Berkshire Hathaway's Class B shares closed at $539.82 on October 20, beating the prior record set on May 2, 2025. At the time of writing the shares traded near $548, about 9% higher than where 2026 began. The record close comes in a year that saw Berkshire resume buying its own stock. After repurchasing nothing at all in 2025, the company spent about $4.8 billion on buybacks during the opening six months of 2026. The buying started small — about $234 million in March — then accelerated. Roughly $740 million followed in May, then about $3.8 billion during June.
That timing matters because of the rule Berkshire itself set. Abel wrote in February, in his first shareholder letter as chief executive, that Berkshire buys back stock only when it trades under his conservative estimate of intrinsic value. A repurchase is, in that sense, a priced opinion. Management only buys when it judges the stock cheaper than the business behind it.
How the buyback comeback unfolded
The current programme dates to a board decision in mid-July 2018, per The Motley Fool. Before that change, Berkshire could only repurchase shares at or below 120% of book value, a line the stock never reached, so not a cent was spent. The amended framework dropped that ceiling: it requires only that Berkshire hold at least $30 billion in combined cash, cash equivalents and US Treasuries, and that management views the shares as intrinsically cheap.
Warren Buffett then repurchased shares for 24 consecutive quarters under those rules. The pause came later: Berkshire bought nothing through 2025. Buffett told shareholders on May 3, 2025, the day after the previous record close, that he planned to hand the chief executive job to Greg Abel, and Abel took over at the start of 2026. The restart began almost immediately, with that $234 million March purchase, and gathered pace through the second quarter.
July may have extended the run further. The second-quarter filing's cover showed roughly 4,550 fewer A-equivalent shares in issue on July 29 versus June 30. Each A share converts into 1,500 B shares. With B shares closing between $488 and $512 through July, the article puts the July total near $3.4 billion in under a month. That figure is an estimate from the share-count change, not a confirmed filing number. What is confirmed is that B shares finished above $500 in 44 of the 64 sessions spanning July to September. Any continued buying therefore happened at higher prices than the spring purchases.
The rebound has also been unusually steady. The Motley Fool reported that Berkshire stock rose for 10 days in a row in October, its first such streak since 2018, before closing at $542.19 on October 23, down 0.87% on the day.
The buyback ledger so far
| Period | Repurchases | Average Class B price |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $0 | — |
| March 2026 | $234 million | about $487 |
| May 2026 | $740 million | about $476 |
| June 2026 | $3.8 billion | about $488 |
| Second quarter 2026 | $4.5 billion | — |
| First half 2026 | $4.76 billion | — |
| July 2026 (estimated) | about $3.4 billion | $488–$512 range |
MarketRadar's own arithmetic frames the valuation shift. Berkshire reported shareholders' equity of $747.9 billion at June 30. That is $30.5 billion more than at the end of 2025. It works out at roughly $348 of book value for each B share. The June average purchase price worked out near 1.4 times that book value. At $548, the multiple is about 1.57 times, close to the 1.6 times cited in the source article. The premium over Berkshire's own buying prices is just as stark. $548 is 12.3% above the June average of $488. It is 15.1% above the May average of $476.
Why it matters
A buyback at this scale does two things at once. It shrinks the share count. Each remaining share then owns a slightly larger slice of the same businesses. It also signals what the people running the company think the stock is worth. Both effects were muted in 2025, when Berkshire spent nothing. Both are back in force in 2026. The operating backdrop helps explain the confidence. Operating earnings for the second quarter climbed 16% from a year earlier to about $13 billion. That compares with roughly $11.2 billion twelve months earlier and $11.3 billion in the opening quarter of 2026. Strip out foreign exchange and the rise was about 5%. A $326 million after-tax currency gain flattered the headline. A year earlier the same line was an $877 million loss.
The record high also closes a chapter that began with the succession announcement. The longer arc is in our earlier piece on Buffett's $1 million wager and what the S&P 500 did next, and Friday's selloff is covered in our report on the Dow's 650-point drop.
What to watch
- The third-quarter 10-Q, due in early November: it will list buybacks month by month with average prices paid, showing whether Abel kept buying above $500 or stopped as the price rose.
- Abel's implied value line: if buying stopped in August and September, the May and June prices may sit near the most he is willing to pay; if it continued, his estimate of value has risen with the business.
- The book-value multiple: near 1.6 times book, the stock carries a thinner margin than the 1.4 times of June.
- Operating earnings: the third-quarter report will show whether the 16% second-quarter operating earnings growth held up.
MarketRadar take
The buyback restart is a genuine signal, but it cuts both ways at today's price. Abel's willingness to spend billions of Berkshire's own money says the stock looked cheap to him in the spring. The July share-count evidence suggests he may have kept going. Yet every dollar of that spring buying happened at $476 to $488. The market now asks $548. At a multiple near 1.6 times book value, headroom looks thinner, even though the businesses behind the stock keep growing. The third-quarter filing, due in early November, is the next hard evidence. It will show whether Berkshire's own buyer stayed in the market at record prices or stepped aside. Until then, the constructive read is on the discipline, not the price.
