Stock of Warren Buffet’s insurance conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway was on the rise during premarket trading Monday, following a strong quarterly earnings report over the weekend.
The holdings company, which owns Geico and Dairy Queen, closed on Friday with a market capitalization of $905 billion. Berkshire Hathaway’s class B stock was up 2% Monday morning, getting it closer to crossing the $1 trillion threshold. Its share price has already risen 17% since the start of the year.
Only seven companies in the world currently have a market cap over $1 trillion, including Microsoft at $3 trillion and and Apple at $2.8 trillion. The other companies in this exclusive club are Saudi Aramco, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia and Meta.
Berkshire Hathaway’s fourth quarter by the numbers
Berkshire Hathaway’s fourth-quarter operating earnings — the company’s earrings from its insurance, railroad and utilities businesses — grew 28% to $8.48 billion, up from $6.63 billion during the same period the prior year. The company’s cash pile grew to a record $167.6 billion in quarter four, up 12% from $157.2 billion in previous quarter.
In his annual letter to shareholders, Buffett paid tribute Charlie Munger, the long-serving vice chair of Berkshire who died in November.
The letter offered other guidance on Buffett’s mind: He wrote that pundits should “always be ignored,” that he is keeping his holdings of Coca-Cola and American Express, and that investors should be forewarned of losses owed to climate change.
“At Berkshire, we have made a best estimate for the amount of losses that have occurred,” Buffett wrote. “These costs arose from forest fires, whose frequency and intensity have increased — and will likely continue to increase — if convective storms become more frequent.”
Buffett sells Apple stock
Berkshire Hathaway sold off about 1% of its stake in Apple in the last quarter of 2023, the company revealed in SEC filings this month. But it still holds a massive 5.9% stake in the tech giant, worth about $176 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports. That’s still over half of Berkshire’s stock portfolio, which amasses upwards of $300 billion.
In contrast, Berkshire Hathaway has increased its stake in Chevron by 18%, with holdings now worth more than $18 billion, Forbes reports. The company also grew its stake in Occidental Petroleum by almost 9% to about $14.5 million. Its stake in the satellite radio company SiriusXM increased to about $220 million, MarketWatch reports.