Berkshire Hathaway Earnings: Cash Hits Record $373 Billion on Mostly Solid Results Across the Firm

Key Morningstar Metrics for Berkshire Hathaway

• Fair Value Estimate
  : USD 765,000
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★★★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : Narrow
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating
  : Low

What We Thought of Berkshire Hathaway’s Earnings

Narrow-moat-rated Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A reported adjusted fourth-quarter operating results that were basically in line with our expectations, with the firm continuing to benefit from decent results from its insurance businesses despite pricing coming down during the past year.

Why it matters: Berkshire has historically offset underperformance in one or more of its segments with outperformance in others.

• Following two years-plus of outstanding results, the insurance operations returned to normal somewhat in 2025, as smaller price increases and higher catastrophe losses (primarily in the first quarter) had an impact on underwriting results.
• BNSF continues to underperform Union Pacific, despite seeing another improvement in its operating ratio (which narrowed the gap between the two firms) in the fourth quarter.
• Berkshire Hathaway Energy, meanwhile, saw a decline in fourth-quarter results and continues to signal that legislation aimed at curbing investments in renewables may have an impact on future results.
• The manufacturing, service, and retailing division posted a slight increase in its top line during the quarter, with pretax profit margins improving slightly year over year as well.

The bottom line: With Berkshire’s fourth-quarter results coming in basically in line with our expectations, we expect to leave our USD 765,000 per Class A share and USD 510 per Class B share fair value estimates in place.

• Excluding the impact of investment gains/losses and other adjustments, fourth-quarter adjusted operating revenue declined 0.7% year over year to USD 94.2 billion.
• Adjusted operating earnings declined 29.8% year over year to USD 10.2 billion, as the insurance operations posted lower levels of underwriting and investment income, while the rest of the portfolio posted modest gains.
• Book value per share, which serves as a decent proxy for measuring changes in Berkshire’s intrinsic value, increased 10.5% year over year to USD 498,823 from USD 451,507 at the end of December 2024.