(This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.) Buffett's 'nightly trips down the YouTube rabbit hole' revealed Warren Buffett watches CNBC in the morning, but nearly every evening he "can't get enough" of watching YouTube clips while sitting on a recliner in front of an "enormous" television in his Omaha home. A Wall Street Journal article this week quotes friends as saying he's "hardly ever" looking at anything related to investing or finance, although he is a "fan of Berkshire Hathaway's own content" and "proud of how it performs on the video platform." Instead, it's things like "Glenn Close clips ... commercials from the 1950s ...
Paul Anka videos ... speeches by complete unknowns ... show tunes, railroads, the big-band era, Nebraska and early Frank Sinatra performances from the 1930s." He will also go down some "random rabbit holes." For example, Buffett might "come into his office, gushing about a moving amateur rendition of 'My Way.'" Warren Buffett plays bridge with Sharon Osberg (far right) during the 2008 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting weekend. CNBC Sharon Osberg, the three-time world bridge champion who has taught Buffett and Bill Gates the finer points of the game , is also Buffett's "frequent viewing companion," says the WSJ. She reports "Warren's range is broad.
It can be the silliest things," like a "really good documentary on Roy Cohn" or "the Uzbekistan version of America's got talent ." Osberg says Buffett has also been watching clips featuring his late friend and business partner, Charlie Munger, including a 2017 appearance at the University of Michigan. "You feel the bond between the two of them as he watches Charlie. It's really quite something." The WSJ knocks down the idea Buffett's YouTube habit had anything to do with Berkshire's big investment in Alphabet , the platform's corporate parent.
"He just really likes watching the clips, friends say." He's not alone. The article notes that while Buffett, now 96 years old, is notoriously slow to adopt new technologies, in this instance his move to YouTube is in line with an ongoing shift from streaming to video clips that has made the platform the most-watched video provider on TVs in the U.S. Lennar position edges higher Berkshire Hathaway added another $192.6 million to its bet on homebuilder Lennar late last week.
In an SEC filing Monday, Berkshire reports buying 2.4 million shares of Lennar Class A at an average price of $79.65 and 15 thousand shares of Lennar Class B at an average price of $78.33 on Thursday, October 1 and Friday, October 2. Since Berkshire's stake topped 10% in mid-September, it's been required by an SEC rule to disclose additional purchases within two business days. There's been no filing so far this week, so it appears there wasn't any new buying through at least Tuesday.
In total, Berkshire has added $595.3 million of Lennar shares on 11 trading days since September 17. At today's closing prices, its disclosed 12.2% stake of 29 million shares is valued at $2.2 billion . At the end of last year, it owned just 7.2 million shares, then worth $742 million.
Over that period, LEN has dropped more than 25% as rising interest rates have made homes less affordable. BUFFETT & BERKSHIRE AROUND THE INTERNET Some links may require a subscription: Reuters: Texas AG Paxton probes Fruit of the Loom, Hanes over potential toxic chemicals in children's underwear The Motley Fool: Is a Berkshire Hathaway Class A Stock Split Finally Coming? WSB Radio on MSN: Duracell opens new global research and development center in Midtown Atlanta Investopedia: How Warren Buffett's Snowball Metaphor Explains the Power of Compounding and Success HIGHLIGHTS FROM CNBC'S BUFFETT ARCHIVE 'It's share of mind that counts' (1997) watch now AUDIENCE MEMBER: Could you explain a little more about what you call the "mind of the consumer" and the "nature of the product?" ...
WARREN BUFFETT : You know, what you really — when you get into consumer products, you're really interested in finding out — or thinking about — what is in the mind of how many people throughout the world about a product now, and what is likely to be in their mind five or ten or 20 years from now? Now, virtually every person on the globe — maybe, well, let's get it down to 75 percent of the people on the globe — have some notion in their mind about Coca-Cola. They have — the word "Coca-Cola" means something to them.
You know, RC Cola doesn't mean anything to virtually anyone in the world, you know. It does to the guy who owns RC, you know, but — and the bottler. But everybody has something in their mind about Coca-Cola.
And overwhelmingly, it's favorable. It's associated with pleasant experiences. Now, part of that is by design.
I mean, it is where you are happy. It is at Disneyland, at Disney World. And it's at ballparks.
And it's every place that you're likely to have a smile on your face, including the Berkshire Hathaway meeting, I might add. (Laughter) And that position in the mind is pretty firmly established. And it's established in close to 200 countries around the world with people. A year from now, it will be established in more minds.
And it will have a slightly, slightly, slightly different overall position. In ten years from now, the position can move just a little bit more. It's share of mind.
It's not share of market. It's share of mind that counts. Disney, same way.
Disney means something to billions of people. And if you're a parent of a couple of young children and you got 50 videos in front of you that you can buy, you're not going to sit down and preview an hour and a half of each video before deciding what one to stick in front of your kids. You know, you have got something in your mind about Disney.
And you don't have it about the ABC Video Company. Or you don't even have it about other — you don't have it about 20th Century. You know, you don't have it about Paramount.
So that name, to billions of people, including lots of people outside this country, it has a meaning. And that meaning overwhelmingly is favorable. It's reinforced by the other activities of the company.
And just think of what somebody would pay if they could actually buy that share of mind, you know, of billions of people around the world. You can't do it. You can't do it by a billion-dollar advertising budget or a $3 billion advertising budget or hiring 20,000 super salesmen.
BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH Four weeks Twelve months BRK.A stock price: $774,295.00 BRK.B stock price: $515.62 BRK.B P/E (TTM): 12.97 Berkshire market capitalization: $1,104,215,482,465 Berkshire Cash as of June 30: $365.5 billion (Down 8.0% from March 31) Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $359.2 billion (Down 3.8% from March 31) Berkshire repurchased $4.5 billion of its shares in Q2 2026. BERKSHIRE'S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS - Oct. 9, 2026 Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, by market value, based on the latest closing prices. Holdings are as of June 30, 2026, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway's 13F filing on August 14, 2026, except for: Mitsubishi , which is as of April 30, 2026 The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker .
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@cnbc.com . (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.) If you aren't already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here . Also, Buffett's annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire's website . -- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
Source: CNBC
