Ohio AG sues Meta, Twitter CFO rules out crypto investment, Berkshire Hathaway removes stake in Merck

Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman breaks down today's financial headlines, including Berkshire Hathaway removing shares of pharmaceutical company Merck, Twitter CFO ruling out investing in crypto, and Ohio's Attorney General suing Meta for allegedly misleading the public.

Video transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway says it eliminated its investment in Merck and reduced stakes in AbbVie and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Also disclosed new investments of $475 million in Royalty Pharma, which buys drug royalties, and $99 million in flooring retailer Floor & Decor Holdings. Those changes all disclosed in the 13F, the regulatory filing that details Berkshire's US listed holdings as of September 30. If you look at how those various stocks are doing in today's session, it looks like Royalty Pharma, in particular, and Floor & Decor are getting a boost from that news, the others not much changed.

Ohio's attorney general announced he's suing Facebook's parent company, Meta, over new information that came to light in those leaked internal documents. The lawsuit alleges that the company misled the public about its algorithm and the harm the company's research showed its apps can cause users. It claims Meta executives violated securities law by lying about the safety, security, and privacy of its platforms to boost its stock. And the suit claims investors have lost more than $100 billion since whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked those internal documents and testified in front of Congress. Those Meta shares have fallen about 7% since that leak earlier this year.

Twitter chief financial officer Ned Segal says investing in crypto doesn't make sense right now for the social media giant. Segal said in an interview with "The Wall Street Journal" that investing Twitter's corporate cash in crypto assets would change its investment policies, adding the company prefers to hold less volatile assets. Twitter did study using Bitcoin in the past, but Segal says there's a different set of decisions that would go into adding crypto to the balance sheet. However, CEO Jack Dorsey, of course, no stranger to crypto investing. He's an outspoken crypto advocate and bull. And Square, of course, has also disclosed it holds crypto assets, but that's a very different kind of company.