Berkshire Hathaway stock sank more than 1.5% on Monday as investors digested the famous conglomerate reporting a nearly $13 billion net loss for the third quarter. Despite the painful headline number, however, the diverse array of businesses Berkshire owns actually outperformed in the third quarter. To paraphrase Sergio Leone, it was a case of the good, the bad, and the ugly—but maybe not as ugly as it looks.
A $24.1 billion drop in the value of the firm’s stock portfolio did the most damage, with Warren Buffett's favorite name, Apple, losing more than $20 billion on its own. If you judge Buffett’s performance the way he prefers to judge things, that is just a number, though.
