Berkshire Hathaway Q3 2026 Earnings: $9.6B of Buybacks, and Still $377B in Cash and T-Bills

Berkshire Hathaway repurchased about $9.6 billion of its own shares in the third quarter of 2026, bringing the year's total to about $14.4 billion. It has also paid $16.2 billion in cash for businesses this year, mostly OxyChem and the homebuilder Taylor Morrison. Together that is more than $30 billion, and it barely dented the cash pile: cash and U.S. Treasury bills were $377.4 billion on September 30, or $356.9 billion net of $20.5 billion of bill purchases not yet settled, against $364.7 billion on the same basis in June. Operating earnings, which exclude investment gains, fell 6% to $12.7 billion as insurance underwriting profit fell 43%.

Operating earnings fell; GAAP earnings fell more​

Net earnings attributable to shareholders were $22,112 million, against $30,796 million a year earlier (release). Most of the drop is investment gains: $9.4 billion after tax this quarter against $17.3 billion. Berkshire's own measure without them, operating earnings, was $12,705 million against $13,485 million.

The release splits operating earnings by business:

The two insurance lines did the damage. Insurance losses rose 8% to $14,839 million on flat premiums of $22,435 million, in the 10-Q, and investment income from insurance fell, which we attribute to lower Treasury bill yields. The railroad and the manufacturing, service and retailing businesses grew.

Total revenues were $105,647 million, up 11%. Sales and service revenues, the manufacturing and retail businesses, rose 18% to $60,225 million, helped by the two acquisitions. The ledger keeps the $11,946 million of pre-tax investment gains on Income:OtherNet, apart from revenue, so the operating business and the stock portfolio's mark-to-market stay separable.

The buybacks are back, and the ledger shows the gap​

The ledger's Equity:CommonStockAndAPIC is common stock and paid-in capital less treasury stock, so it is a debit balance that grows with every repurchase. It was $24,195 million at the end of 2021, $42,314 million at the end of 2023 and $43,319 million at the end of 2025: the line moved by about $1 billion across all of 2024 and 2025. It reached $48,078 million in June and $57,719 million on September 30. Treasury stock itself rose to $93,348 million from $78,939 million at the end of 2025.

Berkshire's program allows repurchases whenever the chief executive believes the price is below Berkshire's intrinsic value, "conservatively determined." Two years of near-silence followed by $9.6 billion in a quarter is the clearest signal the company gives about how it sees its own price.

Spending barely dented the cash pile​

The nine-month cash flow statement shows $16.2 billion of acquisitions, net of cash acquired. Berkshire completed the $9.4 billion purchase of OxyChem, Occidental's chemicals business, on January 2 and the roughly $6.8 billion purchase of Taylor Morrison Home Corporation during the year; together they added $7.6 billion of inventories, $7.3 billion of property and equipment and $2.1 billion of debt. Inventories on the balance sheet rose to $35,098 million from $24,424 million at the end of 2025.

Gross cash and Treasury bills still rose. The 10-Q notes that $20,489 million of the bills were unsettled purchases, carried as a liability and paid shortly after quarter end; net of those, the pile was $356.9 billion, by our computation, against $364.7 billion in June. Insurance float, the money Berkshire holds for future claims, was about $178.5 billion. For anyone who keeps a cash reserve, the lesson is in that comparison: a balance a business cannot deploy fast enough keeps growing even while it spends, because the businesses keep producing cash.

Treasury bills were $58,535 million at the end of 2021, $129,619 million at the end of 2023, $321,434 million at the end of 2025 and $336,735 million on September 30. This ledger also corrects its second quarter on this update: the FY2026Q2 transaction had recorded six-month totals and now carries the three-month figures, $101,808 million of revenue and $25,667 million of attributable net earnings.

What to watch in the fourth quarter​

• Buybacks. Whether the pace continues will show if $9.6 billion was a one-quarter opportunity or a change in policy.
• Underwriting. A second quarter of falling insurance profit on flat premiums would point to pricing, not catastrophe timing.
• Float income. Lower Treasury bill yields cut investment income on $178.5 billion of float and on the $336.7 billion of bills.
• Investment gains. They will keep swinging GAAP earnings; operating earnings are the number to compare.