How Warren Buffett’s Berkshire did against the S&P 500, with a calculator
Berkshire Hathaway’s share price grew 19.7% a year from 1965 to 2025, against 10.5% for the S&P 500. Why most of Buffett’s money came late, why the lead has shrunk, what he tells everyone else to buy, and a calculator for any start year.
HanaHow13 minute readFrom 1965 to 2025, Berkshire Hathaway’s share price grew by 19.7% a year. The S&P 500, with dividends reinvested, grew by 10.5% a year. Those are the figures in Berkshire’s 2025 letter to shareholders. Over those 61 years, $1,000 in Berkshire became about $61 million, and $1,000 in the S&P 500 became about $460,000.
Most of that lead was built decades ago. Over the 20 years to the end of 2025, Berkshire and the index grew at almost the same rate, and over the last 10 years the index was ahead. Buffett’s own advice for most people is to buy a low-cost S&P 500 index fund.
The dollar figures here are in US dollars, before tax and fees. Someone investing in pounds would have got a different result, because the exchange rate moved too. Figures are as of September 2026 unless a date says otherwise. The calculator further down lets you pick any start year from 1965 to 2025.
Who Warren Buffett is, and what Berkshire owns
Warren Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on 30 August 1930, so he’s 96. He bought his first shares in 1942, when he was 11, according to his 2018 letter. In his November 2025 letter he recalls taking a job in New York in 1954 with the investor Benjamin Graham, then going back to Omaha in 1956, where he ran his own investment partnership.
Berkshire Hathaway was then a New England textile company. In his 2014 letter, Buffett says his partnership first bought its shares in 1962, owned 392,633 of the 1,017,547 shares by April 1965, and took control at a board meeting in early May 1965. He describes the company then as “a northern textile manufacturer mired in a terrible business”, and he closed the textile operation in 1985.
He ran Berkshire until he stepped down as chief executive at the end of 2025. Greg Abel has been chief executive since 1 January 2026. On 18 September 2026 Buffett became Chairman Emeritus and stayed on the board, and his son Howard Buffett became chairman. In a letter that day, Buffett wrote: “Greg runs the company; Howard will guard its culture and values”.
Berkshire owns whole companies. Its 2025 annual report lists GEICO car insurance, which it has fully owned since January 1996, the BNSF railway, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, See’s Candies, Dairy Queen, Duracell and NetJets, among others. It also owns billions of dollars of shares in other companies. Its five biggest holdings on 30 June 2026, from its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, were:
- Apple, $66.0 billion
- American Express, $51.3 billion
- Alphabet, $37.8 billion
- Coca-Cola, $32.5 billion
- Bank of America, $27.5 billion
At the end of 2025, Berkshire owned 1.6% of Apple, 9.3% of Coca-Cola and 22.1% of American Express, according to its 2025 letter.
Berkshire against the S&P 500, 1965 to 2025
Berkshire’s annual letter includes a table of how its share price did each year against the S&P 500 with dividends. The 2025 letter, the first written by Greg Abel, dated 28 February 2026, gives these totals:
| Berkshire share price | S&P 500 with dividends | |
|---|---|---|
| A year, 1965 to 2025 | 19.7% | 10.5% |
| Overall gain, 1964 to 2025 | 6,099,294% | 46,061% |
| What $1,000 became | $60,993,940 | $461,610 |
The last row is our calculation from the letter’s overall gain.
A few things to know about these numbers:
- Berkshire’s figure is its share price. Berkshire “has not declared a cash dividend since 1967”, according to its 2025 annual report, so the share price is the whole return. The S&P 500 figure assumes every dividend was reinvested.
- The first rows aren’t calendar years. The letter notes that 1965 and 1966 are years to 30 September, and 1967 covers the 15 months to 31 December. So the table starts on 30 September 1964 and covers 61 years and 3 months.
- They’re before fees and tax, and in US dollars. In pounds the result would be different. The pound was fixed at $2.80 in 1964 and was worth about $1.35 at the end of 2025, so the same investment counted in pounds would have grown by more.
- It wasn’t smooth. Berkshire beat the index in 40 of the 61 years. Its share price fell in 11 of them, including by 48.7% in 1974, 23.1% in 1990 and 31.8% in 2008.
A gap of 9.2 percentage points a year doesn’t sound like much. Compounded for 61 years, it left the Berkshire investor with about 132 times as much as the index investor.
Most of his money came late
On 1 March 1995, Buffett owned 474,998 Berkshire A shares directly, according to the company’s proxy statement that month. He still had exactly that many in June 2006, when he started giving them away. In June 2025 he said he had “neither bought nor sold any A or B shares” since then.
Here’s what those 474,998 shares were worth:
- At 60, at the end of August 1990, at $6,400 a share: about $3.0 billion
- At 65, at the end of August 1995, at $25,500 a share: about $12.1 billion
- At 75, in June 2006: about $43 billion, in his own words
Had he kept them all, they’d have been worth about $360 billion at the closing price on 25 September 2026, $758,506 a share. About 97% of that came after he turned 65.
He’s given much of it away instead. In June 2025, Buffett said the five foundations he gives to had received Berkshire shares worth “about $60 billion” when they got them, and he’s given more since. Forbes puts his giving at “more than $72 billion”, and his net worth at $143.7 billion (its real-time figure on 27 September 2026).
In June 2025, Buffett gave his own explanation: “a very long runway, simple and generally sound decisions, the American tailwind and compounding effects produced my current wealth.”
How much he reads
In the HBO documentary Becoming Warren Buffett, first shown in January 2017, he said: “And I still probably spend five or six hours a day reading.”
Todd Combs, one of the investment managers Buffett hired to run part of Berkshire’s money, first saw Buffett as one of 165 students in a Columbia University investing class. The Omaha World-Herald told the story in April 2013. A student asked how to prepare for a career in investing, and Buffett reached for the reports and papers he’d brought with him. The paper quotes him, “or words to that effect”: “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.” That’s Combs remembering advice to students, not a record of Buffett’s own routine.
In the 2014 letter, Charlie Munger, Buffett’s business partner, wrote that Buffett’s “first priority would be reservation of much time for quiet reading and thinking”.
Picking investments was Buffett’s full-time job from 1954, when he joined Graham, to the end of 2025. That’s about 70 years.
Why it got harder
Berkshire’s lead over the index shrank as it got bigger. From the letter’s yearly figures:
| Years | Berkshire a year | S&P 500 a year | Years Berkshire beat the index |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 to 1994 | 27.7% | 9.9% | 21 of 30 |
| 2006 to 2025 | 11.3% | 11.0% | 13 of 20 |
| 2016 to 2025 | 14.3% | 14.8% | 6 of 10 |
These are our calculations from the letter’s yearly figures, with 1965 to 1994 counted from 30 September 1964 as the letter does. Counted as 30 whole years, Berkshire’s rate is 28.0%.
Buffett has put it down to size:
- 2014 letter: “Berkshire’s long-term gains … cannot be dramatic and will not come close to those achieved in the past 50 years. The numbers have become too big.”
- 2016 letter, on why good investment records fade as money pours in: “What is easy with millions, struggles with billions (sob!).”
- 2023 letter: “we have no possibility of eye-popping performance”.
- November 2025: “a decade or two from now, there will be many companies that have done better than Berkshire; our size takes its toll.”
Greg Abel said the same in his 2025 letter: “At Berkshire’s scale, the math of compounding works against us”.
What he tells everyone else
Buffett has told ordinary investors to use low-cost index funds for over 30 years:
- 1993 letter: “By periodically investing in an index fund, for example, the know-nothing investor can actually out-perform most investment professionals.”
- 1996 letter: “Most investors, both institutional and individual, will find that the best way to own common stocks is through an index fund that charges minimal fees.”
- 2013 letter, on the money he’s leaving in trust for his wife: “Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard’s.)”
- 2016 letter: “Both large and small investors should stick with low-cost index funds.”
- Berkshire’s annual meeting, 2 May 2020: “In my view, for most people, the best thing to do is to own the S&P 500 index fund.”
The million-dollar bet
On 19 December 2007, Buffett made a ten-year bet with Protégé Partners, an investment firm, that an S&P 500 index fund would do better than five “funds-of-funds” it picked. Between them, those five invested in more than 200 hedge funds. Buffett and Protégé each paid $318,250 for bonds to fund a $1 million prize for the winner’s charity.
From 2008 to 2017, according to Buffett’s 2017 letter:
- The S&P 500 index fund gained 125.8%, or 8.5% a year.
- The five funds-of-funds gained between 2.8% and 87.7%, or between 0.3% and 6.5% a year.
Buffett won. The two sides had swapped the bonds for Berkshire shares in 2012, so Girls Inc. of Omaha received $2,222,279 rather than $1 million. His summary: “Performance comes, performance goes. Fees never falter.”
Professional fund managers against the index
S&P Dow Jones Indices publishes SPIVA scorecards, which compare actively managed funds with the index for their type of fund. They use returns after fund fees, and count funds that closed or merged along the way. In the reports for the period to 31 December 2025:
- US: 92.89% of US large-cap funds did worse than the S&P 500 over 20 years, and 85.59% over 10 years (SPIVA U.S. Scorecard, Year-End 2025).
- UK: 92.98% of UK equity funds sold in pounds did worse than the S&P United Kingdom BMI over 10 years (SPIVA Europe Scorecard, Year-End 2025). The European report doesn’t go back further than 10 years.
- US shares from the UK: 95.10% of actively managed US equity funds sold in pounds did worse than the S&P 500 over the same 10 years.
What you can do in the UK and the US
In the UK
- Berkshire in an ISA. Shares officially listed on a recognised stock exchange can go in a stocks and shares ISA, under regulation 7 of the ISA Regulations 1998, and HMRC lists the New York Stock Exchange as recognised. Berkshire’s B shares closed at $505.48 on 25 September 2026, about £380. The A shares closed at $758,506.
- Buying US shares. They’re priced in dollars, so check what your platform charges to change currency. Platforms usually ask for a W-8BEN, the IRS form that confirms you’re not a US person. Berkshire doesn’t pay a dividend, so US tax on dividends doesn’t come into it.
- An S&P 500 tracker in an ISA. The iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF (CSPX) charges 0.07% a year and is ISA eligible, according to its factsheet (data as at 3 September 2026). Your platform may charge its own fee on top.
- US-listed funds like VOO. You generally can’t buy these as a UK retail investor. An overseas fund can only be marketed to UK retail investors if it’s a “recognised scheme”, and in its policy statement PS25/20, in December 2025, the FCA said: “There are currently no US funds that are recognised schemes in the UK.” UK investors use UCITS versions such as CSPX, which is domiciled in Ireland.
Our compound interest guide covers UK tax outside an ISA, the ISA allowance and the US tax taken from dividends inside an S&P 500 fund.
In the US
- Low-cost trackers. Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF (VOO) charges 0.03% a year and its 500 Index Fund Admiral Shares (VFIAX) 0.04%, according to their prospectuses dated 28 April 2026. You can hold either in a Roth IRA with most brokers.
- In a 401(k) you choose from your plan’s list of funds. If it offers an S&P 500 index fund, the plan’s fee disclosure shows what it charges.
- Berkshire’s B shares can go in an IRA brokerage account too.
The compound interest guide also covers US capital gains tax and the Roth accounts.
Berkshire against the S&P 500 calculator
Pick a start year and an amount to see what it became by the end of 2025, in Berkshire shares and in the S&P 500 with dividends. It shows the yearly rate for each, how many of those years Berkshire beat the index and its worst year. It starts with the example in the video: $1,000 from the start of 1965.
$1,000 invested from 30 September 1964 to 31 December 2025 became:
- In Berkshire shares
- $60,993,940
- 19.7% a year
- In the S&P 500, with dividends
- $461,610
- 10.5% a year
- Years Berkshire beat the index
- 40 of 61
- It did worse than the index in 21 years
- Berkshire’s worst year
- −48.7%
- 1974, when the index fell 26.4%
Show the letter’s figures for each year
| Year | Berkshire | S&P 500 | Ahead |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1965, year to 30 Sep | +49.5% | +10.0% | Berkshire |
| 1966, year to 30 Sep | −3.4% | −11.7% | Berkshire |
| 1967, 15 months | +13.3% | +30.9% | S&P 500 |
| 1968 | +77.8% | +11.0% | Berkshire |
| 1969 | +19.4% | −8.4% | Berkshire |
| 1970 | −4.6% | +3.9% | S&P 500 |
| 1971 | +80.5% | +14.6% | Berkshire |
| 1972 | +8.1% | +18.9% | S&P 500 |
| 1973 | −2.5% | −14.8% | Berkshire |
| 1974 | −48.7% | −26.4% | S&P 500 |
| 1975 | +2.5% | +37.2% | S&P 500 |
| 1976 | +129.3% | +23.6% | Berkshire |
| 1977 | +46.8% | −7.4% | Berkshire |
| 1978 | +14.5% | +6.4% | Berkshire |
| 1979 | +102.5% | +18.2% | Berkshire |
| 1980 | +32.8% | +32.3% | Berkshire |
| 1981 | +31.8% | −5.0% | Berkshire |
| 1982 | +38.4% | +21.4% | Berkshire |
| 1983 | +69.0% | +22.4% | Berkshire |
| 1984 | −2.7% | +6.1% | S&P 500 |
| 1985 | +93.7% | +31.6% | Berkshire |
| 1986 | +14.2% | +18.6% | S&P 500 |
| 1987 | +4.6% | +5.1% | S&P 500 |
| 1988 | +59.3% | +16.6% | Berkshire |
| 1989 | +84.6% | +31.7% | Berkshire |
| 1990 | −23.1% | −3.1% | S&P 500 |
| 1991 | +35.6% | +30.5% | Berkshire |
| 1992 | +29.8% | +7.6% | Berkshire |
| 1993 | +38.9% | +10.1% | Berkshire |
| 1994 | +25.0% | +1.3% | Berkshire |
| 1995 | +57.4% | +37.6% | Berkshire |
| 1996 | +6.2% | +23.0% | S&P 500 |
| 1997 | +34.9% | +33.4% | Berkshire |
| 1998 | +52.2% | +28.6% | Berkshire |
| 1999 | −19.9% | +21.0% | S&P 500 |
| 2000 | +26.6% | −9.1% | Berkshire |
| 2001 | +6.5% | −11.9% | Berkshire |
| 2002 | −3.8% | −22.1% | Berkshire |
| 2003 | +15.8% | +28.7% | S&P 500 |
| 2004 | +4.3% | +10.9% | S&P 500 |
| 2005 | +0.8% | +4.9% | S&P 500 |
| 2006 | +24.1% | +15.8% | Berkshire |
| 2007 | +28.7% | +5.5% | Berkshire |
| 2008 | −31.8% | −37.0% | Berkshire |
| 2009 | +2.7% | +26.5% | S&P 500 |
| 2010 | +21.4% | +15.1% | Berkshire |
| 2011 | −4.7% | +2.1% | S&P 500 |
| 2012 | +16.8% | +16.0% | Berkshire |
| 2013 | +32.7% | +32.4% | Berkshire |
| 2014 | +27.0% | +13.7% | Berkshire |
| 2015 | −12.5% | +1.4% | S&P 500 |
| 2016 | +23.4% | +12.0% | Berkshire |
| 2017 | +21.9% | +21.8% | Berkshire |
| 2018 | +2.8% | −4.4% | Berkshire |
| 2019 | +11.0% | +31.5% | S&P 500 |
| 2020 | +2.4% | +18.4% | S&P 500 |
| 2021 | +29.6% | +28.7% | Berkshire |
| 2022 | +4.0% | −18.1% | Berkshire |
| 2023 | +15.8% | +26.3% | S&P 500 |
| 2024 | +25.5% | +25.0% | Berkshire |
| 2025 | +10.9% | +17.9% | S&P 500 |
Figures from the table in Berkshire Hathaway’s 2025 letter to shareholders. Berkshire is its share price, as it pays no dividend, and the S&P 500 includes reinvested dividends. Both are before fees and tax. As in the letter, 1965 and 1966 are years to 30 September and 1967 covers the 15 months to 31 December, so starting in 1965 counts from 30 September 1964.
The returns are in US dollars. Choosing pounds only changes the symbol: the calculator ignores the pound’s moves against the dollar, which would change a UK investor’s result. Starting in 1965 uses the letter’s own overall gain; later start years multiply its yearly figures, which are rounded to a tenth of a percent, so they can be slightly out.
Risks
- Past returns aren’t a forecast. Buffett and Abel both say Berkshire can’t repeat its early record, for the reasons above.
- Berkshire is one company. Its share price fell 48.7% in 1974 and 31.8% in 2008.
- An S&P 500 tracker can fall by half. From its peak on 9 October 2007 to its low on 9 March 2009, the S&P 500 fell 56.8%, or 55.3% with dividends, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices data on Yahoo Finance.
- Currency. All the figures here are in US dollars. A UK investor’s result in pounds depends on the exchange rate as well.
This guide explains what Buffett did and what he’s said. It isn’t financial advice and doesn’t take your circumstances into account. For advice on your own situation, speak to a regulated financial adviser.
Sources
- Berkshire Hathaway, 28 February 2026: 2025 letter to shareholders (Greg Abel), including the table on pages 19 and 20
- Berkshire Hathaway, 2 March 2026: Annual report on Form 10-K for 2025
- Berkshire Hathaway, 14 August 2026: Form 13F holdings at 30 June 2026
- Berkshire Hathaway, 5 May 2025: Greg Abel to become chief executive
- Berkshire Hathaway, 18 September 2026: Warren E. Buffett becomes Chairman Emeritus, with Buffett’s letter
- Berkshire Hathaway, 27 June 2025: Buffett’s gift to five foundations
- Berkshire Hathaway, 10 November 2025: Buffett’s Thanksgiving letter
- Berkshire Hathaway, 17 March 1995: Proxy statement, share ownership on 1 March 1995
- Buffett’s letters to shareholders for 1993, 1996, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2023
- CNBC Warren Buffett Archive: 2020 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, 2 May 2020
- Forbes, real-time figure on 27 September 2026: Warren Buffett profile
- HBO, January 2017: Becoming Warren Buffett
- Omaha World-Herald, Steve Jordon, 29 April 2013: Investors earn handsome paychecks by handling Buffett’s business
- S&P Dow Jones Indices, data to 31 December 2025: SPIVA U.S. Scorecard, Year-End 2025, Report 1a
- S&P Dow Jones Indices, data to 31 December 2025: SPIVA Europe Scorecard, Year-End 2025, Report 1a
- Share prices and exchange rates: Yahoo Finance, closing prices on 25 September 2026 and monthly Berkshire prices for 1990 and 1995; S&P 500 and S&P 500 total return index for 2007 to 2009
- The Individual Savings Account Regulations 1998, regulation 7
- HMRC: Recognised stock exchanges, United States of America
- FCA, December 2025: PS25/20, consumer composite investments, chapter 2
- iShares, data as at 3 September 2026: iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF factsheet
- Vanguard, 28 April 2026: S&P 500 ETF summary prospectus and 500 Index Fund Admiral Shares summary prospectus
- IRS: About Form W-8BEN
Read the video transcript
Last time, I said 20% a year was a fantasy. Warren Buffett's done almost that, for 60 years. So should you copy him? Warren Buffett ran Berkshire Hathaway for 60 years, until he stepped down as chief executive at the end of 2025. When he took over in 1965, it was a struggling textile company. Now it owns whole companies, like GEICO insurance and the BNSF railway, and billions of dollars of shares in others, like Apple and Coca-Cola. From 1965 to 2025, Berkshire's share price grew 19.7% a year. The S&P 500, with dividends, grew 10.5. Compounded for 60 years, that gap gets enormous. $1,000 in the S&P became about $460,000. In Berkshire, about $61 million. And, like last time, most of it came at the end. At 65, when most people retire, his Berkshire shares were worth about $12 billion. He's 96 now, and worth about $144 billion. That's after giving more than $60 billion away. So how did he actually do it? A lot of it, by reading. In 2017, he said he still spent 5 or 6 hours a day reading. One of the fund managers he hired remembers him telling students to read 500 pages a day. That's how knowledge works, he said. It builds up, like compound interest. Picking companies was his full-time job for 70 years, and most of us already have one. It's also got harder, even for him. From 1965 to 1994, Berkshire grew 28% a year. Over the last 20 years, it's 11.3, and the S&P managed 11. Over the last 10, the index was ahead. In Buffett's words, the numbers have become too big. So what does he tell everyone else? Buy the index. In 2013, he wrote that the money he leaves his wife should go 90% into a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. And in 2020: for most people, the best thing to do is to own the S&P 500 index fund. He even made a $1 million bet on it. Over 10 years, an S&P 500 index fund made 8.5% a year. The 5 hedge fund picks it was up against made between 0.3 and 6.5. He won, and the money went to charity. Most professionals can't beat it either. About 9 in 10 fund managers trail their index, in the US over 20 years, and in the UK over 10. You can buy Berkshire's B shares in a stocks and shares ISA, at about $500 each. But it's one company, it pays no dividend, and he's not running it any more. An S&P 500 tracker can cost under a tenth of a percent a year, and fits in an ISA, a Roth IRA, or a 401(k) that offers one. You get the compounding, without the reading. It can still fall by half, and this isn't financial advice. That's HanaHow. See you next time.
Something not quite right?
Let us know
