Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B:NYSE) exited 2024 on a high, generating a record fourth-quarter operating profit for the third straight year, driven by strong growth in its insurance operations.

Berkshire more than doubled the size of its cash pile to a record $334.2 billion, as the conglomerate sold a net $134.1 billion of stocks, including selling down half of its Apple (APPL:NASDAQ) holding.

Berkshire is expected to release first-quarter results at its annual shareholder meeting on 3 May. The annual pilgrimage to Omaha is often referred to as the ‘Woodstock for Capitalists’ and attended by more than 40,000 loyal Buffett fans hoping to glean snippets of investing wisdom.

Give the volatile market backdrop to this year’s meeting, investors will be keen to learn if Berkshire has been opportunistically deploying some of its huge cash pile and what impact tariffs might have on Berkshire’s nearly 200 businesses.

The company revealed it had increased its holdings in the five Japanese trading houses it invested in five years ago, to close to 10% in each, in regulatory filings on 17 March.

This followed comments by Buffett in his annual letter to shareholders in February where he said the five trading houses agreed to ‘moderately relax’ the 10% limits that capped Berkshire’s holding to 10% each.

Buffett wrote: ‘Over time, you will likely see Berkshire's ownership of all five increase somewhat.’

As far as the numbers are concerned, the consensus expectation is for Berkshire to report fully diluted earnings per share of $4.81, down 7% from the same quarter in 2024.

Buffett usually plays down the net profit number and encourages investors to focus on after-tax operating earnings, which exclude the movements in the value of Berkshire’s public stock portfolio.

Berkshire shares have handsomely outperformed the S&P 500 index so far in 2025, gaining nearly 17% compared with a 7% drop in the benchmark index. 

US UPDATES OVER THE NEXT 7 DAYS

QUARTERLY RESULTS

2 May: Chevron, Cigna, Cboe Global, Exxon Mobil, Franklin Resources, T Rowe

5 May: Berkshire Hathaway, Celanese, Ford Motor, Loews, ON Semiconductor, Palantir, Realty Income, Tyson Foods, Vertex, Williams

6 May: AMD, Arista Networks, Constellation Energy, Datadog, Duke Energy, Eaton, Electronic Arts, Gartner, Global Payments, Super Micro Computer

7 May: Arm, Dayforce, DoorDash, Occidental, Uber Tech, Verisk, Vistra Energy, Walt Disney

8 May: AConocoPhillips, Expedia, Match Group, MercadoLibre, Paramount Global, Warner Bros Discovery

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