Berkshire Hathaway Q2 2026: GAAP net earnings doubled to $25.7B on stock-market gains, while operating earnings rose 16.3% to $13.0B (about 5% excluding a currency swing) as industrial businesses and OxyChem offset a weaker GEICO; buybacks resumed.
Revenue
$101.8B
+10.0% YoY
Net income
$25.7B
+107.5% YoY
Diluted EPS
$11.91
+107.9% YoY
Overview
Berkshire Hathaway reported net earnings attributable to shareholders of $25.7 billion for the second quarter of 2026 (the three months to June 30), about double the $12.4 billion a year earlier. That jump is mostly a stock-market effect rather than a business one. $12.7 billion of this quarter's profit was after-tax investment gains, mostly paper gains on the stocks Berkshire holds. The year-ago quarter also carried a one-off $3.8 billion write-down of its Kraft Heinz stake.
Take investments out and the businesses Berkshire owns earned about $13.0 billion after tax, up 16.3% from $11.2 billion. Most of that gain came from the manufacturing, service and retailing group (up 24.1%, helped by the newly bought OxyChem chemicals business), Berkshire Hathaway Energy (up 26.9%), and a currency swing on Berkshire's yen-denominated and other foreign-currency debt. Insurance went the other way: GEICO's pre-tax underwriting profit fell 45%, and interest income on the cash pile dropped as interest rates came down.
The quarter also had news on capital use. Berkshire bought back its own stock in May and June, about $4.5 billion in the quarter by our calculation from the filing's repurchase table. It was also a net buyer of stocks, and it closed the $6.8 billion Taylor Morrison homebuilder acquisition shortly after the quarter ended. This is the second quarterly report since Greg Abel succeeded Warren Buffett as CEO at the start of 2026. Abel signs the filing's certifications as President and Principal Executive Officer.
Why the headline profit swings so much
Accounting rules make Berkshire run the change in market value of its roughly $324 billion stock portfolio through the income statement every quarter, whether or not it sells anything. When the market rises, reported profit jumps. When it falls, profit can turn into a loss even if the underlying businesses did fine. This quarter, rising prices on stocks Berkshire still held produced $15.6 billion of pre-tax unrealized gains, compared with $7.6 billion a year earlier.
Berkshire says so plainly in the filing: investment gains and losses "are often meaningless in terms of understanding our reported consolidated earnings or evaluating our periodic economic performance." That is why Berkshire, and this analysis, focus on the earnings of the operating businesses. The 10-Q doesn't give a single "operating earnings" total. Ours adds up the after-tax earnings table in its MD&A, leaving out investment gains and the Kraft Heinz write-down.
Key metrics
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Operating earnings excl. FX on non-USD debt (our calculation)
$12,657M
$12,037M
+5.2%
GEICO combined ratio (losses + expenses as % of premiums earned)
91.2%
83.5%
+7.7 pts
Insurance float (period end)
~$177.5B
~$176.4B (Dec 31, 2025)
+$1.1B
The per-share figure is Berkshire's own reported "net earnings per average equivalent Class B share", which is 1/1,500 of the Class A figure ($17,868 vs. $8,601). Average Class B-equivalent shares outstanding fell slightly, to 2,154.7 million from 2,157.3 million.
First six months of 2026: revenues of $195.5 billion (+7.3%), net earnings of $35.8 billion vs. $17.0 billion, and $16.59 per Class B share vs. $7.87. Operating earnings on the same basis as above were $24.3 billion vs. $20.8 billion (+17.0%), or +6.1% without the currency effect on debt.
Operating earnings by business (after tax)
Business
Q2 2026
Q2 2025
Change
H1 2026
H1 2025
Insurance – underwriting
$1,731M
$1,992M
-13.1%
$3,448M
$3,328M
Insurance – investment income
$3,059M
$3,367M
-9.1%
$5,738M
$6,260M
BNSF (railroad)
$1,558M
$1,466M
+6.3%
$2,935M
$2,680M
Berkshire Hathaway Energy
$891M
$702M
+26.9%
$2,005M
$1,799M
Manufacturing, service and retailing
$4,470M
$3,601M
+24.1%
$7,669M
$6,661M
Other (corporate, FX on debt, equity-method earnings)
$1,274M
$32M
n/m
$2,534M
$73M
Total operating earnings (our calculation)
$12,983M
$11,160M
+16.3%
$24,329M
$20,801M
Insurance: GEICO's margins shrink
Underwriting profit is what an insurer keeps from premiums after paying claims and its own costs. It fell 13.1% after tax, to $1.73 billion. Almost all of the drop came from GEICO, whose pre-tax underwriting profit fell to $994 million from $1.82 billion. GEICO's combined ratio, the share of each premium dollar spent on claims and expenses, rose to 91.2% from 83.5%. Two things drove it:
More and costlier claims. GEICO's loss ratio rose 4.8 points to 76.6%. The filing says private-auto bodily-injury claim frequency rose 5–7% in the first half and the average cost of those claims rose 10–12%.
Higher spending. Underwriting expenses rose 27.3% in the quarter, "primarily driven by increases in commissions and advertising expenses." Premiums earned grew only 2.1%, and average premiums per private-auto policy fell.
Reinsurance (BHRG, pre-tax underwriting profit $913M vs. $650M) and the commercial Primary Group ($273M vs. $63M) made up part of the gap. No catastrophe was big enough to count as significant in the first half of 2026. In the first half of 2025, such events cost $850 million after tax.
Investment income from the insurance companies fell 9.1% to $3.06 billion. Interest income dropped 12.8%, which the filing puts down to lower interest rates on the Treasury bills where much of the money sits. Dividend income was flat at about $1.49 billion. Float, the money Berkshire holds from premiums collected before claims are paid, grew to about $177.5 billion. Berkshire says its average cost of float was again negative in the first half. In other words, the insurers made an underwriting profit, so Berkshire was effectively paid to hold that money.
BNSF: more freight, higher tax rate
Railroad operating revenues rose 14.6% to $6.56 billion and pre-tax earnings rose 13.9% to $2.06 billion. Carloads grew (consumer products +9.3%, agricultural and energy +11.5%, coal -7.9%), and the filing cites "improved operating efficiencies," partly offset by higher fuel costs. After-tax growth was smaller, 6.3%, because BNSF's effective tax rate rose to 24.4% from 19.0%. The year-ago quarter had been lowered by cuts in some states' tax rates.
Berkshire Hathaway Energy: utilities lead
BHE's contribution rose 26.9% to $891 million on "higher earnings from the U.S. utilities and natural gas pipelines businesses." The U.S. utilities' electric margin (revenue minus fuel and purchased-power costs) rose 8.1% on higher retail volumes and lower generation costs. The PacifiCorp wildfire litigation is still open. PacifiCorp has paid about $2.3 billion in settlements to date, $589 million of it in the first half of 2026, and the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the James class-action liability verdict in April 2026.
Manufacturing, service and retailing: OxyChem plus price increases
This group's after-tax earnings rose 24.1% to $4.47 billion. Pre-tax earnings grew faster than sales, reaching 9.5% of revenues vs. 8.7% a year ago.
Industrial products revenues rose 27.3% to $12.2 billion and pre-tax earnings rose 41.0%. Part of this is acquisitions. OxyChem, bought from Occidental for about $9.4 billion on January 2, contributed $1.4 billion of revenue but only $149 million of pre-tax earnings after acquisition accounting and transition costs. The existing businesses also grew: pre-tax earnings rose 34.2% at PCC (aerospace and gas-turbine parts), 23.4% at Lubrizol and 71.0% at IMC (cutting tools).
Some of the gain may be pulled forward. The filing says customers at IMC were "accelerating purchases," and that part of TTI's (electronic components) demand came from "customers responding to potential further price increases." It also says IMC's second-half earnings "are expected to be negatively impacted by the rise in raw materials costs."
Service pre-tax earnings rose 20.6%, led by TTI and aviation services (shared aircraft ownership programs and pilot training). Building products pre-tax earnings rose 7.2% despite what the filing calls relatively low home construction activity. McLane (grocery and food wholesale) revenue fell 3.8% on customer losses.
"Other": a currency swing
The $1.24 billion rise in "Other" is mostly a reversal in foreign-exchange accounting. Berkshire has borrowed in yen and other currencies, and it revalues that debt in dollars every quarter. This quarter it booked an after-tax gain of $326 million, against a loss of $877 million a year earlier. That line moves with exchange rates, not business performance. Without it, operating earnings grew about 5%, not 16%.
Takeaway: GAAP profit doubled and operating earnings rose 16%, but the underlying improvement is closer to 5%. Most of the rest came from stock-market gains and a currency swing on Berkshire's foreign-currency debt. Within the businesses, the core insurer is weaker, with GEICO's pre-tax underwriting profit down 45%. The industrial and service companies, helped by OxyChem, made up the difference.
Cash, buybacks and the stock portfolio
Cash and Treasury bills: the insurance and other businesses held $359.2 billion in cash, cash equivalents and U.S. Treasury bills (net of unsettled purchases) at June 30. By our calculation, that is down from about $369.0 billion at December 31, 2025 on the same basis. The first-half outflows included OxyChem ($9.7 billion of business acquisitions, net of cash acquired, in the cash-flow statement), net stock purchases and buybacks. The $6.8 billion Taylor Morrison deal closed on July 24, after the quarter, so it is not yet in these figures.
Share repurchases resumed. Berkshire bought $4.8 billion of its own stock in the first half, "most of which was in the second quarter." There were no purchases in April. In May and June it bought 478 Class A shares (average prices of about $716,000 and $734,000) and about 8.6 million Class B shares (averages of $476.01 in May and $487.98 in June). Berkshire's rules allow buybacks only when the CEO, after consulting the Chairman, believes the price is below Berkshire's intrinsic value, "conservatively determined." So the purchases show management judged the stock cheap at roughly $476–$488 per B share.
Equity portfolio: stocks held at fair value (current market value) totalled $323.8 billion vs. $297.8 billion at year-end. In the first half Berkshire bought $39.4 billion of stocks and sold $27.8 billion, making it a net buyer of about $11.6 billion. In the first half of 2025 it was a net seller ($7.1 billion bought vs. $11.6 billion sold). Its cost basis (what it paid) in "commercial, industrial and other" holdings rose to $82.1 billion from $58.0 billion, while consumer-products cost basis fell to $8.7 billion from $11.9 billion. The five largest holdings, 66% of the portfolio, were Alphabet, American Express, Apple, Bank of America and Coca-Cola. The 10-Q does not name the other stocks bought or sold. Those appear in Berkshire's separate 13F holdings filings.
Balance sheet: shareholders' equity reached $747.9 billion, up $30.5 billion since December 31. The parent company's own debt fell $2.3 billion to $20.4 billion. It issued ¥272.3 billion ($1.7 billion) of new yen notes in April at a 2.4% weighted average rate.
Outlook
Berkshire does not give earnings guidance, and the filing warns that trade policy, tariffs and geopolitical conflicts could hurt both its businesses and its stock holdings. Three things to watch:
GEICO. Claim costs are growing faster than premiums, and GEICO is spending more on commissions and advertising. Underwriting profit will keep shrinking unless GEICO raises rates or the claims trend eases.
Interest income. About $325 billion sits in Treasury bills, so lower short-term rates cut insurance investment income directly. Insurance interest income was already down 12.8% this quarter.
Capital deployment. Buybacks, net stock buying, OxyChem and Taylor Morrison all happened within about seven months. Together they suggest Abel is putting the cash pile to work faster than Berkshire has in recent years. Taylor Morrison joins the building products group in Q3, while the housing market is weak.
Our view: outside insurance, the operating businesses are growing faster than the insurance core. Q3 may not repeat this quarter's manufacturing gains, because the filing expects pressure on IMC's second-half margins and some Q2 demand looked pulled forward. Most swings in GAAP earnings will still come from stock prices.
Source: Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, filed with the SEC August 10, 2026. The operating-earnings totals, the ex-FX figure, the Q2 buyback dollar amount and the year-end cash comparison are our calculations from figures in the filing.