌interest-rate cuts this year if inflation resumes a decline to the central bank’s 2% target, while Governor Michael Barr said that another central bank interest rate cut could come somewhere well down the road amid ongoing risks to the U.S. inflation outlook. In addition, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said the central bank must do a deep dive ⁠into the data to determine whether AI is lifting productivity growth and in turn, economic growth, without rekindling inflation that would force tighter monetary policy. Norwegian Cruise Line shares rallied 12.1% as the best performer on the S&P 500, after activist investor Elliott said it had built a more than 10% stake in the cruise operator. Fiserv’s shares jumped 6.9% after the Wall Street Journal reported that activist investor Jana Partners had taken a stake in the payments company. Masimo shot up 34.2% after Danaher said it would acquire the pulse-oximeter maker for $9.9 billion, including debt, sending Danaher shares 2.9% lower.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.02-to-1 ratio on the NYSE while declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.07-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 42 new 52-week highs and 10 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 81 new highs and 224 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 17.76 billion shares, compared with the 20.7 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

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