Damn it, Buffett has started spending money in the stock market! Berkshire Hathaway has switched its stock investment from "continuous reduction" to net buying in one go, while significantly increasing its own stock buybacks. The nearly $400 billion cash fortress left by Buffett has finally begun to loosen noticeably. Berkshire Hathaway's operating profit for the second quarter reached $12.98 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16%. Manufacturing, services, and retail business profits increased by 24% to $4.47 billion, Berkshire Hathaway Energy increased by 27% to $891 million, and BNSF Railway increased by 6% to $1.558 billion. Insurance performance has been lagging behind, with underwriting profits decreasing by 13% and insurance investment returns decreasing by 9%, but the entire physical business machine is still steadily generating profits. Berkshire Hathaway's holdings of cash, cash equivalents, and short-term US bonds decreased from approximately $397.4 billion at the end of March to $365.5 billion at the end of June, a decrease of nearly $31.9 billion in one quarter. For a company that has been increasingly leaning towards short-term US bonds in recent years, this change is already evident. Combining the first quarter and half year reports together would be more intuitive. Berkshire Hathaway bought $39.405 billion in stocks in the first half of the year, of which $15.938 billion was bought in the first quarter, which means it actually bought about $23.467 billion in the second quarter. Sold approximately $3.693 billion in the second quarter, with a net purchase of approximately $19.774 billion. After 14 consecutive quarters of net sales of stocks, the direction has reversed for the first time, and it's not just a few hundred million dollars trying the waters, but close to 20 billion dollars. At the same time, Abel is clearly more positive about Berkshire's own stocks. In the first quarter, the company only repurchased $235 million, but in the second quarter, it increased directly to $4.527 billion, nearly 20 times that of the previous quarter. Berkshire's repurchase policy itself is quite interesting: only when the CEO, in consultation with the chairman, believes that the stock price is below the conservative estimate of intrinsic value, will a repurchase be made. Therefore, this $4.5 billion at least indicates that the management has felt that Berkshire's own price has entered a range that can be bought seriously. Alphabet is another strong signal. Berkshire Hathaway invested $10 billion directly in Alphabet through private equity in June, and by the end of the second quarter, Alphabet had entered Berkshire Hathaway's top five stock holdings, tied with American Express, Apple, Bank of America, and Coca Cola. More interestingly, Alphabet disclosed that the purpose of this financing includes expanding AI infrastructure and global computing power, which is equivalent to Berkshire Hathaway directly participating in this round of AI capital expenditure cycle with a considerable amount of funds.