Berkshire Hathaway vs S&P 500 TR
A company against the market it beat for half a century — and the comparison here is made properly. Berkshire Hathaway pays no dividend, so its share price is already its total return, and setting it against the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested is the only honest way to put the two side by side.
Over the period both series share, Berkshire Hathaway comes out ahead at +10.9% a year.
| Asset | Total return | Annualised | Volatility | Largest drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Berkshire Hathaway | ×23.4 | +10.9% a year | 19.2% | −48.5% (March 2009) |
| S&P 500 TR | ×19.7 | +10.3% a year | 16.3% | −53.1% (March 2009) |
Figures calculated on 26/10/2026 from monthly closing prices. Past performance is no guide to future performance.
Why the total-return index and not the other one
Berkshire has paid a dividend exactly once, in 1967, and never since: everything the subsidiaries earn is reinvested in the group. A shareholder receives nothing along the way, and the whole of their result is in the share price.
Setting that price against a bare S&P 500 — the price index, stripped of its dividends — would compare a total with a part, and would flatter Berkshire by several points a year. The page therefore uses the total-return index. It is also the comparison the company itself puts forward in its annual reports.
What this window does not contain
The comparison opens in 1996, when the class B share was created — the one this page follows, within reach of an individual investor where the class A share trades at several hundred thousand dollars. The first thirty years of Berkshire’s record, the most spectacular ones, are therefore out of frame.
That limit is less a flaw in the measurement than a change of era. A conglomerate worth hundreds of billions cannot repeat what it did with a portfolio a hundred times smaller: size itself shrinks the number of opportunities large enough to move the result, as the management has told shareholders for years.
One more thing the curve does not show: Berkshire is an insurer and an owner of businesses, and it usually holds a very large cash reserve. Part of its record comes from what it did with that reserve at moments when others had none.
Frequently asked questions
Why does Berkshire pay no dividend?
Because management believes it can reinvest each retained dollar for more than a dollar of value. As long as that test is judged to be met, paying out would make shareholders poorer rather than richer.
What is the difference between the A and B shares?
The same assets, a different denomination. The B share was created in 1996 to make the stock accessible, and is worth a fraction of the A share, with voting rights reduced in proportion.
Is Berkshire a fund?
No, it is an operating company. It owns whole businesses — insurance, rail, energy, industry, retail — alongside a portfolio of listed shares, and it consolidates the former in its accounts.