What is the 10-year return on BRK B stock price

You’ve likely heard of Warren Buffett, one of history’s most famous investors. But did you know you can invest right alongside him for about the price of a nice dinner out? For many, the key is a specific investment in his company, Berkshire Hathaway, known by its ticker symbol BRK.B. When you hear on the news that the 10-year BRK B stock return has been impressive, what does that actually mean for your wallet? Let’s break it down with simple math, no finance degree required.

Before we can talk about returns, it helps to know what a “stock” is. Imagine Berkshire Hathaway is a giant, valuable company, like an enormous building. Owning one share of its stock is like owning one brick in that building. You own a real, tiny piece of the entire structure. If the building becomes more valuable over time because the business is successful, the value of your individual brick goes up, too.

So, how do you make money from your “brick”? This is what’s known as the “return.” Think of it like owning a home. If you buy a house for $300,000 and, ten years later, its value has grown to $450,000, your return is the $150,000 increase in value. The return on Berkshire Hathaway stock works in a very similar, straightforward way: it’s simply the growth in the price of your share over time.

We will demystify the numbers behind the stock’s famous performance, look at what a $1,000 investment a decade ago would be worth today, explore how that growth compares to other options, and give you the tools to understand what these figures truly represent for an everyday person.

What Exactly is a BRK.B Stock?

At its core, a share of stock is simply a small slice of ownership in a real company. When you buy a share of BRK.B, you are buying a tiny piece of Berkshire Hathaway—the massive company run by famed investor Warren Buffett. It’s not just a digital number; it’s like owning one brick in a company that owns household names like GEICO, Duracell, and See’s Candies. Your single share means you are a part-owner of everything the company does.

On the stock market, every company has a unique code, called a ticker symbol, that works like a nickname. BRK.B is the ticker for Berkshire Hathaway’s “Class B” stock. The company created this specific class of stock to be more affordable, making it possible for everyday investors to buy a piece of the company without needing hundreds of thousands of dollars for the original BRK.A shares.

How Do You Make Money from BRK.B? The Simple Answer

How does owning a BRK.B share actually put money in your pocket? With Berkshire Hathaway, the answer is refreshingly straightforward. You make money when the price of your share goes up over time, a concept known as price appreciation. Think of it like owning a valuable collectible, such as a rare comic book. If you buy it for $50 and its popularity grows, you might be able to sell it for $80 years later. That $30 difference is your return, and BRK.B stock works the same way.

You may have heard that some companies send their shareholders regular cash payments, which are called dividends. These are a way of distributing company profits directly to the owners. Here is where Berkshire Hathaway is different: it famously does not pay a dividend. Warren Buffett’s long-held belief is that he can create more value for shareholders by keeping that cash and reinvesting it to buy new companies or grow the ones he already owns. He’s choosing to grow the entire pie rather than handing out small slices along the way.

This no-dividend policy makes calculating your BRK.B stock return incredibly simple. Unlike other investments where you might have to track both price changes and dividend payments, your entire gain or loss comes from just one thing: the difference between what you paid for the stock and what you sell it for. This clarity is a huge benefit for new investors.

A 1-Year Return Calculation Anyone Can Do

When a stock’s price goes up, you’ve made money. But how do you measure that performance in a way you can compare to other investments? The answer is by calculating a percentage return. Let’s walk through it with a simple, real-world example using BRK.B.

Imagine you bought a single share of BRK.B at the start of a year for $300. By the end of the year, the stock’s performance was strong, and its price rose to $345. To figure out your percentage return, you just need to follow three simple steps:

1. Find the Change: Subtract the starting price from the ending price.

   • $345 (End) – $300 (Start) = $45 gain

2. Divide by the Start: Take that gain and divide it by your original cost.

   • $45 / $300 = 0.15

3. Make It a Percentage: Multiply that decimal by 100 to get your final percentage.

   • 0.15 x 100 = 15%

That 15% is your annual return. This simple formula is powerful because it lets you compare apples to apples, whether you invested $100 or $100,000. It tells you how effectively your money worked for you over that period.

While a one-year snapshot is helpful, many of Berkshire Hathaway’s investors are focused on the long haul. So, what happens when we zoom out and look at the BRK.B stock performance over a full decade?

So, What Was the 10-Year Return on BRK.B?

While a one-year return offers a useful snapshot, zooming out over a decade reveals the true story of a long-term investment. If you had put $1,000 into BRK.B stock in the middle of 2014, your patience would have been handsomely rewarded. By mid-2024, that initial $1,000 investment would have grown to be worth roughly $3,500. This represents a total return of about 250%, showcasing the powerful long-term growth of Berkshire Hathaway stock.

Of course, the stock didn’t go up by the exact same amount every year. Some years were better than others. To smooth out these ups and downs, investors use a metric called the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR). It’s a way to calculate the average yearly return over a long period. For the 10-year return on BRK.B stock price, the CAGR was approximately 13.3%. Think of it as the single, steady interest rate you would have needed to get from your $1,000 start to the $3,500 finish over ten years.

This impressive growth happens because of compounding, which Albert Einstein reportedly called the “eighth wonder of the world.” It’s like a snowball rolling down a hill. In the second year, you aren’t just earning a return on your original $1,000; you’re earning a return on the new, bigger total. The money your money made starts making its own money. Over a decade, this effect accelerates, causing your investment to grow much faster than it did in the early years.

Turning $1,000 into $3,500 is impressive, but is that a good performance? To know if a 13.3% average annual return is strong, you need something to compare it against. For investors, that “something” is usually the overall stock market.

How Does BRK.B’s 10-Year Return Compare to the “Market”?

To figure out if a 13.3% average annual return is strong, you need a measuring stick. For investors, that measuring stick is called a benchmark. The most common benchmark for the U.S. stock market is the S&P 500, which is an average of the performance of 500 of the largest American companies, like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. Think of it as a report card for the health of the entire market. If you can beat the S&P 500’s return, you’re doing better than the average.

Over that same 10-year period from mid-2014 to mid-2024, the S&P 500 had a compound annual growth rate of about 12.6%. When you place that next to BRK.B’s 13.3% return, you can see that Berkshire Hathaway’s historical performance was very close to, and even slightly ahead of, the overall market. It essentially kept pace with, and slightly beat, the average of America’s most successful businesses.

This comparison is the primary way investors judge performance. Beating the market, even by a small amount, is considered a major success when sustained over a long period like a decade. It demonstrates that the company’s growth wasn’t just a result of a rising tide that lifted all boats; it was the result of strong, steady management. For anyone asking “Is BRK.B a good long term investment?”, seeing that its returns have historically matched or bested the S&P 500 provides powerful and positive context.

Why Does Berkshire Have Two Stocks? The BRK.A vs. BRK.B Story

As you explore Berkshire Hathaway, you’ll notice it has two different ticker symbols: BRK.A and BRK.B. The reason is simple and speaks directly to the company’s philosophy. The original stock, BRK.A, has become famous for its staggering price tag—a single share costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, making it out of reach for most people.

This sky-high price created a barrier that went against a core part of the Warren Buffett investment strategy: attracting long-term, everyday shareholders. To solve this, the company introduced the Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares in 1996. These “Baby B’s,” as they’re often called, were created specifically to give regular people an affordable way to buy a piece of the company.

Imagine BRK.A is a large, solid gold bar—immensely valuable but impractical for most to own. The BRK.B share is like a small gold coin. It’s made of the exact same gold and represents ownership in the same collection of businesses, but it comes in a size and price that is far more accessible. Because they track the same company, a BRK.A vs BRK.B stock return comparison is simple: their values move in near-perfect sync, just at vastly different dollar amounts. For the everyday investor, this distinction is everything.

Why Doesn’t BRK.B Pay a Dividend? Buffett’s Core Philosophy

After learning that many companies reward their owners with dividends, you might be surprised to find that Berkshire Hathaway has a firm policy of not paying them. This isn’t an oversight; it’s a central part of the Warren Buffett investment strategy returns that have made the company famous. Instead of mailing out checks to shareholders, the company keeps every dollar of profit it earns to reinvest.

Warren Buffett believes he can generate more value for shareholders by using those profits to make the entire company bigger and stronger. Think of it like a small business owner who, instead of pocketing her year-end profits, uses the money to buy a new, more efficient machine that will help her business make even more money next year. Buffett applies this same logic on a massive scale. He takes the profits from Berkshire’s many businesses and uses them to buy other great companies, invest in stocks, or expand existing operations.

This disciplined Berkshire Hathaway dividend policy is the engine of its long-term growth. The company’s ever-growing pile of cash allows it to acquire giants like GEICO or BNSF Railway, which in turn generate even more profits for future investments. For shareholders, the reward doesn’t come from a small, regular check. Instead, it comes from owning a slice of a company that is constantly growing in size and value.

What Is “Book Value” and Why Does Buffett Talk About It?

A company’s true, underlying worth has a name: book value. Think of it as the company’s official net worth. If Berkshire Hathaway were to sell off all its assets—from its railroad tracks to its shares of Coca-Cola—and then use that cash to pay off all its debts, the money left over would be its book value. It’s a straightforward, conservative measure of what the company owns, free and clear.

For most of his career, this single number was the most important part of the Warren Buffett investment strategy. He used the growth in book value per share as his primary report card, telling him whether he was successfully growing the real value of the business. This approach allowed him to focus on analyzing Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio return based on tangible assets, not on the stock market’s often-fickle daily opinions. If the company’s book value was climbing, he knew his strategy of reinvesting profits was working.

Over the long run, a stock’s price tends to follow the company’s underlying value. While they don’t move in perfect lockstep, understanding BRK.B book value growth gives you a glimpse into the powerful engine driving the company forward. This consistent growth in real, tangible worth is what has historically supported the stock’s price appreciation.

How a Stock Split Made BRK.B Even More Accessible

For years, the high price of a single Berkshire share felt like a ‘keep out’ sign for many investors. To solve this, the company used a common tool called a stock split. Imagine you have a large chocolate bar that costs $50. If the chocolatier breaks it into 50 smaller, equally delicious pieces and sells each one for $1, more people can afford to buy a piece. You still have the same amount of chocolate in total; it’s just divided differently.

This is what happened with BRK.B in 2010. As part of a major business deal, Berkshire Hathaway executed a 50-for-1 stock split. Before the split, a single share of BRK.B cost around $3,500. The very next day, anyone who owned one share suddenly had 50, with each new share priced at about $70. The Berkshire Hathaway stock split history and impact is a perfect example of making a great company accessible. An investor’s total holding was worth the same amount, but the price to get in the door was suddenly much lower.

A stock split doesn’t change a company’s fundamental worth—it just slices the ownership pie into more manageable pieces. The total value of Berkshire Hathaway remained the same, just as its book value continued its steady climb. This move simply opened the door for everyday people to invest alongside Buffett.

How Can You Track Berkshire Hathaway’s Performance Today?

Checking on a stock’s performance is almost as easy as checking the weather on your phone. This information is public, free, and updated constantly, giving you a clear window into your potential investment.

All you need is a free financial website like Google Finance or Yahoo Finance, which you can access on any computer or smartphone. In the search bar, simply type in Berkshire Hathaway’s ticker symbol: BRK.B. The page that loads will immediately show you the current BRK B stock price in big, bold numbers. This is the price it would cost to buy one share at that very moment.

Beyond today’s price, these tools also let you see the BRK.B historical performance over different periods. With a single click, you can see if the price went up or down over the last day, the last year, or even the last five years. This helps you move from asking “What’s the price now?” to understanding the company’s long-term story.

Is BRK.B a Good Long-Term Investment for You?

While no one can predict the future, you can learn to think like an investor by weighing the company’s strengths against the questions that lie ahead. The right investment for one person might not be right for you; it all depends on your own financial goals and comfort level.

At its heart, Berkshire Hathaway’s strength comes from its vast collection of businesses. Owning a share of BRK.B isn’t like betting on a single tech startup; it’s more like owning a small piece of a curated museum of American industry. This includes giants in insurance, railways, energy, and beloved brands you see every day. The long-standing Warren Buffett investment strategy returns have been built on this idea: buy excellent, durable companies and hold them for the long haul. This approach is designed for patient growth over many years, not for generating quick cash.

The biggest question on many investors’ minds is about the future leadership. For decades, the company’s success has been tied to its legendary leader, Warren Buffett. This leads people to wonder what will happen when he is no longer at the helm. Think of it like a championship sports team whose star quarterback is nearing retirement. The team has a plan for who will take over, and the underlying business is still strong, but it represents a change. Evaluating BRK.B today means balancing its history of success with this important question about its future.

Deciding if this investment fits your life means thinking in decades, not days. The company’s philosophy is built on the belief that owning a collection of solid businesses will create value over time, rewarding patience above all else.

Your Guide to Understanding BRK.B’s Value

Previously, terms like “BRK.B” or “stock return” might have seemed like a secret code. Now you see them for what they are: an accessible piece of a major American company and a simple measure of its growth. You can confidently look past the jargon and grasp the powerful idea at its heart—that owning a share is like owning a tiny slice of a business.

As you build your knowledge of long-term investing, these are the key takeaways from this journey:

• BRK.B is an affordable way to own a piece of Berkshire Hathaway. It’s the accessible “slice” of the whole company.

• Its return comes from price growth, not dividends. This makes calculating its performance straightforward.

• Its 10-year return has been strong, performing similarly to the overall market average.

• You can track its price yourself using free tools like Google Finance or Yahoo Finance.

With this foundation, the next time you see a headline about the BRK.B stock return, you’ll have the skill to understand the conversation, find the data for yourself, and feel empowered by your knowledge.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice. The goal is to empower you with knowledge, not to recommend any specific investment.