BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC (BRK-A) Stock Analysis
BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC
▾ What's in the 41/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). It excludes the Altman Z score, whose retained-earnings input this filer does not report separately. See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read BRK-A (holding company)
A holding company is worth the sum of its parts plus its investment portfolio — value it on book value / sum-of-parts, not a single DCF.
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Sum-of-parts / book value lens ↓
Price-to-book and the value of the underlying businesses/holdings are the right yardstick.
Standard DCF doesn't fit BRK-A well — but that's expected for this kind of business. The Conglomerate Sum-of-Parts Lens below uses the metrics actually used by analysts who value property & casualty insurance. Reverse DCF + Football Field also work as cross-checks.
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
Insurance/investment holding companies (e.g. Berkshire) sit on huge securities portfolios and float liabilities — Altman Z reads that capital structure as "distress" even with tens of billions in earnings and cash. See the Sum-of-Parts / Book Value lens above instead.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
Piotroski F's checks (operating cash flow, gross-margin trend, current ratio, asset turnover) assume an industrial cost structure, so they misread asset-heavy or financial businesses like this one — a healthy REIT, utility, pipeline, BDC/fund or holding company can score low for reasons that aren't weakness. See the sector lens above for the metrics that actually matter.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Berkshire Hathaway due to its complex structure as a holding company with diverse businesses. The residual income model is used instead, which focuses on book value and excess earnings, reflecting its financial sector classification. Investors are likely focused on the consistent positive operating cash flow and revenue growth, betting on the continued performance of its underlying businesses. The primary quantifiable risk is its low franchise/durability score of 1/5, suggesting potential long-term competitive challenges.
As of 3 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Performance of key insurance underwriting segments
- Growth rates of non-insurance operating businesses
- Major acquisition or divestiture announcements
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Free cash flow rose to $25.04B.
- Net income fell -25% to $66.97B.
Roughly flat: Revenue was flat -1% to $247.24B.
Management & Leadership
Warren Buffett has served as Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway for decades, establishing its reputation as a conglomerate with a focus on long-term value investing. Charlie Munger was Vice Chairman until his passing, and Greg Abel is now Vice Chairman of Non-Insurance Operations, with Ajit Jain as Vice Chairman of Insurance Operations, indicating a clear succession plan.
What They Make
Berkshire Hathaway is a diversified holding company that owns a wide range of businesses, primarily in insurance, but also in manufacturing, utilities, and retail. Its customers are broad, spanning consumers, businesses, and other institutions across its various subsidiaries.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value & return on equity (P/TBV + ROE — how banks are actually judged) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market prices Berkshire Hathaway based on its consistent profitability and positive operating cash flow, which has been positive for 5/5 years. Given its conglomerate structure, investors are likely focused on the aggregate performance and capital allocation decisions of its diverse portfolio of businesses, rather than a single cash flow stream. The residual income model is used, reflecting its nature as a financial sector entity.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
Berkshire Hathaway typically reinvests earnings into its existing businesses or new acquisitions, and occasionally repurchases shares, rather than paying regular dividends.
Residual Income
Balance-sheet financial (Property & Casualty Insurance): residual income model - book value is meaningful anchor.
Show advanced inputs
| Sector Default | 8.0% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project premium growth, underwriting (combined ratio) and investment income independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Revenue has been growing at 6.6%/yr over 4 years, from $191252M to $247244M, and net income has been positive in 4/5 years.
Geography & Markets
Berkshire Hathaway is headquartered in the US and operates globally through its various subsidiaries, with significant operations across North America and international markets. Exact geographic mix percentages are not available from current data sources.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (6 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (6)
- Financial sector: using residual income model. IV = Book Value + PV(excess earnings).
- Shares from unknown — per-share values may be less accurate.
- Illiquidity discount 25% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Shares/market cap missing or defaulted; per-share valuation unreliable.
- Shares defaulted to 1; IV is NOT meaningful — treat as data-unavailable.
- DATA UNAVAILABLE: per-share values suppressed due to missing/unreliable shares data.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 247.2B | 67.0B | — |
| 2024 | 249.7B | 89.0B | — |
| 2023 | 254.9B | 96.2B | — |
| 2022 | 207.8B | -22.8B | — |
| 2021 | 191.3B | 89.9B | — |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 46.0B | 20.9B | — | 25.0B |
| 2024 | 30.6B | 19.0B | — | 11.6B |
| 2023 | 49.2B | 19.4B | — | 29.8B |
| 2022 | 37.4B | 15.5B | — | 21.9B |
| 2021 | 39.4B | 13.3B | — | 26.2B |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a EPS basis (residual-income model), not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 1.2T |
| Total Liabilities | 502.5B |
| Equity | 717.4B |
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