Berkshire Hathaway net profit falls to $22.112 billion in third quarter
Key Facts
Berkshire Hathaway said on November 7, 2026, that net earnings attributable to its shareholders totaled $22.112 billion in the third quarter, compared with $30.796 billion in the same period of 2025. Operating earnings fell to $12.705 billion from $13.485 billion a year earlier. Investment gains also declined to $9.407 billion, compared with $17.311 billion in the third quarter of 2025. The differing declines in net earnings and operating earnings show how changes in portfolio gains affected the overall result. The company said investment gains or losses in any quarter are “usually not meaningful enough” to indicate business performance.
The company detailed the components of its investment gains for the quarter, including $7.7 billion in unrealized gains on equity investments, compared with $9.2 billion in the same period of 2025. After-tax realized gains from investment sales were $1.7 billion, down from $8.1 billion a year earlier. These items are included in net earnings but differ from earnings generated by subsidiaries’ business activities. Berkshire cautioned that including changes in unrealized gains and losses can make net earnings highly misleading when used to assess quarterly performance. It said investment gains or losses in a given period “do not indicate quarterly business performance.”
In insurance, underwriting earnings fell to $1.352 billion in the third quarter from $2.369 billion a year earlier. Insurance investment income also declined to $2.734 billion from $3.181 billion in the same period. In the first nine months of 2026, total underwriting earnings were $4.8 billion, compared with $5.697 billion in the first nine months of 2025. By contrast, insurance float stood at about $178.5 billion on September 30, 2026, up about $2.1 billion since the end of 2025. The company defines float as net liabilities under insurance contracts.
Transportation, energy, manufacturing, services and retail recorded earnings growth in the third quarter compared with a year earlier. Railroad operator BNSF’s earnings rose to $1.729 billion from $1.449 billion. Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s earnings increased to $1.612 billion from $1.489 billion. Manufacturing, service and retail earnings also climbed to $4.042 billion, compared with $3.616 billion in the third quarter of 2025. This growth offset declines in insurance underwriting earnings and insurance investment income during the quarter. The figures reflect mixed performance across the group’s businesses over the same period.
For the first nine months of 2026, net earnings attributable to shareholders totaled $57.885 billion, up from $47.769 billion in the same period of 2025. Operating earnings for the period rose to $37.034 billion from $34.286 billion. This year-to-date picture differs from the year-on-year declines in net earnings and operating earnings in the third quarter. The comparison highlights the quarter’s contribution to the nine-month total, with investment gains remaining part of net earnings. The company had announced that its third-quarter results and quarterly report would be released on November 7, 2026, at about 7:00 a.m. Central U.S. time.
On capital allocation, Berkshire said it repurchased about $9.6 billion of treasury stock during the third quarter of 2026. That brought total repurchases in the first nine months to about $14.4 billion. The number of Class A-equivalent shares outstanding was 1,418,900 on September 30, 2026. These figures place the buybacks among the group’s activities during a period when quarterly net earnings and operating earnings declined year on year. The company tied its quarterly results to its warning that investment gains and losses usually do not, on their own, indicate business performance.