OMAHA, Neb. — Insurance dragged Berkshire Hathaway‘s quarter down. Operating earnings came in at $12.705 billion for the third quarter, down from $13.485 billion a year ago, the company said Saturday in its news release.
Shareholders’ net earnings were $22.112 billion. A year earlier, the figure was $30.796 billion. Per Class A share, net earnings came to $15,502, against $21,413 a year earlier.
The drop in net earnings came with smaller investment gains. Berkshire booked $9.407 billion of investment gains in the quarter, down from $17.311 billion a year earlier, a figure that mostly reflects changes in the value of the stocks it owns.
“The amount of investment gains (losses) in any given quarter is usually meaningless and delivers figures for net earnings per share that can be extremely misleading to investors who have little or no knowledge of accounting rules.”
Insurance earnings fall
Insurance underwriting earnings dropped to $1.352 billion from $2.369 billion. Insurance investment income also fell, to $2.734 billion from $3.181 billion.
The rest of the group mostly grew. BNSF, the railroad, earned $1.729 billion, up from $1.449 billion, and Berkshire Hathaway Energy earned $1.612 billion, up from $1.489 billion. Manufacturing, service and retailing operations earned $4.042 billion, against $3.616 billion a year earlier.
Buybacks step up
Berkshire bought back about $9.6 billion of its own shares in the quarter. Add the earlier buybacks and the nine-month total reaches about $14.4 billion. Class A equivalent shares outstanding stood at 1,418,900 on Sept. 30.
Over the first nine months, the picture looks different from the quarter alone. Operating earnings for the nine months were $37.034 billion, up from $34.286 billion, while net earnings climbed from $47.769 billion to $57.885 billion.
Float, the premium money Berkshire holds before it pays claims, was about $178.5 billion at Sept. 30. The release put the increase since the end of 2025 at about $2.1 billion.
Berkshire told readers not to judge the business on the summary alone. The release urges investors and reporters to read the company’s 10-Q, posted on its website, and says the figures in the release are not adequate for making an informed investment judgment.
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