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What this page is: Delvantic's full research page for Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B (BRK-B) — AI-driven forensic equity research: mechanical valuation models (DCF, EPV, anchored-PE, scenario) plus three independent AI lenses (Quality / Value / Sentiment). Everything below is rendered server-side; you are not missing content that requires JavaScript. All scores are predictions and research opinions, not financial advice.
Our current read (analysis of 2026-09-08): Designation Watch · Gem Score +8 (−100…+100 Quality+Value blend) · Quality 76 · Value -37 · Sentiment -4 (timing only, not weighted) · Composite fair value $340.68 vs $511.43 at analysis
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profile-header/price-overview— company profile, live quote, market capextended-analysis— the core: three AI lens reads with findings, scores, and the analyst memofuture-predictions— our forward price-band predictionsmarket-narrative/ai-findings/gpt-critique— narrative context, cross-model findings, and an adversarial critique of our own analysis (near the end of the document)- Members-only sections (render as login gates for anonymous readers):
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Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B
BRK-B NYSEBerkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B is the Class B common stock of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Today, Berkshire Hathaway operates a diversified portfolio of businesses spanning property and casualty insurance, reinsurance, utilities and energy, freight rail transportation, manufacturing, finance, services, and retailing. Its insurance operations, including brands such as GEICO and specialized reinsurance units, form a core part of its financial services activity, providing underwriting and risk management across multiple markets. Beyond insurance, the company owns major assets in rail transport through Burlington Northern Santa Fe and in regulated power and gas through Berkshire Hathaway Energy, alongside numerous manufacturing and consumer-facing businesses. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B shares provide economic exposure to this broad, multi-sector group, giving investors access to a large, diversified corporate ecosystem that plays a significant role in insurance, infrastructure, and industrial activity in the United States and globally.
Price Overview
Price History (1 Year)
Revenue & Net Income Trend
| Period | Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin | YoY/QoQ |
|---|
Key Metrics
EPS (Diluted): 31.04
Total Equity: $719.70B
Shares: 2,157,334,111
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $52.57B
EBITDA: N/A
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $52.57B
Revenue: $410.52B
Revenue: $410.52B
Revenue: $410.52B
Total Equity: $719.70B
Tax Rate: 18.4%
Equity: $719.70B
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $52.57B
Current Liabilities: N/A
Long-Term Debt: $0.00
Total Debt: $0.00
Total Equity: $719.70B
Shares: 2,157,334,111
Shares: 2,157,334,111
CapEx: -$20.93B
Shares: 2,157,334,111
Stock Price: $509.68
Net Income: $66.97B
Industry Benchmarks
Income Statement (Annual)
Last updated: Jul 30, 2026 3:13am (40d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $354.7B | $234.1B | $439.3B | $424.2B | $410.5B |
| Cost of Revenue | — | — | — | — | — |
| Gross Profit | — | — | — | — | — |
| Operating Expenses | $57.1B | $63.2B | $117.1B | $70.0B | $73.9B |
| Operating Income | — | — | — | — | — |
| Net Income | $89.9B | -$22.8B | $96.2B | $89.0B | $67.0B |
| EBITDA | — | — | — | — | — |
| EPS | $39.70 | $-10.33 | $44.27 | $41.27 | $31.04 |
| EPS (Diluted) | $39.70 | $-10.33 | $44.27 | $41.27 | $31.04 |
Balance Sheet (Annual)
Last updated: Jul 31, 2026 9:06am (39d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash & Equivalents | $88.7B | $36.4B | $38.6B | $48.4B | $52.6B |
| Total Current Assets | — | — | — | — | — |
| Total Assets | $958.8B | $948.5B | $1.1T | $1.2T | $1.2T |
| Current Liabilities | — | — | — | — | — |
| Long-Term Debt | — | — | — | — | — |
| Total Liabilities | $443.9B | $466.8B | $499.2B | $502.2B | $502.5B |
| Total Equity | $514.9B | $481.7B | $570.8B | $651.7B | $719.7B |
| Retained Earnings | $534.4B | $511.6B | $607.4B | $696.2B | $763.2B |
Cash Flow (Annual)
Last updated: Jul 30, 2026 3:13am (40d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $39.4B | $37.2B | $49.2B | $30.6B | $46.0B |
| Capital Expenditure | -$13.3B | -$15.5B | -$19.4B | -$19.0B | -$20.9B |
| Free Cash Flow | $26.1B | $21.8B | $29.8B | $11.6B | $25.0B |
| Acquisitions (net) | -$456.0M | -$10.6B | -$8.6B | -$396.0M | -$1.1B |
| Net Debt Issued / (Repaid) | — | — | — | — | — |
| Dividends Paid | — | — | — | — | — |
| Stock Buybacks | -$27.1B | -$7.9B | -$9.2B | -$2.9B | — |
| Net Change in Cash | $40.3B | -$52.3B | $2.2B | $9.7B | $4.2B |
Growth Trends (YoY %)
Last updated: Jul 30, 2026 3:13am (40d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | -34.0% | +87.7% | -3.4% | -3.2% |
| Gross Profit Growth | — | — | — | — |
| Operating Income Growth | — | — | — | — |
| Net Income Growth | -125.3% | +522.8% | -7.5% | -24.8% |
| EBITDA Growth | — | — | — | — |
Deep Analysis
Risk : Reward — upside vs downside from this company's own quarters
Computed 2026-09-06 19:00A +1σ run of quarters pays +32%; a −1σ run costs 12%. Ratio 2.8:1 (μ 4.6%, σ 6.2% , 16 pairs).
Older method (repeat-worst-quarter): 3.6 : 1
| Case | Growth | Margin | Fair value | vs price ($511.43) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bull — recovery | +7% | 25.7% | $675.37 | +32% |
| Base — stabilizes | +4% | 22.3% | $552.89 | +8% |
| Bear — keeps slipping | +2% | 19.0% | $444.27 | -13% |
| Stress — last quarter repeats | -1% | 22.3% | $465.60 | -9% |
| Upside — a +1σ run of quarters (v2) | +11% | 22.3% | $677.43 | +32% |
| Stress — a −1σ run of quarters (v2) | -2% | 22.3% | $451.60 | -12% |
Narrative Economics
market-narrative step).
Claude Reading
ai-findings step) when a report is run on this ticker.
GPT Reading
At $510, Berkshire is being valued less like a cyclical insurer/industrial bundle and more like a near-riskless compounding machine, and the recent numbers don’t fully earn that treatment. The core operating picture is stable, but not growing: 2025 revenue was $410.5 billion, down from $424.2 billion in 2024 and $439.3 billion in 2023, a two-year decline of about 6.6%. The quarterly run-rate is similarly flat to soft, with revenue around $92-95 billion for seven straight quarters and the latest quarter at $93.7 billion versus $89.7 billion a year earlier, but still below the $94-95 billion levels seen in late 2024 and late 2025. That is not deterioration in the dramatic sense, but it is unmistakably a no-growth revenue base. On that base, reported earnings are too noisy to lean on mechanically: quarterly net margin has swung from 5.1% to 32.4%, and annual net income has ranged from -$22.8 billion in 2022 to $96.2 billion in 2023. For Berkshire, mark-to-market investment gains distort GAAP net income, so the 16.4x P/E looks cleaner than the underlying economics actually are.
What stands out to me is that cash generation and balance-sheet strength remain excellent, but not obviously cheap relative to the current market cap. Berkshire ended 2025 with $719.7 billion of equity and trades at 1.53x book, which is not outrageous for a high-quality allocator but also not a bargain for a company posting just 9.3% ROE. If you pay 1.53x book for a 9%-ish return-on-equity franchise, your forward compounding rate will only be attractive if ROE rises, capital allocation gets more aggressive, or the multiple holds firm. Meanwhile, free cash flow was $25.0 billion on $1.10 trillion of market value, barely a 2.3% FCF yield; operating cash flow of $46.0 billion is stronger, but Berkshire is capital-intensive outside insurance, with nearly $20.9 billion of capex. This is the central issue: the company is enormously safe and diversified, yet the market is already charging a premium for that safety while organic growth is absent.
I also don’t buy the most bearish framing that this is some operational unraveling. The latest quarter’s net income of $10.1 billion was down sharply from the prior-year quarter’s $4.6 billion? No — up year over year in absolute dollars, which highlights why simplistic “recent earnings down 24.8%” summaries can mislead when they are anchored to different periods or annual swings. Likewise, quarterly revenue has been remarkably resilient for a conglomerate of this size in a mixed macro backdrop, and the debt-to-equity shown as zero alongside $52.6 billion of cash underscores just how much optionality Berkshire still has. A $720 billion equity base, fortress liquidity, and a collection of insurance, railroad, utility, and industrial assets should not trade at distressed or even market-average multiples. The problem is narrower: quality is real, but the current price already reflects it.
The best bull case is straightforward and respectable. First, 1.53x book for Berkshire may be justified because book value understates the earning power of wholly owned subsidiaries and the value of capital allocation skill; Burlington, BHE, and the insurance operations are not static assets. Second, the reported revenue decline may matter less than underwriting quality and investment income, especially in a higher-rate environment where Berkshire’s float and cash earn more. Third, a 16.4x earnings multiple for this level of resilience is hardly stretched versus the broader market, and if leadership transition fears fade under Greg Abel, the conglomerate discount could narrow rather than widen. Finally, Berkshire’s downside protection is real: even with uneven earnings, 2025 still produced $67.0 billion of net income and $25.0 billion of free cash flow. I weigh those points seriously; they are why I am not outright bearish. But they support “good company, fair-ish price,” not “obvious upside.”
What would change my mind is evidence that the business has moved from capital-preserving to capital-compounding again. Specifically, I’d want to see annual revenue stabilize and reaccelerate back above $425 billion, operating cash flow push sustainably above $55 billion, and free cash flow clear $35 billion without balance-sheet strain. On returns, a move from 9.3% ROE toward 11-12% would justify paying north of 1.5x book. Shorter term, if upcoming quarters can show revenue consistently above $95 billion and net income holding in the mid-teens of billions without relying on investment marks, I’d be more constructive. Absent that, I think Berkshire is priced about where a premium-quality but low-growth conglomerate should trade.
Grok Reading
The numbers describe a mature conglomerate whose reported earnings power is eroding while the market still assigns it a premium multiple. Annual revenue has slipped from $439B in 2023 to $424B in 2024 and $411B in 2025; net income has compressed from $96B to $89B to $67B over the same span. Trailing P/E sits at 16.4x on that diminished base, and price-to-book at 1.53x sits near the top of Berkshire’s decade range against $720B of equity. Free-cash-flow generation of $25B on a $1.1T market cap equates to a 2.3% yield—thin compensation for a business whose revenue CAGR is –3.3% and earnings CAGR is –16.6%. Quarterly revenue has held in a tight $90–95B band, so the top-line decay is real rather than seasonal; the wild swings in net margin (5% to 32% within five quarters) are almost entirely mark-to-market noise from the equity portfolio, which means the “earnings” the 16.4x multiple is applied to are not the clean operating stream investors think they are buying. Cash on the balance sheet is reported at only $53B—strikingly low for Berkshire historically—while capex of $21B is absorbing nearly half of operating cash flow. At $510 the stock is pricing continuity of the old Buffett premium without evidence that the underlying engine is still compounding at historical rates.
The leadership-transition overhang is not abstract. Greg Abel inherits a capital-allocation franchise whose recent deployment has produced neither large acquisitions nor aggressive buybacks at these valuations, and the Apple concentration risk flagged in the pre-flight note remains unaddressed in the numbers. Rule-based classification correctly tags the firm a mature earner, yet the secondary signals—poor cash-flow quality, macro headwinds, negative momentum—are directionally consistent with the income-statement deterioration. Paying 1.53x book and 2.7x sales for a collection of insurance, rail, utility and manufacturing assets whose collective earnings are shrinking is a bet on reputation, not on the current run-rate.
The strongest counter-argument is that GAAP net income is the wrong lens. Berkshire’s insurance float, BNSF’s pricing power and the utility rate base are high-quality, hard-to-replicate cash engines; the $46B of operating cash flow is tangible, debt is negligible, and the conglomerate structure still allows tax-efficient capital recycling that pure-play peers cannot match. A skeptic would note that 2022’s –$23B loss and the subsequent rebound simply illustrate equity-market volatility, not operational decay, and that a 16x multiple on a fortress balance sheet has historically been a floor rather than a ceiling once equity markets stabilize. They would also argue the cash figure is understated if short-term Treasuries are excluded, and that book-value growth plus occasional large buybacks have always been the real total-return drivers. I weigh those points seriously, but they do not erase the fact that both reported earnings and free cash flow are in multi-year decline while the valuation multiple has expanded to the high end of its range; quality alone does not justify paying up for negative growth.
I would reverse to neutral or constructive if trailing twelve-month operating earnings (ex-mark-to-market) stabilize above $40B and begin growing mid-single digits, if book value per share compounds at 10%+ for two consecutive years, or if the company deploys a material portion of its liquidity into a large acquisition or buyback that demonstrably accretes value under Abel. A drop back below 1.3x book would also reset the risk-reward.
Big-3 Panel — where each AI stands
Advanced Analysis Forensic deep-dive · separate lenses
Berkshire generates enormous absolute cash - $25.04B FCF in 2025 on $410.5B revenue - with $52.57B in liquid cash and effectively zero net debt at the consolidated level (net cash position of $52.57B against a $1.1T market cap). Net income has been consistently large and positive across the cycle ($89.9B, -$22.8B mark-to-market year in 2022, $96.2B, $89.0B, $67.0B), and diluted share count has declined every year from 2.27B (2021) to 2.16B (2025), a -1.2% CAGR - management is a net buyer of its own equity, concentrating per-share value. Altman Z of 2.52 sits in the grey zone but is largely an artifact of applying an industrial formula to an insurance/conglomerate balance sheet where float is a liability but functions as low-cost permanent capital. The flagged earnings-quality concern (OCF/NI 0.07x, accruals 2% of assets) reflects the mechanics of a business where reported net income includes unrealized investment gains/losses under ASC 321 - a GAAP quirk Buffett himself has repeatedly warned about - not aggressive accrual accounting. The insider tape shows only Buffett gifting and converting A-to-B shares (charitable transfers), no open-market P/S activity - neutral to positive signal on governance. Durability is exceptional: diversified across insurance (GEICO, reinsurance), rail (BNSF), energy (BHE), manufacturing, and a massive equity portfolio, with a self-funding structure that has never required external capital.
Verify before trusting this (5)
- Segment-level operating earnings and capex at BNSF and BHE to separate underlying cash generation from investment-portfolio noise
- Insurance float trajectory and combined ratios at GEICO and the reinsurance units
- Cash and Treasury bill holdings at the parent (widely reported to exceed $300B) - the $52.57B liquid cash figure here appears understated versus disclosed holdings
- Repurchase authorization status and pace of buybacks in the most recent quarters
- Any updates on succession framework and capital-allocation authority for Abel/Jain/Combs/Weschler
Without an e2e fair-value handoff, I anchor on what Berkshire's parts are worth. The equity portfolio (~$285-300B), roughly $300B+ of cash and Treasuries, and the wholly-owned operating businesses (BNSF, BHE, insurance underwriting, manufacturing/services) collectively support a sum-of-parts in the roughly $1.0-1.15T range depending on what multiple you assign to the operating earnings stream (call it ~$40-45B of normalized after-tax operating earnings at 18-22x). Against a $1.10T market cap and $511 share price, that's essentially a coin-flip to deserved value - maybe a few percent rich, maybe a few percent cheap, well inside the noise band.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- Latest 10-Q cash and Treasury balances and equity portfolio fair value
- Operating earnings run-rate ex-investment gains (insurance underwriting, BNSF, BHE, MSR segment)
- Pace and average price of Q3/Q4 share repurchases - the cleanest read on management's own intrinsic estimate
- Insurance float growth and combined ratio at GEICO and reinsurance
The tape is only mildly stressful (VIX 16, S&P 1.6% off highs, neutral regime) and Berkshire's 0.61 beta and diversified insurance/utility mix mean broad macro pressure barely lands here. Higher rates (10y 4.68%) actually help the float-heavy insurance model at the margin, and the record cash pile reframes rate pressure as optionality rather than pain. News flow is quiet-constructive: Buffett-style ETF endorsements, defensive-ETF features, and speculation about a large AI deployment of the cash hoard all keep the name in a favorable, if unexciting, light. Against that, there is no active bullish narrative pulling BRK-B higher. It is not an AI story, not a rate-cut beneficiary, not a momentum name. Momentum readings are weak (negative 3-year trend, negative CAGR) and a Q2 print is imminent with commentary flagging it as unlikely to beat. In a tape where narrative-driven cohorts (AI, crypto-adjacent, high-beta growth) soak up flows, a story-less defensive conglomerate quietly de-rates on a relative basis even if absolute pressure is light. Net: macro pressure is muted, narrative pressure is a mild drag, news tone is faintly positive. That averages to balanced with a slight headwind lean into the print.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- Q2 earnings tone and any commentary on cash deployment or a large acquisition
- Whether a specific AI/energy deployment narrative crystallizes (would flip to tailwind)
- Sector rotation into defensives if VIX pushes above 20
- Any Buffett/Abel succession or capital-return signal
This lens hasn't been run for this ticker yet.
Prediction unavailable. valuation-synthesis has no result for BRK-B — the prediction needs its fair-value anchors.