Berkshire Hathaway Reports on 7 November: Operating Earnings and Buybacks, Not GAAP, Decide the Quarter

Berkshire Hathaway will post its third-quarter release and Form 10-Q on Saturday, 7 November, at about 7:00 a.m. Central time, according to the company's notice. It is a third-quarter report under Greg Abel, who took over as chief executive from Warren Buffett at the start of the year. For a company of this size, the headline number tells you little. The quarter will be judged on operating earnings and on what Berkshire does with its cash. The net income line, which moves with the stock portfolio, matters much less.

What the street expects

Consensus in Financial Modeling Prep's data is $5.88 of earnings per Class B share on revenue of $100.96 billion. The comparison with the same quarter of 2025 needs care. The $14.28 recorded for that quarter equals the diluted GAAP EPS in the filed accounts, which carried $21.4 billion of other income, a line that holds investment gains. The consensus figure tracks the operating business, so the EPS change in the table below overstates the decline.

*Change calculated from the two figures; the 2025 actual includes investment gains, the consensus does not.

On revenue, the comparison is cleaner. The estimate implies growth of 6.3%, slower than the 10.0% increase in the second quarter, when revenue rose to $101.81 billion from $92.52 billion a year earlier (our calculation from the filed statements).

The track record

Over the last four reports, Berkshire has mostly come in ahead of estimates, but the EPS record is uneven:

• Q2 2026: EPS $6.02 vs $5.13 expected; revenue $101.81B vs $96.52B. Beat on both.
• Q1 2026: EPS $5.25 vs $5.08; revenue $93.68B vs $92.91B. Beat on both.
• Q4 2025: EPS $4.73 vs $5.51, a miss; revenue $100.67B vs $96.98B, a beat.
• Q3 2025: EPS $14.28 vs $5.72, a GAAP figure not comparable with the estimate; revenue $94.97B vs $95.62B, a narrow miss.

Margins have stayed in a tight range. Gross margin was 24.6% in the third quarter of 2025, 23.1% in the first quarter of 2026 and 23.4% in the second. Operating income reached $17.49 billion in the second quarter, against $16.66 billion a year before. Operating margin held around 17%. The business is steady, so the surprise, if there is one, is more likely to come from capital allocation than from the operating line.

The line that decides the quarter

There are two things to read: operating earnings per share against the $5.88 estimate, and the cash-flow statement.

GAAP earnings are a poor guide because the portfolio swings them hard. The other-income line went from a $3.06 billion loss in the first quarter of 2026 to a $14.57 billion gain in the second. Diluted GAAP EPS moved from $4.68 to $11.91 while the operating estimate barely changed. Saturday's net income will follow the same pattern and should be set aside.

Capital deployment is where this year differs from the last. Berkshire bought back no stock in the third or fourth quarter of 2025. It repurchased $235 million in the first quarter of 2026 and $4.21 billion in the second. Over the same period, cash and short-term investments fell from $397.4 billion at the end of March to $365.5 billion at the end of June. Recent news adds to the picture: Barron's reported this week that Berkshire bought more Sirius XM shares. The 10-Q will show whether third-quarter buybacks continued at the second-quarter pace, and how much of the cash pile went into stocks, Treasuries or acquisitions.

If operating EPS comes in near or above $5.88 while buybacks continue, that would support the view that the new management is putting the balance sheet to work. If buybacks slow and cash builds again, the quarter could look strong on paper and still say little about where returns will come from.

Valuation and the Maz Rating

The Class B shares trade at $579.09, close to the 52-week high of $580.65, after a 3.95% gain in the latest session. Market capitalisation is $1.24 trillion. The trailing GAAP P/E is 14.6 and the price-to-book ratio 1.66. The only analyst price target in FMP's data is $628 (high, low and consensus all equal), about 8% above the current price on our arithmetic.

The site gives Berkshire a Maz Rating of 4.14 out of 5 (Strong Buy). The factor scores explain it: Profitability 4.27, Financial Health 4.19 and Momentum 4.21 are high, while Growth is 2.55 and Valuation 1.66. The rating rewards the quality of the business and the recent price trend, and it flags that the shares are no longer cheap against their sector peers.

Bottom line

Expect the headline net income to be large or small depending on markets, and treat it accordingly. The figures to watch are operating earnings per share against $5.88, revenue against $100.96 billion, the buyback total for the quarter and the change in the cash pile. With the shares near a record and valued at 1.66 times book, those capital-allocation numbers carry more weight than usual.

This is a preview based on published consensus and filed accounts, not investment advice.