Buffett's Cash Pile Is Now Six Times What Berkshire Held During the 2008 Crisis

Buffett's Cash Pile Is Now Six Times What Berkshire Held During the 2008 Crisis

According to r/wallstreetbets analysis circulating this week, Berkshire Hathaway's cash reserves have grown from $334 billion to $373.3 billion in recent months — enough, by one comparison, to buy every share of Apple twice over. The S&P 500, meanwhile, closed at 7,148 points, up 0.13% on the day and roughly 28% above where it stood a year ago. Markets have largely absorbed Iran tensions and oil volatility; the index's maximum drawdown on those headlines was approximately 10%, with earnings growth of around 17% annually across S&P firms helping sustain the rebound, and profit margins reportedly near 15%.

Buffett has been a net seller during this run, quietly reducing Berkshire's Apple position while the Nasdaq and small-cap indices push to new highs. Coca-Cola gained 3.5% on an earnings beat this week; Starbucks reported traffic growth after hours. The buying is broad, the sentiment is bullish — and Berkshire's 95-year-old chairman is not participating. His cash position is approximately six times what it was at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, according to the figures cited.

Whether that reflects a specific macro view or simply a lack of attractively priced targets at Buffett's scale, the signal is the same: no deal looks cheap enough to him right now.

Gobble's Take: When the market's throwing a party and the best allocator of the last six decades won't buy a ticket, that's worth noting before your next entry.

Source: r/wallstreetbets

Hims & Hers CEO Pay Ratio Hits 272x Median Worker Ahead of Shareholder Vote — Stock Falls Premarket

Andrew Dudum, CEO of Hims & Hers Health — the direct-to-consumer telehealth platform known for weight-loss and hair-loss treatments — received total compensation of $14.2 million last year, according to Stocktwits. The company's median employee earned $52,100, producing a pay ratio of 272-to-1. The disclosure landed ahead of a shareholder advisory vote on executive compensation, and shares fell approximately 4% premarket on the news.

HIMS stock had surged roughly 150% over the prior year, carried largely by investor enthusiasm around GLP-1 weight-loss drug demand. That run pushed the shares to around 45 times forward earnings — a stretched valuation that leaves little room for sentiment shifts. Dudum's package includes approximately $11.8 million in stock awards, which ballooned in value alongside the share price. At least one proxy advisory firm has recommended shareholders vote against the compensation package, according to Stocktwits.

The vote is non-binding, but a significant "no" count typically creates board-level pressure to revisit structure in the following year's proxy.

Gobble's Take: A 272x pay ratio isn't unusual for high-growth tech — but it's the kind of number that tends to surface right when a stock's momentum starts to slow.

Source: Stocktwits

Universal Corporation Yields 10.2% as Tobacco Volumes Shrink — Is the Income Worth the Decline?

Universal Corporation processes roughly 150 million kilograms of tobacco leaf annually for cigarette manufacturers worldwide. U.S. smoking rates have fallen approximately 50% since 2000 to around 11%, and the company's core volumes are declining at an estimated 3–5% per year as vaping continues to take share. Shares trade near $52, according to Seeking Alpha's analysis, and have lagged the broader market by roughly 40% over the past five years — a gap that now puts the stock at approximately 9 times earnings versus a peer-group average closer to 15 times.

What that discount buys is a 10.2% dividend yield — more than seven times the S&P 500's current 1.4% payout rate — backed by cash flow that covers the dividend approximately 2.5 times over, per Seeking Alpha. The company has paid dividends for 54 consecutive years. Management under CEO George Helmy, who took over in 2022, has also been accelerating share buybacks and expanding into oriental tobaccos, a segment reportedly seeing around 20% demand growth in certain international markets.

The core tension here is straightforward: the yield is real and the cash flow is durable — for now — but the underlying industry is in structural decline, and no pivot has yet offset that trajectory.

Gobble's Take: A 10% yield on 54 years of unbroken dividends is a genuine income story — the question is how many of those years remain.

Source: Seeking Alpha

Cardinal Health Has Tripled Since 2021 — Upcoming Earnings Will Show Whether the Run Has Room Left

Cardinal Health distributes approximately $200 billion in pharmaceuticals annually to hospitals and pharmacies across the United States, making it one of the three companies that effectively keep the country's drug supply moving. Shares have risen roughly 250% from their 2021 lows to around $118, according to Yahoo Finance, driven by resolution of opioid-related legal liabilities, growth in pharmacy services, and generic drug margins that reportedly rank among the best in the sector at approximately 4%.

The valuation has moved with the price. The stock now trades at roughly 15 times earnings — above its historical average of around 11 times — and is up approximately 25% year-to-date alone. CEO Jason Hollar raised the dividend by 10% recently, a signal of confidence in cash generation, but earnings due imminently will be the real test. A beat could push shares toward $130 by some estimates; a miss or cautious guidance could trigger a pullback of around 10%, per Yahoo Finance's analysis. McKesson, Cardinal's primary competitor in drug distribution, continues to compete for the same hospital contracts.

After a 250% run, the margin for error on entry timing is considerably narrower than it was three years ago.

Gobble's Take: Cardinal Health is a quality operator — but buying after a 250% run, right before earnings, is a timing bet as much as a fundamental one.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Quick Hits

• Zimmer Biomet off highs — fair value gap of ~20%, per Trefis: The orthopedic implant maker has pulled back roughly 8% on knee-replacement demand softness, but Trefis estimates fair value at $130 a share based on aging-population demand trends. Trefis
• Motley Fool flags Exxon and Chevron as top energy picks for 2026: Both majors cited for dividend durability and buyback programs that analysts say could hold up through continued oil-price volatility tied to Middle East uncertainty. The Motley Fool

In Case You Missed It

Yesterday's top stories:

• J.P. Morgan's 2026 Stock Picks Are Running +7.4% — and One Just Saw Volume Double Quietly
• The S&P 500 Just Logged Its Third Record Close in a Week — and the Breadth Data Backs It Up
• Why Technical Charts Catch Sell Signals That Fundamental Analysis Misses