The meta-paradox is the point. Berkshire Hathaway is the closest thing to a publicly traded embodiment of value investing in the world. It is run by the author of the framework most of these scorers are calibrated against. Its largest position (formerly Apple, now substantially reduced) has been the canon's most consequential test case. And when you run Berkshire through the seven value-investing frameworks on invest-like.com, it fails its own founder's screen on price.
The framework question on BRK-B is the cleanest test case in the canon: does Warren Buffett's investing methodology, applied cold to Berkshire's own 2024 10-K (filed 25 February 2025) and trailing FY2025 data, pass Berkshire? The answer is no, and the reason is interesting. We ran BRK-B through all seven named-investor frameworks in parallel and printed the scores side by side. Every number below is anchored to Berkshire's 2024 10-K and recent quarterly filings, the same scores that power /buffett/brk.b/ and every public API response for ticker BRK-B.
TL;DR, BRK-B on all 7 frameworks
| Framework | Score | Grade | Verdict | Criteria met |
|---|
| Munger (mental models) | 74 | B | yes | 8 / 11 |
| Graham (defensive) | 71 | B | yes | 5 / 7 |
| Fisher (growth quality) | 62 | C | unclear | 5 / 10 |
| Buffett (moat + quality) | 58 | F | no | 4 / 9 |
| Smith (Fundsmith) | 56 | F | no | 6 / 12 |
| Lynch (GARP) | 54 | F | no | 3 / 6 |
| Greenblatt (Magic Formula) | 49 | F | no | 1 / 5 |
Cross-framework average: 60.6 out of 100. Minimum score: 49 (Greenblatt). Four of the seven scores fail the 60 pass-threshold the invest-like data study uses, which means BRK-B is not one of the 47 US-listed stocks that pass all 7 value-investing frameworks at a B-minus or better. The frameworks Berkshire's own founder is most associated with (Buffett-fit, Lynch's GARP, Greenblatt's Magic Formula, Smith's Fundsmith) all fail. The frameworks designed for conservative defensive investing (Graham, Munger) pass. Source: the cross-framework consensus study, data snapshot 26 May 2026.
Headline numbers that drive every framework, sourced from Berkshire's 2024 10-K (filed 25 February 2025):
- Price: $498.20 (Class B). Market cap: $1.07 trillion.
- ROIC trailing twelve months: 6.8%. Five-year average ROIC: 8.1%.
- Gross margin: not meaningfully comparable (insurance and railroad GAAP differs from operating companies).
- Operating margin: 17.4% (consolidated, including BNSF, BHE, GEICO, manufacturing).
- Net margin: 17.9% (heavily distorted by mark-to-market gains on equity portfolio).
- P/E TTM: 24.8. P/B: 1.71. EV/EBIT: 22.3.
- PEG ratio: 3.41 (revenue CAGR is structural-low).
- Five-year revenue CAGR: 8.2%. Five-year EPS CAGR: 7.3% (heavily distorted by mark-to-market).
- Debt to equity: 0.21. Current ratio: not meaningfully comparable. Net debt position structurally negative.
- Owner-earnings yield: 3.84%. Earnings yield: 4.03%.
- Dividend yield: 0% (Berkshire has never paid a dividend). Share count CAGR five-year: -1.8% (buyback).
- AAOIFI halal status: non-compliant (insurance-business floor).
- Cash and short-term Treasuries: $334 billion as of Q1 2025 (the largest cash pile of any non-government entity in history).
- Float (free insurance reserves): $176 billion as of FY2024.
- Apple position: reduced from ~$174 billion at peak (Q3 2023) to ~$67 billion by Q4 2024, then further trimmed in 2025.
The rest of this post walks through each framework, explains why it scored BRK-B the way it did, and surfaces where the seven authors agree and where they part ways.
Why Berkshire is the canon's most uncomfortable test case
Berkshire's 2024 10-K reported $371.4 billion in revenue, $89.6 billion in operating earnings (which Buffett himself emphasises over GAAP net income), and $89.0 billion in reported net income (GAAP, which includes equity portfolio mark-to-market). The structural story is the segment mix: insurance (GEICO, BH Reinsurance, General Re) at $90 billion in revenue with the $176 billion float that the holding company invests; BNSF Railway at $23 billion; Berkshire Hathaway Energy at $25 billion; manufacturing/service/retail at roughly $170 billion; and the equity portfolio generating dividends and mark-to-market gains.
The framework debate falls out of one observation: the value-investing canon, including Buffett's own writing, was built to evaluate businesses with identifiable operating economics. Berkshire is a holding company where the operating subsidiaries throw off cash, the cash is reinvested into an equity portfolio that is the largest single shareholder position in many American companies, and the consolidated GAAP numbers reflect the equity mark-to-market more than the underlying operating economics. Running the framework on Berkshire is running the framework on a different kind of business than the framework was calibrated for.
The headline observation: Berkshire's $334 billion cash pile (as of Q1 2025, the largest in history) is a value-investing decision by Buffett himself, signalling that he cannot find sufficient quality at acceptable prices in the current market. The frameworks score Berkshire's reported numbers; they do not score the strategic signal of the cash pile, which is the more important data point for an investor.
Buffett-fit: 58 out of 100, verdict no (the founder fails his own screen)
This is the framework-defining result. The invest-like Buffett scorer marks BRK-B as 4 of 9 criteria passing. The five failures cluster on the price half and the ROIC half:
- ROIC of 6.8% against the 15% Buffett floor: fail (catastrophically).
- Five-year ROIC of 8.1% against the 15% sustained-quality floor: fail.
- Owner-earnings yield 3.84% against the 5% floor: fail.
- Earnings yield 4.03% against the 5% floor: fail.
- EV/EBIT 22.3 against the multiple Buffett would historically pay: fail.
What passes:
- Operating margin 17.4% against the 15% Buffett quality floor: pass narrowly.
- Five-year profitability: yes.
- Net cash position (structurally, due to insurance float counted differently): pass.
- FCF to net income at 0.86 clears the 0.80 cash-quality floor.
The 4-of-9 pass count drives the 58 score and the "no" verdict. This is the meta-paradox in its sharpest form: the Buffett-fit framework, calibrated against criteria Warren Buffett has written about for sixty years, fails Berkshire Hathaway on a strict read.
The Buffett Brain breaks this into five pillars: moat 81, durability 78, management 92, valuation 38, financial health 88. The 92/100 management score is the highest in the entire mega-cap cohort (no surprise). The 38/100 valuation pillar is the lowest of any business in this batch. The framework reads Berkshire as a wonderful enterprise at a price that fails the founder's own price test.
Three interpretive notes:
- The ROIC failure is partly a denominator artefact. Berkshire's invested capital includes the equity portfolio at market value, which inflates the base against which return is measured. On an operating-companies-only ROIC, the number is meaningfully higher (the framework does not adjust for this).
- The owner-earnings yield failure is the criterion Buffett himself would emphasise most. At 3.84%, BRK-B falls below the 5% floor Buffett's own writing has used as a directional benchmark.
- The 38/100 valuation pillar reflects what Buffett's recent capital allocation tells us: the $334 billion cash pile, the Apple trim, and the slowing pace of buybacks (Berkshire repurchased no Class A or Class B shares in Q1 or Q2 2025) all signal that the founder reads the current market, including his own stock, as priced above his strict price test.
The framework signal is consistent with the founder's own actions. That is the meta-paradox: Buffett-fit fails Berkshire because Buffett himself is not buying back Berkshire stock aggressively at these prices.
Graham: 71 out of 100, verdict yes (the most surprising pass)
Graham passes Berkshire. This is the second-most-surprising framework result in this series. On the seven Graham criteria:
- P/E of 24.8 against the 15.0 Graham ceiling: fail (by 10 points).
- P/B of 1.71 against the 1.5 Graham ceiling: fail narrowly.
- Earnings yield of 4.03% against the 7% Graham floor: fail.
- Five years of unbroken profitability: pass.
- Adequate size (largest financial holding company in the world): pass deeply.
- Conservative balance sheet (D/E 0.21): pass.
- Dividend record: fail (Berkshire has never paid a dividend).
Five of seven criteria pass when the structural and balance-sheet half is weighted as the invest-like Graham scorer implements: size, profitability, balance sheet, P/B (just barely fails but proximate to the 1.5 ceiling), and the conservative-financing test. The dividend-record fail is real (a strict Graham reader would penalise this more heavily). The 71 score is the highest framework reading and the only "yes" verdict aside from Munger.
The Graham scorer's headline reads "Berkshire is the rare mega-cap where the structural Graham criteria pass cleanly; the price test fails but the magnitude (P/E 24.8, P/B 1.71) is far lower than typical mega-caps." A pure five-rule Graham defensive screen would still reject BRK-B on the dividend rule alone. The invest-like implementation rewards Berkshire for the conservative financing and the long profitability record.
Fisher: 62 out of 100, verdict unclear
Phil Fisher rates Berkshire 62, just above the 60 pass-threshold. The invest-like Fisher scorer tests for ten things and BRK-B passes 5 of them:
- Gross margin: not meaningfully comparable (insurance accounting): borderline.
- Revenue CAGR 8.2% against the 10% floor: fail.
- EPS CAGR 7.3% against revenue CAGR: fail (the operational-leverage test fails because EPS grew slower than revenue, partly a mark-to-market artefact).
- ROIC 6.8% against 15%: fail.
- Operating margin 17.4% against 15%: pass narrowly.
- Net margin 17.9%: pass (the mark-to-market distortion helps this).
- Conservative balance sheet: pass.
- FCF/NI 0.86 against 0.80: pass.
- Share count shrinking 1.8%/yr: pass.
- P/E 24.8 against 35: pass comfortably.
What Fisher would have noted in his scuttlebutt research is the structural quality of the operating subsidiaries (GEICO underwriting discipline, BNSF capital intensity, BHE regulated returns, See's Candies pricing power) and the strategic optionality of the $334 billion cash pile. None of that shows up in the framework's line-item criteria. The 62 score reflects the framework reading consolidated GAAP numbers; a segment-economics read would rate BRK-B meaningfully higher.
Lynch: 54 out of 100, verdict no
Lynch's GARP framework fails Berkshire on the growth test outright. BRK-B passes 3 of 6 Lynch criteria:
- PEG of 3.41 against the 1.0 Lynch ceiling: fail (catastrophically, the highest PEG in mega-cap).
- EPS CAGR 7.3% against the 15% growth floor: fail.
- Revenue CAGR 8.2% against the 10% revenue floor: fail by a hair.
- Positive net margin: pass.
- Manageable debt: pass.
- Positive free cash flow: pass.
The Lynch verdict is straightforward: Lynch's framework was calibrated to identify mid-cap "fast growers" with PEG under 1.0. Berkshire at trillion-dollar scale, with structural low revenue growth and a PEG over 3, is the kind of business Lynch's framework was designed to exclude. The 54 score reflects that.
This is the framework that fails Berkshire most consistent with its design intent. Lynch would have looked at BRK-B as a "stalwart" rather than a "fast grower" in his own taxonomy; the invest-like Lynch scorer applies the GARP test which Berkshire fails because the growth half is structurally low.
Greenblatt (Magic Formula): 49 out of 100, verdict no (the lowest score)
Joel Greenblatt's Magic Formula is the framework where BRK-B fails most cleanly. The scorer marks BRK-B as 1 of 5 line-item criteria:
- ROIC of 6.8% against the 25% floor: fail (catastrophically).
- Gross margin: not meaningfully comparable: borderline.
- EBIT/EV yield of 4.49% against the 10% floor: fail.
- EV/EBIT of 22.3 against the 12 ceiling: fail.
- Earnings yield of 4.03% against the 6% floor: fail.
By rank-based Magic Formula scoring, BRK-B's ROIC ranks in the bottom third of the 6,621-stock cohort (because the framework reads consolidated ROIC against equity portfolio at market value), and the earnings-yield rank lands in the third quintile. Combined, the rank-based formula places BRK-B well outside the top decile. The 49 score reflects that.
The Magic Formula's failure on Berkshire is the cleanest illustration of why running the formula on conglomerates and holding companies produces different verdicts than running it on single-segment businesses. Greenblatt's framework was calibrated against single-segment businesses where ROIC is the unambiguous quality signal. Berkshire's ROIC is a function of how the $580 billion-plus equity portfolio is marked, which the framework treats as a quality signal but is really a portfolio-valuation signal.
Munger: 74 out of 100, verdict yes
Munger's mental-models filter is the second framework that passes Berkshire. The scorer marks BRK-B as 8 of 11 criteria:
- ROIC 6.8% against 18%: fail.
- 5-year ROIC 8.1% against 15%: fail.
- Operating margin 17.4% against 18%: fail by a hair.
- Net margin 17.9% against 12%: pass.
- 5y ROE 12.4% against 15%: fail.
- Net cash position against 1.5x ceiling: pass.
- Share count shrinking 1.8%/yr: pass.
- EPS CAGR 7.3% against 8%: fail.
- P/E 24.8 against 30: pass.
- Management quality score 92/100: pass deeply.
- Durable advantage qualitative: pass.
The 8-of-11 pass count drives the 74 score and the "yes" verdict. The Munger framework passes Berkshire largely because Munger's mental-models filter explicitly includes a management-quality criterion that catches what no other framework's line-item screen catches: the founder-operator quality, the time-tested capital-allocation track record, and the cultural moat of the holding-company structure.
Munger himself was the architect of Berkshire's modern form (the move from cigar-butt investing to wonderful-businesses-at-fair-prices). The Munger framework passing Berkshire while the Buffett-fit framework fails it is the cleanest illustration of the difference between Buffett's price discipline and Munger's quality-and-management discipline. The cross-framework dispersion (49 to 74) tracks that distinction.
T. Smith (Fundsmith): 56 out of 100, verdict no
Terry Smith's Fundsmith framework is the strictest of the three "quality compounder" tests. It uses a 20% ROCE floor, a 45% gross margin floor, a 95% FCF-to-net-income floor, and a P/E ceiling of 35.
BRK-B passes 6 of 12 criteria. The six fails are:
- ROCE 6.8% against 20%: fail (catastrophically).
- 5y ROCE 8.1% against 18%: fail.
- Gross margin: not meaningfully comparable: borderline.
- Operating margin 17.4% against 20%: fail by a hair.
- Net margin 17.9% against 15%: pass.
- 5y ROE 12.4% against 18%: fail.
- Revenue CAGR 8.2% against 7%: pass.
- EPS CAGR 7.3% against 10%: fail.
- Share count shrinking 1.8%/yr: pass.
- P/E 24.8 against 35: pass.
- FCF / NI 0.86 against the strict 0.95 floor: fail.
The 6-of-12 pass count and the catastrophic ROCE fail drive the 56 score. The Fundsmith framework is calibrated against single-segment quality compounders (Microsoft, Visa, Diageo, L'Oreal). Berkshire's holding-company structure produces a consolidated ROCE that the framework treats as low quality. The Fundsmith fund has never held Berkshire to my knowledge; the framework signal is consistent with the fund's actual behaviour.
Smith has written that he prefers "businesses you can understand" with "high returns on capital that reinvest at the same returns." Berkshire's reinvestment happens through the equity portfolio, which is a different mechanism than operating-company reinvestment. The framework reads consolidated ROCE and lands at 56.
The cash pile question: what each framework does with $334 billion in Treasuries
This is the BRK-B-specific framework discussion. Each scorer handles the cash pile differently:
- Buffett-fit: reads consolidated ROIC, which the cash pile depresses (Treasuries yield 4-5%, which is below Berkshire's historical operating ROIC). The framework deducts heavily.
- Graham: reads conservative balance sheet positively but reads the implied opportunity cost of $334 billion in Treasuries as a structural drag on growth.
- Fisher: scuttlebutt-style reading would surface the cash pile as strategic optionality. Fisher historically tolerated cash discipline at compounders.
- Lynch: reads consolidated growth and PEG, which the cash pile depresses. Lynch's framework does not credit optionality.
- Greenblatt: rank-based formula reads consolidated ROIC. Cash at 4-5% drags the ROIC denominator.
- Munger: mental-models framework treats the cash pile as evidence of capital discipline. Munger himself was the architect of holding cash when prices are full.
- Smith: Fundsmith reads consolidated ROCE. The cash drags ROCE materially.
The cross-framework dispersion (49 to 74) is structurally tied to how each scorer reads the cash pile. Frameworks that credit capital discipline (Munger, Graham) rate BRK-B higher. Frameworks that read consolidated quality (Buffett-fit, Greenblatt, Smith) rate it lower.
The data point that none of the seven frameworks encode is the strategic content of the cash pile itself. The $334 billion cash pile is Buffett signalling that he cannot find sufficient quality at acceptable prices in the current market. That signal is the more important investor data point than any of the framework scores; it just does not show up in any framework's line-item criteria.
Where the frameworks agree on BRK-B
Despite seven different lenses, four things show up in every scoring breakdown:
- The management quality is the canon's highest. Every framework's qualitative cache rates Berkshire's capital allocation track record as the best in the universe. The Buffett Brain prints a 92/100 management score, the highest of any business in this entire series.
- The balance sheet is fortress-grade. D/E of 0.21, net cash structurally, the largest cash pile in non-government history. Every framework that includes a balance-sheet test passes BRK-B on it without effort.
- The price test fails across the board. Six of the seven frameworks explicitly flag the multiple. Even Graham, which passes BRK-B, flags P/E 24.8 and P/B 1.71 as failing the strict defensive ceilings.
- The growth test fails for structural reasons. Revenue CAGR 8.2% and EPS CAGR 7.3% are functions of trillion-dollar scale and a holding-company structure. Three frameworks (Fisher, Lynch, Smith) include growth criteria that BRK-B cannot pass without rewriting its business model.
Where the frameworks disagree on BRK-B
Three points of disagreement, all consequential:
- Whether holding-company economics are framework-readable. Greenblatt, Smith and Buffett-fit read consolidated numbers and fail BRK-B on quality (low ROIC because equity portfolio is in the denominator). Munger and Graham include qualitative or structural criteria that pass BRK-B despite the consolidated quality signal.
- Whether the founder's own framework can score the founder's own company. The Buffett-fit scorer applies Buffett's writing to Berkshire and fails. This is the meta-paradox in its sharpest form. Buffett would likely acknowledge this is structurally correct: Berkshire is not an attractive investment at these prices by his own price test, which is precisely why the company is sitting on $334 billion in cash rather than buying back stock.
- Whether to credit the cash pile. Munger's framework explicitly credits capital discipline. Lynch's framework cannot read optionality and deducts. The cross-framework dispersion (49 to 74) is the data signature of that disagreement.
Does BRK-B make the 47-stock all-7-frameworks cohort?
No. BRK-B's minimum framework score is 49 (Greenblatt), which fails the 60 pass-threshold by 11 points. Three other frameworks (Buffett-fit at 58, Smith at 56, Lynch at 54) also fail. Only Munger (74) and Graham (71) pass cleanly; Fisher (62) is marginal.
Cross-framework average is 60.6 out of 100, the lowest in the mega-cap deep-dive series, well below NVDA (83.4), META (82.0), GOOGL (82.4), AAPL (73.6), MSFT (66.9), AMZN (64.9). Berkshire underperforms its peers on framework scoring not because the underlying business is worse but because the framework calibration does not naturally accommodate a holding-company structure where the largest single asset is a $300 billion-plus equity portfolio rather than operating-company cash flows.
The full 47-stock consensus list is in our cross-framework data study. Berkshire's absence from that list is the cleanest evidence that the cross-framework consensus is calibrated against single-segment quality compounders and structurally underrates conglomerates regardless of the underlying business quality.
Halal compliance: is BRK-B AAOIFI Standard 21 compliant?
No. Berkshire is non-compliant by AAOIFI Standard 21 as implemented in our halal screening methodology. The reason is straightforward: insurance underwriting is one of the AAOIFI prohibited business activities (conventional insurance is treated as a riba-related business under Islamic finance principles). GEICO, BH Reinsurance and General Re collectively represent a material portion of Berkshire's revenue and operating income; the prohibited-business test catches Berkshire at the segment-revenue threshold.
BRK-B shows up on /halal/brk-b/ as non-compliant. The interest-bearing debt to market cap ratio is low (3.4%), but the prohibited-business test is structural, not financial. Halal-mode users see BRK-B flagged at the screen level.
What this means for an investor
The seven-framework breakdown is not a "buy BRK-B" or "sell BRK-B" signal. It is a structured way to see which value-investing lenses agree on the business and which disagree. Three observations a reader might draw, none of which are advice:
First, the meta-paradox is real and instructive. The fact that Buffett-fit fails Berkshire is not a framework bug; it is a signal that the founder himself, applying his own price discipline, does not view his own company as cheap at these levels. The $334 billion cash pile is the same signal expressed through capital allocation rather than through commentary.
Second, framework scoring is a poor tool for evaluating holding companies and conglomerates. The frameworks were calibrated against single-segment businesses where ROIC is the unambiguous quality signal. Berkshire's consolidated ROIC reflects the equity portfolio mark-to-market, not the underlying operating-business quality. Readers using BRK-B as a value-fit test case should know the framework is asking the wrong question of the wrong business.
Third, the management criterion that catches Berkshire most positively (Munger's 92/100 management score) is the criterion least often included in mainstream framework implementations. Most retail-facing scorers do not have a management-quality input at all. The fact that two of the three frameworks that pass BRK-B (Munger and Graham) include some form of structural or qualitative credit, while the four that fail (Buffett-fit, Greenblatt, Lynch, Smith) are strict line-item screens, is the data signature of how much the framework choice matters.
The Boardroom feature on /boardroom/brk.b/ runs the four-investor debate in long form and is the natural follow-on to this post. It lets the four authors argue the meta-paradox directly.
Where this stock fits in the 7-framework consensus
| Framework | BRK-B Score | Pass / Fail | Read |
|---|
| Buffett (moat + quality) | 58 | Fail | The founder fails his own screen on price; the cash pile is the same signal |
| Graham (defensive) | 71 | Pass | Structural half passes cleanly, valuation half fails by smallest margin in batch |
| Fisher (growth quality) | 62 | Pass | Marginal pass, scuttlebutt would rate higher than consolidated GAAP |
| Lynch (GARP) | 54 | Fail | PEG 3.41, growth structurally low, framework designed to exclude this profile |
| Greenblatt (Magic Formula) | 49 | Fail | Lowest score, rank-based formula misreads holding-company ROIC |
| Munger (mental models) | 74 | Pass | Highest score, management quality and capital discipline drive the verdict |
| T. Smith (Fundsmith) | 56 | Fail | Holding-company structure not Fundsmith's kind of compounder |
Cross-framework average: 60.6 / 100. 3 of 7 pass. BRK-B misses the 47-stock all-seven cohort by 11 points on Greenblatt and fails three other frameworks outright.
FAQ
Why does Buffett's own framework fail Berkshire Hathaway?
The framework reads ROIC, owner-earnings yield, and earnings yield as the primary quality and price tests. Berkshire's consolidated ROIC is 6.8% (the equity portfolio is in the denominator at market value, which inflates the base). Owner-earnings yield is 3.84% against the 5% floor. Earnings yield is 4.03% against the 5% floor. Three of Buffett's most-emphasised line-item criteria fail. The framework is doing exactly what it was calibrated to do; it is just doing it to a business that does not fit the single-segment template the framework was built for. Buffett's own capital allocation (the $334 billion cash pile, the slowing buyback) is consistent with the framework's verdict that the price is not attractive at current levels.
Is BRK-B overvalued?
By Graham's strict defensive rules (P/E above 15, P/B above 1.5), yes, but by less than mega-cap tech peers. By Buffett's owner-earnings yield test, yes. By Greenblatt's earnings-yield ranking, yes. By Lynch's PEG (3.41 against 1.0), yes catastrophically. By Munger's P/E ceiling of 30, BRK-B passes at 24.8. By Smith's P/E ceiling of 35, BRK-B passes. The seven-framework view: six say expensive, one (Munger) says fairly priced relative to quality. The most telling data point is not in any framework: Berkshire is not buying back its own stock at current levels, which is the founder's own price-discipline signal.
Why doesn't Berkshire pay a dividend?
Berkshire has never paid a dividend, by explicit choice of management. Buffett's stated framework is that as long as Berkshire can compound a dollar of retained earnings into more than a dollar of market value, retention is the higher-return capital allocation. Three of the seven frameworks (Graham, Fisher, Smith) include a dividend-record criterion or weight; BRK-B fails all three by default. If Berkshire initiated a dividend (which Buffett has repeatedly said will not happen during his lifetime), the cross-framework score would move materially.
What is the meta-paradox?
The meta-paradox is the observation that the Buffett-fit framework, calibrated against Warren Buffett's own writing, fails Berkshire Hathaway. It is not a framework bug. It is the data signature of Buffett's own price discipline applied to his own company at its current valuation. The $334 billion cash pile and the slowing pace of Berkshire buybacks in 2025 are the same signal expressed through Buffett's actual capital allocation. The framework is telling you what the founder is also telling you: at these prices, Berkshire is not a Buffett buy.
What are good BRK-B alternatives?
The cleanest comparators inside the value canon are Markel (MKL) for the smaller-scale Berkshire-like holding company, Brookfield (BN) for the alternative-asset-manager analogue, and Fairfax Financial (FFH) for the insurance-plus-investments structure. None of these score cleanly across all seven frameworks either, for the same structural reasons. Cleaner peer comparisons are on the BRK-B vs MKL and BRK-B vs BN pages.
What about the Apple position trim?
Berkshire's Apple position peaked at roughly $174 billion (Q3 2023), was reduced to roughly $67 billion by Q4 2024, and was further trimmed in 2025 according to subsequent 13-F filings. The framework signal is that the founder, applying his own price discipline to his single largest position, judged that AAPL at 36x earnings exceeded his framework's tolerance for the quality. The Apple trim is the cleanest single illustration of how Buffett's price discipline operates in practice. None of the seven scorers encodes 13-F portfolio decisions as a criterion; the data point is qualitative.
Is Berkshire halal?
No. By AAOIFI Standard 21 as implemented on invest-like, BRK-B is non-compliant. The structural reason is that conventional insurance underwriting (GEICO, BH Reinsurance, General Re) is one of the AAOIFI prohibited business activities. The halal status field returns "non-compliant" on every API response for ticker BRK-B. Halal-mode users see the screen flag at the page level.
How often do these scores update?
The strategy scores in the database refresh roughly every two weeks against the latest FMP fundamentals snapshot. The Buffett Brain pillar breakdown is cached for 30 days and re-runs on a schedule. The cross-framework data study underlying the 47-stock cohort is dated and re-runs quarterly. Specific number citations in this post are stable against the 26 May 2026 snapshot but will drift over time as new earnings get ingested.
Educational disclaimer
This is an educational analysis of how seven separately implemented value-investing frameworks score one stock. It is not investment advice, not a buy or sell recommendation, and not a substitute for reading the original Buffett shareholder letters, Graham's Intelligent Investor, Fisher's Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, Lynch's One Up on Wall Street, Greenblatt's Little Book that Beats the Market, Munger's Poor Charlie's Almanack, or Smith's Investing for Growth. The framework scores are deterministic outputs from financial-statement criteria; they do not predict price. Past performance of Berkshire Hathaway stock (or any stock) is not a forecast.
All scores cited in this post come from invest-like.com's strategy_scores and buffett_analyses production tables, snapshot 26 May 2026, with financial-statement data sourced from Berkshire's 2024 10-K (filed 25 February 2025) and trailing FY2025 quarterly filings. The methodology for each scorer is documented at /methodology/, and per-framework rule sets are at /methodology/buffett-fit/ and /methodology/deal-breakers/. The same scoring logic powers every verdict on the production site, including the per-ticker page at /buffett/brk.b/ and the public API response at /api/public/verdict/BRK-B.
If you want to run the same seven-framework treatment on a stock you actually own, paste its ticker into the search bar on the homepage. The free tier gives three full verdicts a week. The 47-stock all-seven-frameworks cohort that BRK-B sits outside is browsable at /blog/12500-stocks-7-frameworks-cross-framework-consensus/. For the same treatment on other mega-caps, see our deep dives on Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), NVIDIA (NVDA) and Microsoft (MSFT).