Berkshire Hathaway Bought Back $9.6 Billion of Stock in Q3 as Operating Profit Fell 6%

Berkshire Hathaway bought back $9.6 billion of its own stock in the third quarter, its largest quarterly repurchase of the year, even as operating profit fell 6% to $12.71 billion, the company reported on Saturday.

Operating profit, which covers the earnings of Berkshire’s dozens of businesses and leaves out gains and losses on the stocks it owns, fell from $13.49 billion a year earlier, or about $8,954 per Class A share. Net income, which includes those stock portfolio swings, fell 28% to $22.11 billion.

The drag came from insurance. Underwriting profit fell about 43% to $1.35 billion, and insurance investment income fell about 14% to $2.73 billion. Car insurer GEICO was the main weak spot: its pretax profit fell 45% as its loss ratio, the share of premiums paid out in claims, rose to 76.6% from 71.5% a year earlier.

Buybacks sped up under Abel

The $9.6 billion repurchase was more than double the $4.5 billion Berkshire spent in the second quarter and lifted repurchases for the first nine months of 2026 to about $14.4 billion. The company also bought back about $2 billion more in the first four weeks of October, according to Reuters.

The quarter was the third for Greg Abel as chief executive. Abel took over on January 1, 2026, succeeding Warren Buffett. Berkshire ended September with $356.9 billion of cash, down from $380.2 billion six months earlier, after the buybacks and purchases this year that included Occidental Petroleum’s chemicals business for $9.4 billion and home builder Taylor Morrison for $6.8 billion.

Not every part of the company struggled. Revenue rose 11% to $105.65 billion, and operating earnings for the first nine months of the year rose 8% to $37.03 billion. Berkshire’s biggest year for buybacks was 2021, when it repurchased $27 billion of stock.

Reporting based on coverage by Reuters and Berkshire Hathaway.