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Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway Earnings
Buffett: still rolling (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Berkshire Hathaway dips after lackluster Q2 results, $3.8 billion hit on Kraft Heinz stake

Both operating earnings and revenues fell year on year, and Berkshire didn’t buy back any stock for the fourth consecutive quarter.

Matt Phillips, Luke Kawa

Berkshire Hathaway, the company built up by investing icon Warren Buffett over the past six decades, reported mediocre to underwhelming Q2 results Saturday, punctuated by a big write-down of a company that it’s far and away the single largest shareholder in.

Shares are down nearly 1% in premarket trading.

The insurance, investment, and commercial conglomerate reported:

  • Operating earnings of $11.2 billion, down 3.8% from $11.6 billion reported in Q2 2024, driven by softness in its insurance business. However, that was still above the $10.74 billion average estimate from the two analysts polled by Bloomberg.

  • Total revenues of $92.515 billion, down 1.2% from $93.653 billion reported during the prior year period and well below the analysts’ average estimate for $95.135 billion.

The big headline from this release: Berkshire is (finally) marking the carrying value of its massive stake in ketchup maker Kraft Heinz to be in line with its market value, prompting a $3.8 billion hit to earnings. Berkshire owned 27.4% of Kraft Heinz as of June 30.

Edward Jones analyst Kyle Sanders suggested this write-down could be a prelude to the conglomerate reducing or completely exiting its position in the company going forward.

While seemingly every other US company is attempting to offer some insight on how changes to trade policy affect its outlook, Berkshire isn’t even bothering.

“Changes in macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical events, including changes in international trade policies and tariffs, may negatively affect our operating results and the values of our investments in equity securities and of our operating businesses,” per the earnings report. “We are currently unable to reliably predict the nature, timing or magnitude of the potential economic consequences of any such changes or the impacts on our Consolidated Financial Statements.”

Berkshire shares have badly lagged the market since the man known as the Oracle of Omaha announced in early May that he would cede the CEO job at Berkshire to top lieutenant Greg Abel on January 1. (Buffett will stay on as chairman.)

Berkshire is down roughly 12% since then, while the S&P 500 is up about 10%.

The Buffett-led company also refrained from any share repurchases for the fourth consecutive quarter, despite this bout of underperformance.

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Luke Kawa

Opendoor surges on bullish options bets as traders look to potential real estate tokenization

Opendoor Technologies is surging on Friday amid bullish options bets and social media posts referencing unconfirmed rumors about the company.

The stock moved higher in the premarket session after the soft inflation report boosted stocks and briefly pushed long-term bond yields lower (positive for a real estate company). But the real gains came after the opening bell rang and options demand picked up.

As of 12:11 p.m. ET, roughly 664,000 call options have changed hands versus a 10-day average of about 364,000 for a full session.

What seems to be galvanizing members of the “$OPEN Army” is the potential for the company to pursue the tokenization of real-world assets, with Robinhood often bandied about as a potential partner in this endeavor.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Opendoor bulls have often pointed to signs that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev appears to be fond of the company, from what appeared on-screen during a demo of a social trading feature at HOOD’s conference in Las Vegas in September to offering support to Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian in setting up an opportunity for retail shareholders to ask questions during the online real estate company’s next earnings call.

Opendoor is currently in a quiet period ahead of earnings, which restricts what type of announcements a company can make.

The call options seeing the most demand expire this Friday with strike prices of $8, $8.50, and $9.

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Luke Kawa

Beyond Meat gains amid slightly better-than-expected Q3 sales, positive commentary on legal issues

Shares of Beyond Meat built on their premarket gains after the plant-based meat seller reported preliminary Q3 sales a bit ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, before paring this advance after the market opened.

For the three months ended September 27, management said net revenue would be approximately $70 million. That’s in line with their guidance range of $68 million to $73 million, but Wall Street was expecting sales to skew toward the lower end of that range, at $68.7 million.

However, its anticipated gross margin of 10% to 11% is lower than analysts had been expecting (13.8%). That’s still the case even adjusting for expenses related to its downsizing of operations in China, which would have left margins around 12% to 13%, per Beyond.

Perhaps more importantly, the company provided positive commentary regarding arbitration discussions with a former co-manufacturer that appear to bring it closer to a resolution while limiting potential damages:

“As previously disclosed, in March 2024, a former co-manufacturer brought an action against the Company in a confidential arbitration proceeding claiming that the Company inappropriately terminated its agreement with the co-manufacturer and claimed damages of at least $73.0 million. On September 15, 2025, the arbitrator issued an interim award (the ‘Interim Award’) and found that the Company had a valid basis to terminate the agreement with the Manufacturer. The details of the Interim Award are confidential, and a final arbitration award has not been issued. Additional proceedings will be held to determine the award of attorneys’ fees, prejudgment interest and costs, if any, before a final arbitration award will be issued. On September 25, 2025, the Manufacturer filed a request with the arbitrator to re-open the arbitration hearing. On September 29, 2025, the Company opposed this request. On October 20, 2025, the arbitrator denied the Manufacturer’s request.”

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