Berkshire HathawayBRK-B
$1.08T market cap · share count from market dataClassified by the SEC under fire, marine and casualty insurance.
Berkshire Hathaway in 23 checks
Berkshire Hathaway at a glance: how it scores on value, growth, quality, health, shareholder returns and trend. The fuller the shape, the stronger the company. Behind each axis are six pass-or-fail checks from its filings, spelled out in the chapters below. Point at an axis to see them.
The business itself is the question here - 11 of 23 checks passed.
Value
What you pay today for what the business produces, measured against BRK-B's own history and its peers, never a universal rule.
Not enough data to score this fairly - the checks below show exactly what's missing.
What does “Value” actually mean?
Value asks what you pay for each dollar of earnings, sales or cash the business produces. A high multiple isn't automatically bad - fast growers earn theirs - but a price far above the company's own history means the market expects a lot to go right. We compare each multiple to the company's own past and to its sector, never to a universal rule.
How we scored it · 1 of 2 checks passed
| – | Cheaper than its own history (earnings) | no multiple history |
| ✓ | Earnings yield beats a long bond (4%) | 7.9% vs 4.0% |
| – | Better cash yield than its own history | under 3 years of cash-flow history |
| ✕ | Free cash flow yield above 3% | 2.2% vs 3.0% |
| – | Cheap on enterprise value | EBITDA at or below zero, or unavailable |
| – | Price isn't outrunning growth | no positive 3-year earnings growth to compare against |
Growth
What the company has actually reported - is it selling more, and is more of it becoming profit?
Growth is weak or inconsistent - the trend, not the story, is the problem.
Revenue: is the business selling more than it used to?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter, not a full fiscal year
→Revenue reached $247.2B in 2025, compounding +6% a year since 2022 and the pace is picking up. The trailing twelve months are already running at $259.7B, ahead of the last full year.
Net income: how much of that revenue becomes profit?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter, not a full fiscal year
→Net income was $67.0B in 2025, against $89.0B the year before. Earnings per share moved +36% over the last twelve months. Trailing twelve-month profit stands at $85.8B.
How fast is it growing, year by year?
-1%revenue growth, FY 2025
Shown separately because they would flatten the axis: 2019 earnings +1925% - rebounds off a collapsed prior year.
→In 2025 revenue grew -1% while earnings moved -25% - when the earnings line runs above revenue, each new dollar of sales is arriving more profitably.
What does “Growth” actually mean?
Growth here is what the company has actually reported to the SEC - not a forecast. We look at the last year, the three-year pace, whether growth is speeding up or slowing down, and whether it's been consistent rather than one lucky year. Hatched bars are fourth quarters we derived from annual filings (companies file a full-year 10-K rather than a Q4 report).
How we scored it · 1 of 4 checks passed
| ✕ | Outgrew its sector last year | 5.7% vs 16.7% (sector 70th pct, n=103) |
| ✕ | Sustained growth beats its sector (3 years) | 6.0% vs 11.7% (sector 70th pct, n=101) |
| ✓ | Profits grew last year | 36.3% vs 0.0% |
| – | Profit growth beats its peers | earnings at or below zero at either end |
| ✕ | Growth is speeding up, not slowing | 1y 5.7% vs 3y 6.0% |
| – | Grew per share, not just in total | under 3 years of per-share history |
Quality
Whether the growth makes real money - margins, returns on capital, and whether profits turn into cash.
Profitability is thin or negative - the growth isn't turning into money yet.
Margins: of every $1 of sales, how much survives each cost layer?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter (2026-06-30), not a full fiscal year
→Net margin stands at 27% in 2025. BRK-B doesn't break out gross or operating margin in its filings, so net is the only layer the data supports.
Earnings quality: do the reported profits turn into real cash?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter (2026-06-30), not a full fiscal year
→Only 54% of reported profit becomes operating cash. Accounting profit is running ahead of cash collection, which is worth watching in the receivables and inventory lines.
What does it earn on the money it uses?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter (2026-06-30), not a full fiscal year
→ROE of 9% on shareholders' capital (ROCE isn't meaningful for this business model).
How much of every sales dollar ends up as free cash?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter, not a full fiscal year
→10 cents of every sales dollar became free cash in 2025, and it has held steady since 2022.
What does staying competitive cost, per dollar of sales?
◌ 2026 = trailing twelve months to the latest filed quarter (2026-06-30), not a full fiscal year
→The biggest claim on each sales dollar is capital spending, at 8% of revenue.
What does “Quality” actually mean?
Quality asks whether the growth makes real money. Margins show how much of each sale survives costs; return on equity shows what shareholders earn on their capital; and the profit-to-cash comparison catches companies whose accounting profits never turn into actual cash.
How we scored it · 1 of 4 checks passed
| – | Better gross margins than peers | gross profit not tagged in its filings |
| ✕ | Runs leaner than peers (operating margin) | 8.3% vs 8.4% (sector 70th pct, n=24) |
| ✓ | Actually profitable | TTM net income $85.8B |
| ✕ | Earns well on shareholders' money | 11.5% vs 17.8% (sector 70th pct, n=101) |
| – | Earns a real return on the capital it employs | operating income or capital employed unavailable |
| ✕ | Profits are cash, not accounting | 0.54 vs 0.80 |
Health
The balance sheet stress test: could BRK-B survive a bad year?
The balance sheet carries real risk - read the checks before anything else.
Could it handle its debt if things went wrong?
→Debt isn't clearly tagged in BRK-B's filings, so treat the balance sheet with extra care rather than assuming zero.
Is the company's own capital growing or shrinking?
→The company's own capital grew from $561.3B in 2023 to $747.9B (+33%). The business is building book value rather than consuming it.
What does “Health” actually mean?
Health asks one question: can the business survive a bad year? We check whether near-term bills are covered, whether debt is modest and shrinking, whether earnings comfortably pay the interest, and - for loss-makers - how many years of cash are left at the current burn rate.
How we scored it · 2 of 4 checks passed
| – | Comfortable near-term liquidity | current assets or liabilities not split out |
| – | Debt isn't dominating | debt unreported - cannot verify |
| ✓ | Debt trending the right way | liabilities are 40.6% of assets vs 45.8% five years ago |
| ✕ | Earnings cover the interest | 4.16 vs 5.00 |
| ✕ | Converts sales to cash better than its sector | 18.0% vs 27.0% (sector 70th pct, n=105) |
| ✓ | Self-funding | TTM free cash flow $24.2B |
Shareholder returns
How much cash actually flows back to owners - dividends, buybacks, whether the share count truly falls, and whether what is handed back is affordable.
Not enough data to score this fairly - the checks below show exactly what's missing.
How much goes back to shareholders - and how much leaks out as stock compensation?
→$2.9B returned last year, with no stock compensation reported against it.
Why compare buybacks with stock compensation?
A company can trumpet billions in buybacks while quietly issuing nearly as much stock to employees. What matters to you is the net effect: is the share count actually falling? If not, the 'return' is mostly recycling.
How we scored it · 2 of 3 checks passed
| – | Share count isn't climbing | under 3 years of share counts |
| ✓ | Buybacks outpace the stock issued to staff | $2.9B bought back, no stock compensation reported |
| ✓ | What it hands back fits inside its cash flow | 12.1% vs 100.0% |
| ✕ | Meaningful yield to owners (dividends and buybacks) | $2.9B returned, 0.3% of market value |
| – | Reliable payer, never cut | no dividend in the last three years |
| – | Dividend growing ahead of inflation | no dividend in the last three years |
Trend analysis
What the market is doing about all of the above. This is price behaviour, not a fact about the business - read it as the market's current opinion, scored on six checks like every other chapter. The market is the S&P 500, measured by the SPY ETF with dividends included, over 3 months (63 trading sessions) and 12 months (252).
Mixed signals from the market - some trends up, some rolling over.
How is BRK-B's trend actually behaving right now?
Chart by TradingView
→BRK-B is still in an uptrend, trading above the band where recent months settled - but that band has started to slope down, so the support under the price is weakening rather than building. Both the last two weeks and the month-ago comparison point down, so the shorter-term readings are already arguing with this uptrend. The band drawn for the coming weeks turns downward partway through, so that support is set to thin out from there.
How the trend above is worked out
The trend read comes from the daily Ichimoku picture, a standard trend indicator, translated out of its jargon. It builds a band from the midpoints of the last 9, 26 and 52 sessions' highs and lows - in effect, the range where recent trading has settled - and draws that band 26 sessions into the future. Price above the band is an uptrend, below it a downtrend, inside it no trend. Because the band is drawn forward, the support for the next few weeks is already fixed and a change of its direction can be seen coming. We also compare the last two weeks against the last month, and today's price against where it stood a month ago. None of this says anything about the business; it describes the price only, and it is not advice. Where a check says 'the S&P 500', the comparison is with the SPY ETF including dividends, on the same adjusted basis as the stock's own price: short means 3 months, 63 trading sessions; long means 12 months, 252.
How we scored it · 4 of 6 checks passed
| ✓ | In an uptrend | 506.03 vs 492.41 |
| ✓ | Trend structure is healthy | 503.15 vs 492.41 |
| ✓ | Rising over 3 months | 3.7% vs 0.0% |
| ✕ | Beating the S&P 500 over 3 months | 3.7% vs 4.7% |
| ✕ | Beating the S&P 500 over 12 months | -0.2% vs 20.0% |
| ✓ | Not in a deep hole | -4.4% from its 52-week high |
Insider activity
What the people running the company do with their own shares - reported to the SEC within two days, classified so pay-plumbing doesn't masquerade as conviction.
Are the people running it buying or selling with their own money?
→$2.0B sold against $107M bought. Watch whether the buyers are executives (conviction) or the sales cluster outside scheduled plans.
Who did what, exactly?
| Date | Insider | Role | Type | Shares | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-12 | Michael J. O'Sullivan | See Remarks | BUY | 45 | $22,979 |
| 2026-08-12 | Michael J. O'Sullivan | See Remarks | BUY | 400 | $205,008 |
| 2026-08-12 | Michael J. O'Sullivan | See Remarks | BUY | 43 | $22,085 |
| 2026-07-31 | Hathaway Inc Berkshire | 10% owner | SELL | 182,980 | $37M |
| 2026-05-06 | Michael J. O'Sullivan | See Remarks | BUY | 483 | $225,624 |
| 2026-05-06 | Michael J. O'Sullivan | See Remarks | BUY | 53 | $24,922 |
| 2026-05-01 | Hathaway Inc Berkshire | 10% owner | SELL | 1,220,376 | $183M |
| 2026-01-29 | Hathaway Inc Berkshire | 10% owner | SELL | 1,658,480 | $200M |
| 2026-01-16 | Hathaway Inc Berkshire | 10% owner | SELL | 7,685 | $643,404 |
| 2026-01-15 | Hathaway Inc Berkshire | 10% owner | SELL | 18,125 | $2M |
Why do the transaction types matter so much?
Most insider filings are not trades: stock grants, option exercises and tax withholding are how executives get paid, and gifts are estate planning. The signal lives in open-market transactions - a buy means an insider chose to spend their own cash on the stock. Sells are murkier: many are pre-scheduled 10b5-1 plans set months in advance. That's why the chart counts only open-market activity, and the table labels every row.