In This Article:
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B, BRK-A) shares have been consistently outperforming the S&P 500 (^GSPC) over the past 30 years. At Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting over the weekend, chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, 94, announced that he will step down and be succeeded by Berkshire Hathaway Energy Chair Greg Abel at the end of the year.
Madison Mills analyzes Berkshire's stock performance under Buffett's leadership and what could be expected with the passing of the torch to Abel in 2026.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.
It's time now for our chart of the day. Let's send it on over to Catalyst co-host, Madison Mills, for a look at Berkshire Hathaway shares under Warren Buffett.
Yeah, take a look at this outperformance. Berkshire Hathaway, if you look at the max chart up over 50,000%. Your max on your S&P, it's up about 3,000%. You can see here the huge run-up in Berkshire stock, particularly since 2014 here. So, over a decade worth of these exponential gains. So, how does he do it? That's the big question. How does the Oracle of Omaha make it happen? Well, we know a lot about some of the metrics that he looks at: things like valuation, finding opportunities in the market, being fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. But, there's also something specific to Buffet that's hard to math out because even if you just compare the Berkshire performance to some other indices that track things like valuation, like I just said, he still is outperforming those other metrics. So, there is something specific to Buffet. One of the big questions, of course, for investors in Berkshire: will these gains be able to continue under his successor? Obviously, Warren Buffett announcing over the course of the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting that, and the shareholder conference that, he is going to be stepping down from his CEO position at the end of this year. Poor pouring it up in his 90s, taking a little bit of a break understandably, but then you have Greg Abel coming in, an expertise in energy on his resume. So, will he be able to continue these gains? And, of course, another big question, Berkshire has a little over $380 billion in cash on the balance sheet to deploy at the moment. If there are opportunities for those value, what will those opportunities look like? I'm sure investors will eagerly anticipate any opportunity to copycat anything we see Berkshire doing with cash moving forward here.
And music to the ears of investors who were at the meeting. Buffet also confirming he has no plans to sell shares of Berkshire as well. That was critical there. Maddie, thanks so much.
