Berkshire Hathaway had a slightly worse quarter and answered by writing itself a very large check. Q3 operating earnings slipped about 6% to $12.7 billion, but the Berkshire Hathaway buyback hit $9.6 billion, the company’s biggest quarterly bite this year.
The numbers come from Berkshire’s own earnings release, issued Saturday. Operating earnings were $12.705 billion, down from $13.485 billion a year earlier. Operating earnings are Berkshire’s preferred yardstick, because accounting rules force swings in the value of its stock holdings into the headline net number.
The Berkshire Hathaway buyback is the real headline
Berkshire bought back roughly $9.6 billion of its shares in the quarter, according to Bloomberg. That’s the most this year by a wide margin. The prior two quarters came in at $4.5 billion and just $234 million (basically pocket change, by Berkshire standards).
Wall Street wasn’t expecting anything close. Pre-earnings consensus, per Seeking Alpha, was a buyback of only about $1.64 billion. Berkshire’s number was nearly six times the forecast.
Some outlets call it an all-time high. Others only say it’s the biggest of 2026, so treat the “record” label with care. Through nine months, Berkshire share repurchases total about $14.4 billion.
Berkshire only buys its stock when it believes the shares trade below their intrinsic value, as judged by the CEO after consulting the chairman. Greg Abel became CEO at the start of 2026, and the Taylor Morrison acquisition already showed he is willing to deploy cash. So a buyback this size is a loud signal that the new boss thinks the stock is cheap.
Here’s the thing: if Berkshire is in your portfolio, the company with the deepest pockets in the room just told you what it thinks of the price. Companies rarely spend this much on a stock they find expensive.
Why Berkshire’s profits fell
The slide came mostly from insurance. Reuters says weaker underwriting results drove the drop. Underwriting profit fell to $1.352 billion from $2.369 billion a year ago, a decline of roughly 43%, per Futunn.
Still, not everything moved the wrong way. Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s operating profit rose about 8% to $1.612 billion. Meanwhile, BNSF, the railroad, saw after-tax earnings climb 19.3% to $1.73 billion.
Net earnings tell a rougher story. They came in at $22.1 billion versus $30.8 billion a year earlier, a drop of about 28%.
Berkshire itself says quarterly investment gains and losses are “usually meaningless,” and the nine-month picture is stronger. Operating earnings through September total $37.0 billion, up from $34.3 billion.
A $377 billion pile of cash after the stock buyback
Despite the Berkshire stock buyback, the cash hoard grew. It ended September at $377.4 billion, up from the prior quarter, a level Investing.com describes as a record. Spending nearly $10 billion on its own shares barely dented it.
That’s a lot of dry powder. For years, investors have asked what Berkshire would do with it, a question that has trailed the company since Warren Buffett’s retirement announcement. This quarter’s answer: put a chunk back into itself.
The first market reaction comes Monday, the first trading session after Saturday’s release. If investors read Berkshire buying back shares as confidence, the stock could get a lift. If they fixate on the shrinking underwriting profit, expect a shrug.
Either way, one question now hangs over the Abel era: with $377 billion on hand, how much more of Berkshire is Berkshire willing to buy?
