Berkshire Hathaway's Q2 Earnings Release Set For August 8

Paul Sakuma

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett helps Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., raise campaign funds in San Francisco, Calif., Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007. Bufffett, who has said he would be happy with either Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as the next president, already helped Clinton raise at least $1 million during a June event in New York. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway tells us the holding company's second quarter earnings report will be released after the closing bell a week from tomorrow, on Friday, August 8.

If the small number of analysts who follow the company are right, operating profits will be up on a sequential basis for the first time since last summer, but they'll still be well below last year's second quarter.

In the first quarter of the year, which ended on March 31, Berkshire reported a 64 percent decline in net income. That was mostly due to the decline in the current value of some long-term derivatives that Buffett expects will turn out to be highly profitable far into the future.

There was, however, also a 13 percent decrease in operating earnings as Berkshire's insurance operations suffered. That's one of the factors cited for the stock's downturn in recent months. (See Berkshire's 25% Plunge Has Buffett Bulls Screaming 'Buy'.)

There are only a handful of analysts who publish forecasts for Berkshire Hathaway earnings. The current consensus for the second quarter's operating number is $1414.67 a share (the first light blue bar in the graph.) That would be an increase of 13.4 percent from the first quarter, the first consecutive gain since last year's third quarter. But on a year-over-year basis, the forecast is 12.9 percent below 2007's second quarter.

Current Berkshire stock prices:

Class A:

Class B:

Questions? Comments? Email me at [e-mail]