Berkshire Hathaway’s Operating Profit Falls as Cash Pile Hits a Record $377 Billion
Berkshire Hathaway reported third-quarter operating earnings of $12.7 billion on Saturday, down 5.8% from $13.5 billion a year earlier, as a sharp drop in insurance underwriting profits weighed on the conglomerate.
Net earnings attributable to shareholders fell to $22.1 billion from $30.8 billion in the same quarter last year, mostly because investment gains shrank to $9.4 billion from $17.3 billion. Net earnings per Class A share were $15,502, down from $21,413 a year earlier. The results were released at 8 a.m. ET on Saturday, alongside the company’s quarterly filing, according to Berkshire’s earnings release.
The headline numbers tell only part of the story. Berkshire’s operating earnings strip out investment gains and losses, which swing with the stock market, and by that measure the business had a softer quarter — even as its cash pile grew to a record.
Insurance profits slide as Geico costs climb
Insurance was the weak spot. Underwriting earnings fell to $1.35 billion from $2.37 billion a year earlier, a drop of about 43%. Bloomberg reported that Geico, Berkshire’s auto insurer, faced an 8.5% increase in losses and a 17% surge in underwriting expenses over the period.
Insurance investment income also fell, dropping 14% to $2.7 billion, largely because of lower short-term interest rates. The insurance float — the premiums Berkshire holds before paying claims, which it invests in the meantime — stood at about $178.5 billion at the end of September, up about $2.1 billion since the end of 2025.
Rail, energy and manufacturing pick up the slack
Outside insurance, most of Berkshire’s big businesses improved. The BNSF railway earned $1.73 billion, up from $1.45 billion a year earlier, and Berkshire Hathaway Energy earned $1.61 billion, up from $1.49 billion. The manufacturing, service and retailing group earned $4.04 billion, up from $3.62 billion.
That breadth kept the year-to-date picture ahead of last year: operating earnings for the first nine months of 2026 were $37.0 billion, up from $34.3 billion in the same period of 2025, while nine-month net earnings rose to $57.9 billion from $47.8 billion.
Cash pile hits a record as buybacks accelerate
Berkshire’s cash mountain kept growing. Seeking Alpha’s summary of the filing put cash, cash equivalents and short-term securities at $377.4 billion at the end of September, a record high and up about 1% from the end of 2025.
The company also stepped up its own share buybacks, spending about $9.6 billion repurchasing stock in the quarter — the most so far this year — bringing the nine-month total to about $14.4 billion. There were 1,418,900 Class A equivalent shares outstanding at the end of September.
Investment gains explain the headline drop
Much of the fall in reported net earnings came from the investment portfolio rather than the operating businesses. Investment gains were $9.4 billion in the quarter, against $17.3 billion a year earlier, reflecting smaller gains on Berkshire’s equity holdings.
Berkshire itself cautions against reading too much into that figure. “The amount of investment gains (losses) in any given quarter is usually meaningless,” the company said in its release, warning that the numbers “can be extremely misleading to investors who have little or no knowledge of accounting rules.” That is because accounting rules require Berkshire to count paper gains and losses on its stock holdings in its earnings each quarter.
The Abel era’s first full year
The results land in Berkshire’s first full year under chief executive Greg Abel, who took the top job from Warren Buffett at the start of the year, with Buffett remaining chairman. Abel inherited a sprawling empire spanning insurance, railways, energy, manufacturing and retail, and the third quarter showed the same shape as ever: insurance setting the tone, the industrial businesses grinding forward, and a cash pile that keeps setting records.
What to watch next
Berkshire urged investors to read its full quarterly filing, saying the summary in its press release “is not adequate for making an informed investment judgment.” With US markets closed on Saturday, investors will get their first chance to react when trading resumes on Monday.
The report also arrived at the end of a bruising week for markets. The Nasdaq’s slide into correction territory on Thursday rattled investors before stocks bounced back on Friday, and investors balked at Anthropic’s $1.5 trillion IPO price as the artificial intelligence rally wobbled. Against that backdrop, Berkshire’s steady operating businesses and record cash pile stand out — even in a quarter when profits slipped.
