Berkshire Hathaway’s Class B and Class A shares have rallied to an eight-month high, driven by robust performance in major equity holdings like Apple, Coca-Cola, and Bank of America. Despite trailing the S&P 500 and certain sectors, analysts foresee continued growth, anticipating further gains following potential stock buyback disclosures. Investors eagerly await the company’s second-quarter results, expected on August 8th.
The esteemed investment conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, has witnessed its shares climb to an impressive eight-month peak this week. Market analysts are now suggesting there could be more gains ahead as the company continues its effort to catch up to the broader S&P 500 index.
Berkshire's Class B shares concluded Tuesday at $512.37, marking their highest closing price since November 28th, when they hit $513.81. By Friday, shares settled slightly lower at $511.54, remaining 5.2% below their all-time closing high of $539.80, which was recorded on May 2nd of last year—just before Warren Buffett announced his intention to step down as CEO by the end of 2025.
Similarly, the company's Class A shares closed Tuesday at $768,010, also their highest since November 28th's $770,100. Friday's close for these shares was $766,600, standing 5.3% beneath their record high of $809,350.
A recent report from Barron's indicates that Berkshire's current rally 'has room to run,' noting the stock remains 'well behind' the benchmark S&P 500, trailing by 7.6 percentage points. However, Berkshire has managed to erase more than half of its 17.5 percentage point deficit from just two months prior. Despite this positive momentum, the conglomerate continues to lag behind competitors in two key sectors: railroads and insurance.
Further bolstering Berkshire's performance are significant gains from three of its largest equity portfolio holdings. Apple, its top holding now valued at over $70 billion, has seen a 13.6% increase so far this year. Coca-Cola, Berkshire's third-largest position worth $35 billion, has jumped an impressive 25% year-to-date, buoyed by earnings that surpassed expectations and an increased full-year outlook. Additionally, Bank of America, the fourth-largest stake, is up 12.6% on the year, with its value approaching $32 billion.
Berkshire's approximately 3% gain on Tuesday may have been partially driven by UBS analyst Brian Meredith, who raised his price target on the B shares to $585 from $570, and on the A shares to $877,848 from $854,596. Meredith maintained a 'buy' rating and slightly increased his earnings estimates. He also welcomed a Barron's report from two weeks ago, which suggested Berkshire may have repurchased as much as $11 billion of its stock in the second quarter. Investors await the official figures when Berkshire releases its second-quarter results, expected on Saturday, August 8th.
BUFFETT & BERKSHIRE ARCHIVE HIGHLIGHTS
Why Buffett doesn't ask his friends for favors (2003)
A fascinating segment from CNBC's archives shows Warren Buffett responding to an audience member's unique request. The individual asked Buffett to contact his 'cousin,' musician Jimmy Buffett, to help save the trees at Cypress Gardens in Florida.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Several weeks from now I'll be before [Florida] Governor [Jeb] Bush with the Friends of Cypress Gardens. We have a website ... trying to keep a developer from clear-cutting the trees in Cypress Gardens, a national treasure.
And my question is, would you consider contacting your "cousin," [musician] Jimmy Buffett, about possibly helping us in some way? ...
WARREN BUFFETT: I get asked to contact — probably the one I get asked to contact the most is Bill Gates, but I get asked to contact all kinds of people.
And I mean, everybody is slipping me envelopes with letters in them, sending things to the office and saying, "Won't you get this person?" and all they can say is no.
I don't do — I don't make requests of my friends, basically, for anything.
And I just — I would spend the rest of my life doing it. They would feel — I would never know — (applause) — you know, what they were doing —
You know, I would never know what they were doing because I was asking versus what they really felt.
I mean it's an impossible — from my standpoint at least — that's an impossible game to get into, in terms of that.
I mean when [Washington Post publisher] Kay Graham was alive, everybody, you know, wanted her for one reason or another. And they've all got causes.
And, frankly, they, you know, they want to use me to get her, or Jimmy Buffett, or whomever, to say yes to something that they're saying yes to, partially, because they feel they don't want to say no to me.
And I, you know, that — I just don't want to use my friendship for that purpose, frankly.
And I don't do it, even for things that I strongly believe in, myself...
I've never had one of those honorary dinners where they send out, you know, to all the suppliers to Berkshire and everything and start leaning on them and saying, you know, "We're honoring Warren."
Well, hell, if they want to honor me, they can honor me without soliciting all my friends for money. I mean, I don't consider that much of an honor if the reason they picked me was because I got rich friends.
So, I just don't do that.
You can watch the video here. 
BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
Key financial metrics for Berkshire Hathaway, as of July 31, 2026, include:
- BRK.A stock price: $766,600.01
- BRK.B stock price: $511.54
- BRK.B P/E (TTM): 15.23
- Berkshire market capitalization: $1,102,963,354,142
- Berkshire Cash as of March 31: $397.4 billion (Up 6.5% from Dec. 31)
- Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $380.2 billion (Up 3.0% from Dec. 31)
- Berkshire repurchased $234 million of its shares in Q1 2026.
All figures are as of the publication date unless otherwise noted.
BERKSHIRE'S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS - July 31, 2026
Berkshire's primary holdings of publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, ranked by market value based on the latest closing prices, are derived from Berkshire Hathaway's 13F filing as of March 31, 2026 (reported May 15, 2026). Exceptions include Alphabet, which incorporates the $10 billion in shares Berkshire agreed to purchase directly from the company, as announced on June 1, 2026 (the entry combines Class A and Class C Alphabet shares, with a weighted average market price). Mitsubishi holdings are as of April 30, 2026. A comprehensive list of all holdings and current market values is readily available via CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
