Shares of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. fell below $100,000 for the first time since 2006 on Thursday, dropping for a fourth day after posting a 77 percent profit decline last week.
Berkshire’s Class A shares slipped as much as $7,283, or 7.1 percent, to $96,050, before ending the day at $102,800, down $533 from Wednesday. The stock of the Omaha-based company, up in 17 of the past 20 years, has plunged 27 percent this year.
Berkshire has posted four straight profit declines, its worst streak in at least 13 years, on investment losses and falling returns at insurance businesses.
October’s slump in debt and stock markets reduced the value of Berkshire’s holdings and derivative contracts and lowered its shareholders’ equity, a measure of assets minus liabilities, by about $9 billion in the month, the company said in a regulatory filing Nov. 7.
“There have been larger declines in the rest of the insurance industry, and Berkshire isn’t immune to that,” said Bill Bergman, an analyst for Morningstar Inc. in Chicago. Bloomberg News
