Berkshire Hathaway stock has the longest decline since 2018. Is it time to buy them?

Berkshire Hathaway securities are experiencing the most prolonged series of declines in the last eight years. Despite huge cash reserves and the defensive nature of the business, Warren Buffett's investment conglomerate's quotes are lagging the broad market at the start of 2026. However, the current drawdown could open a unique window of opportunity for both the company itself and investors, Barron's writes.

Berkshire quotes have been falling for eight consecutive trading sessions, which has not happened since 2018. Since the beginning of this year, shares of the legendary investment company have lost 6.8% in value, lagging even from the broad market - the S&P 500 index has fallen by 6.7% since the beginning of January. Such dynamics looks paradoxical: the conglomerate has a record safety cushion in the form of $373 billion of free cash, or almost 40% of capitalization, and relies on insurance and utility assets resistant to economic cycles, allowing to generate about $45 billion of operating profit per year, states Barron's.

According to Barron's, the stock market drawdown gives the new head of Berkshire Greg Abel a chance to invest accumulated capital more aggressively. At the same time, a pullback in the investment company's own stock prices opens up an opportunity for it to increase the volume of share buybacks. The buyback program was resumed on March 4 at $487 per share. Since the shares have become even cheaper since then, the management has an obvious incentive to accelerate the buyback, the stock exchange publication notes. This could be a good entry point for investors ahead of the quarterly earnings release scheduled for Ma. 2, Barron's said.

Motley Fool analysts regarded the resumption of Berkshire's buyback program after a two-year hiatus as a "green light" for retail investors to buy the securities. Berkshire Hathaway's corporate policy strictly ties buybacks to an assessment of the intrinsic value of the business: management allocates capital to buy back shares only if it believes they are undervalued, Investing.com emphasizes.

In turn, investment and analytical company Morningstar adheres to a neutral view, estimating the current value of Berkshire shares as fair. In March, analysts set a long-term target price for shares of the investment company at $510 per paper, noting the high historical yield. In addition, at the end of June 2025, the volume of insurance "float" (temporarily free funds) Berkshire was $174 billion, analysts said. The cost of raising these funds for the company has remained largely negative for most of the past two decades, Morningstar emphasized. At the same time, experts warned: because of Berkshire's huge size, it is increasingly difficult to find objects for acquisitions that can significantly increase its value.

Consensus forecast of analysts, formed by FactSet, reflects cautious attitude of the market to Berkshire Hathaway securities: four out of eight experts recommend not to buy or sell its shares (rating Hold) against three recommendations to buy (Buy) and one - to sell (Sell). The average target price of Berkshire shares calculated by the service at $530.67 implies a growth potential of 13% during the year.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor