Warren Buffett’s Berkshire & $370 bn cash pile: Samir Arora says sitting on cash has cost them

Legendary investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in its 2025 annual report in February noted that its cash and US Treasury holdings exceeded $370 billion. While some of this capital was required to support insurance operations and protect Berkshire against extreme scenarios, it also constituted what Berkshire called "our dry powder."

Samir Arora of Helios Capital, while replying to an X post on Tuesday, said Berkshire Hathway has already lost a lot by sitting on cash, adding that he does not think the Omaha-headquartered holding company can cover for the opportunity cost, given the rally seen in the US stocks over the past three years.

Data showed S&P 500 delivered an annualised 17.22 per cent return over the past three years, as the index delivered over 60 per cent return during the same period. Dow Jones during the same period delivered annualised price return of 11.70 per cent during the period or 39.37 per cent..   

Instead, Arora said Berkshire may have earned 15 per cent or 5 per cent annum on the cash on liquid instruments.

Arora said he does not think Berkshire can cover for the opportunity loss unless the US market falls 30-40 per cent more. "Simple logic - market has risen by 67 per cent in past 3 years. They may have made 15 per cent, so they have lost 50 per cent. Let us say that average cash they have had over this period is $200 billion (would be more). So they have lost opportunity cost of $100 billion. Now they have $370 billion. So first they need to recover 100 billion - if market fall more than 25% then sitting on cash would break even," He said.

Arora said Berkshire likes to put large money in a few. It would have done much better by buying $25 billion positions in 10 companies, out of 1,000-plus that are out there in the US market. 

"But for some reason they want to put everything in a few so cannot find (plus increase their risk if they do find)," Arora said.

Arora was replaying to a post that suggested Berkshire Hathaway was now sitting on a staggering $373 billion in Cash, enough to buy 480 companies in the S&P500 index.