Berkshire Hathaway uses its "operating earnings," which exclude the capital gains or losses from its investment portfolio, to measure its bottom-line growth instead of its net income on a generally accepted accounting principles ( GAAP) basis. Buffett says that proprietary metric tunes out the near-term noise from the stocks in its portfolio.

The last time Berkshire aggressively bought stocks was in early 2022 when the S&P 500 was 20% below current levels.

Besides wholly owning numerous operating businesses, Berkshire Hathaway also has many different individual stocks to its name. With legendary investor Warren Buffett leading the way, returns have been magnificent over the years.