By Andrew Bary
One of the challenges of analyzing Berkshire Hathaway's fourth-quarter earnings is that it offers little specific information about the quarter in its financial reports.
Aside from its earnings press release, Berkshire doesn't provide much financial data or commentary on the period. There is no fourth-quarter income statement or cash-flow statement.
No other major company provides such little fourth-quarter financial information.
Berkshire's longstanding approach, which was apparent Saturday with its earnings report and release of its annual report, is to mainly provide full-year information.
The company did provide fourth-quarter after-tax earnings in a press release for its BNSF railroad unit, its utilities business, manufacturing retailing and service segment. There also is earnings information on fourth-quarter insurance underwriting income and investment income for the insurance business and the parent company.
To calculate fourth-quarter 2025 revenue and earnings for many of the company's subsidiaries, investors need to take the full-year 2025 data from the annual or 10-K and subtract nine-month data reported for the September quarter, and then compare that to the fourth-quarter 2024 results calculated in a similar fashion.
That's how analysts and investors came up with fourth-quarter results for the company's key insurance units, including auto insurer Geico.
It can be a laborious process and tough even for AI to generate. Providing more informative fourth-quarter results could be something for CEO Greg Abel to consider for 2026.
Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 03, 2026 17:16 ET (22:16 GMT)
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