Welcome to Markets Desk, here's what's moving the needle this Sunday.
Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on a record three hundred ninety seven billion dollars in cash, and with Greg Abel now at the helm, the question isn't whether he deploys it — it's how. Berkshire has been a net seller of equities for several quarters running, letting that war chest balloon to historic levels. A major acquisition or an accelerated buyback program both remain live possibilities, and the market is watching Abel's next move closely.
Shifting to policy, artificial intelligence regulation in the United States is moving from conversation to concrete action. Cyber incidents are mounting, political pressure is building on both sides of the aisle, and frontier AI labs are increasingly signaling openness to oversight frameworks as a trust-building measure. Analysts expect meaningful regulatory structure to take shape through two thousand twenty six, with enforcement mechanisms likely to follow shortly after.
And in geopolitics, Iraq's government is renewing pledges to modernize its air defense systems following recent American and Saudi strikes tied to the broader Iran conflict. But analysts are skeptical — Baghdad made similar commitments well before this latest escalation and has consistently fallen short on procurement. The gap between declared intent and actual defense spending remains wide, and regional instability is unlikely to close it quickly.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
