Nov. 1 (UPI) — Berkshire Hathaway has a record-high cash reserve of $381.7 billion after increasing its third-quarter earnings by 34% from a year ago, the firm said in its quarterly report on Saturday.
Berkshire Hathaway generated $13.485 billion in revenue during the third quarter, which is a 34% increase from $10.1 billion a year earlier.
“Investment income continues to benefit from rising cash balances and relatively high, though declining, yields on cash and short-term securities,” Edward Jones analyst James Shanahan wrote after the earnings report was released, as reported by MarketWatch.
Income from insurance underwriting topped $2.37 billion during the quarter, which was a 200% increase, partly due to relatively little by way of natural disasters and other common drivers of catastrophic losses.
The Omaha, Neb.-based conglomerate’s primary insurance and reinsurance companies produced pre-tax quarterly profits after reporting losses a year ago.
Although its insurance sectors posted profits, property and casualty insurer GEICO’s underwriting profits dropped by 13% due to an increase in claim amounts, according to Bloomberg.
Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A and Class B shares each rose 5%in value so far in 2025, and the firm did not undertake share buybacks through the first nine months of the year, CNBC reported.
It’s also the fifth consecutive quarter in which Berkshire Hathaway did not buy back any shares, which boosted its cash reserves to its current record of $381.6 billion.
That amount exceeds the prior record of $347.7 billion, which was set during the year’s first quarter.
Berkshire Hathaway also continued its recent trend of selling more equities than it buys, with a $10.4 billion gain from equities sales.
How many fans that will be there to watch Wales this autumn remains to be seen with the current discontent surrounding the Welsh game.
There has been very little success on the field and disarray off the pitch in the past couple of years, with the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) now preparing to cut a men’s professional side.
The Principality Stadium capacity is 74,500 meaning the four matches could attract 298,000 supporters in November.
A WRU statement read: “With more than 200,000 supporters expected to visit Cardiff over the four-match series, to match average attendances over the last 10 years, ticket sales are tracking well against targets for the Quilter Nations Series.
“Fans are keen to see Wales take on Argentina, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa on home turf.
“As you would expect, the All Blacks game is the best seller and Principality Stadium’s best chance of a sell-out this autumn.”
TORONTO — As Shohei Ohtani leads a wave of international baseball popularity, major league officials are working with the players’ union and LA28 officials to conclude an agreement for major league players to participate in the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
The concepts on the table include an extended Olympic break during the 2028 season, which could include an All-Star Game in San Francisco to keep baseball’s best players on the West Coast for two weeks rather than shuttling them around the country, and an Olympic baseball schedule that could start before the opening ceremony.
There is no final deal. But, for the first time over years of discussions, commissioner Rob Manfred said publicly that the owners have stopped wavering about whether to interrupt the major league season for a week so that baseball’s biggest stars can play in the Olympics.
“I am positive about it,” Manfred said Saturday at the World Series. “I think the owners have crossed the line in terms of, we’d like to do it if we can possibly make it work, but there are logistical issues that still need to be worked through.”
Manfred suggested that major leaguers participating in the Olympics might be a one-time event. Stopping the season for one week and flying players to Los Angeles, he said, would be very different than stopping the season for two weeks in 2032 and flying players to Australia.
“The chances that we’re playing in Brisbane? Difficult,” Manfred said. ‘“Way more difficult than being in L.A.”
Manfred said the World Baseball Classic would “remain our centerpiece” for international competition. With a Canadian team in the World Series, and with Ohtani as the face of the sport, ratings and merchandise sales are soaring outside the United States.
In the Olympics, Ohtani would play at Dodger Stadium.
“Shohei has just absolutely been the greatest benefit to the game you can imagine throughout the year,” Manfred said. “In the LCS, he had probably the greatest game of all time, and we are fortunate to have him here in the World Series.”
An end to quantitative tightening by the Fed might not be as great for stocks as some think.
When Jerome Powell speaks, markets listen. As well they should. Powell serves as the chair of the Federal Reserve Board. As part of this role, he also leads the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets the monetary policy of the U.S.
Powell recently hinted at a monetary policy change that seems positive for the stock market. But should investors actually be worried?
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell answers reporters’ questions at the FOMC press conference on Sept.17, 2025. Official Federal Reserve Photo.
Good news for investors?
Powell spoke last week at the National Association for Business Economics conference held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of his key points in his address was an update on the status of the Fed’s “quantitative tightening” approach.
Quantitative tightening is the term used to describe when the Federal Reserve reduces the size of its balance sheet. To accomplish this goal, the Fed allows assets such as government-issued bonds to mature, or it actively sells those assets. This usually results in higher long-term interest rates, lower inflation, and a cooling down of an overheated economy.
The opposite of quantitative tightening is quantitative easing. With this approach, the Fed increases the size of its balance sheet. Quantitative easing is an expansionary policy that’s usually associated with a rising stock market.
In his recent remarks, Powell hinted that the Fed is close to ending its program of quantitative tightening. He said:
Our long-stated plan is to stop balance sheet runoff when reserves are somewhat above the level we judge consistent with ample reserve conditions. We may approach that point in coming months, and we are closely monitoring a wide range of indicators to inform this decision.
Powell always chooses his words deliberately and can often be somewhat ambiguous. However, the takeaway from his comments is that the Fed’s quantitative tightening policies could be almost over. This would seem to be good news for investors.
A more complicated picture
I chose those words deliberately and left room for ambiguity just as Powell likes to do. Why? Because there’s a more complicated picture if the Fed stops its quantitative tightening policies.
For one thing, the end of quantitative tightening doesn’t necessarily mean a return of robust quantitative easing. Some saw quantitative easing as something akin to steroids for the economy and stock market, while quantitative tightening was like a depressant. Using that analogy, discontinuing taking a depressant doesn’t boost strength in the same way as frequently taking a steroid might.
It’s also important to understand that the end of quantitative tightening could be a warning sign about the economy, and by extension, corporate earnings. The Fed doesn’t reduce the size of its balance sheet when the economy is weak. Powell’s remarks, indicating that quantitative tightening could soon taper off, might reflect significant underlying concerns by the Fed about the health of the U.S. economy, despite his seemingly positive statement last week that the economy “may be on a somewhat firmer trajectory than expected.” As the economy goes, so goes the stock market — usually.
Finally, there is a real risk that ending quantitative tightening could backfire. One of the main goals of the policy is to fight inflation. If the Fed returns to expanding its balance sheet, inflation could roar back. The effects of the Trump administration’s tariffs could add fuel to the fire, at least initially. Powell acknowledged in his speech at the National Association for Business Economics conference, “There is no risk-free path for policy as we navigate the tension between our employment and inflation goals.”
The Fed could find itself in a situation where it has to reverse tactics, which would likely create significant uncertainty for the stock market. If there’s anything investors hate, it’s uncertainty.
Should investors worry?
I think celebrating the Fed bringing its quantitative tightening policies to a halt is premature. However, it’s also too soon to worry about the potential impact on stocks from the decision.
We don’t know yet how quickly the Fed will begin increasing the size of its balance sheet. We don’t know how aggressively it will move if and when quantitative tightening comes to an end. We don’t know what else will be happening with the economy or the stock market.
What we do know, though, is that the stock market rises over the long term. Anyone with an investing time horizon measured in decades shouldn’t have anything to worry about, regardless of what the Fed does or doesn’t do in the near term.
The statistics of the last four races over the past month and a half are quite remarkable.
After the Dutch Grand Prix, Verstappen was 104 points behind McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in the championship, and 70 adrift of Lando Norris. Now, he is 40 points behind the Australian, whose lead over his team-mate has been cut to just 14 points.
Verstappen expressed his own incredulity at what he had achieved. If someone had told him after Zandvoort this would happen, he said, “I would have told him he was an idiot.
“But we found a good way with the car. It’s simple as that. Of course, we put some upgrades on the car, but we just understood our car a bit better, where we wanted it to perform better.”
A 64-point gain in four races tells its own story, but how it has come about is just as remarkable.
McLaren trounced Red Bull through the summer races in Europe – until the Italian Grand Prix in early September, when an upgraded floor and front wing finally gave Verstappen the balance he had been craving all year.
Since then, the Red Bull has been the fastest car. Until this weekend in Austin, that could have been explained away through circuit characteristics – Monza, Baku and Singapore are all short, slow corners, and require good braking and traction.
The McLaren’s strengths are not in this area – they are in long-duration, medium-speed corners, where they crush everyone else.
But Austin is a “normal” circuit, a road course not a street circuit, not a high-speed outlier like Monza, with a good range of corners. And Verstappen won again.
There are five races left, two of them sprint events. If he keeps closing on the McLaren drivers at the rate he has been, he will win a fifth consecutive title, it’s as stark and simple as that.
Sources familiar with the mediated talks between Israel and Hamas say that progress was made on Monday, with negotiations to continue.
The first day of resumed indirect talks between Israel and Hamas in Egypt ended on a positive note, amid hopes of a potential deal to implement US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war on Gaza, multiple sources told Al Jazeera and other media outlets.
Negotiators are set to return for more discussions on Tuesday.
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Sources told Al Jazeera Arabic that the meeting in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday was “positive” and that a roadmap was drawn up for how the current round of talks would continue.
The Hamas delegation told mediators that Israel’s continued bombing of Gaza poses a challenge to negotiations on the release of captives, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.
The Hamas delegation included Hamas leaders Khalil al-Hayya and Zaher Jabarin, two negotiators who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in central Doha that killed five people last month.
Talks on day one covered the proposed exchange of prisoners and captives, a ceasefire, and humanitarian aid entering Gaza, according to Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also said Trump was pushing for an early exchange of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners, in a bid to build “momentum” to implement other parts of his plan to end the Gaza war.
“The technical teams are discussing that as we speak, to ensure that the environment is perfect to release those hostages,” Leavitt said, adding that teams were “going over the list of both the Israeli hostages and also the political prisoners who will be released.”
Trump, speaking to reporters from the Oval Office on Monday afternoon, said that “we have a really good chance of making a deal”, while also noting that he still has his own “red lines”.
“But I think we’re doing very well. And I think Hamas has been agreeing to things that are very important”, Trump added.
Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan reporting from Washington, DC, said that Trump had not “not given any details of how he thinks the discussions are going beyond his general positive assessment.”
“The US President also was very complimentary of the joint Arab-Turkish support to keep Hamas at the bargaining table, he was complimentary of the Israeli people and of course, he was complimentary about his own special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who was leading the US delegation in these negotiations,” said Jordan.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a real estate developer, is also reportedly part of the US delegation.
Egypt’s Al-Qahera News, meanwhile, confirmed that the talks were expected to continue on Tuesday, which marks two years since the Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,139 people and saw about 200 people taken captive.
And even as the talks were held on Monday, Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinians in attacks across Gaza, including three who were seeking humanitarian aid, according to Al Jazeera sources.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres shared a social media post late on Monday, New York time, acknowledging the two year anniversary of Hamas’s “abhorrent large-scale terror attack on Israel”, on October 7, 2023.
Guterres also said that the “recent proposal” put forward by Trump “presents an opportunity that must be seized to bring this tragic conflict to an end.”
“A permanent ceasefire and a credible political process are essential to prevent further bloodshed and pave the way for peace,” the UN chief wrote.
Weather forecasts suggest Maiduguri and surrounding communities in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, are set for reduced rainfall in the coming days, offering some relief to a city haunted by last year’s Sept. 10 devastating flood.
The chance of rain, which stood at 74 per cent last week, is expected to drop to 11 per cent today, easing pressure on the city’s fragile drainage systems and flood-prone neighbourhoods. According to AccuWeather, scattered showers are still expected, but without the intensity that typically triggers flash floods.
For residents, however, the reassurance is tempered by painful memories. Nearly half of Maiduguri was affected last year, with at least 150 lives lost, according to the National Emergency Management Agency, and over 400,000 people displaced. Critical infrastructure was damaged, livelihoods destroyed, and many survivors are still struggling to recover.
The improved forecast offers hope, but Maiduguri’s long history of flooding means residents remain wary. Last year’s calamity was not caused solely by rainfall but by inadequate infrastructure, blocked drainage systems, and the dam’s failure. HumAngle reported extensively on the series of events that led to the flood.
A neighbourhood during the Sept .2024 flooding in Maiduguri. Photo: Usman Zanna/HumAngle
Babagana Zulum, the state governor, who visited the Alau Dam recently, assured residents that water levels are now stable after controlled releases since July.
“Based on current engineering analysis, there is no cause for alarm,” he told journalists.
Yet not everyone is convinced. Timothy Olanrewaju, a resident who was affected by last year’s flood, said the government’s assurance should be taken with a grain of salt.
“We can’t assume that just because the rain is easing compared to last month that we won’t experience flooding,” he said. “Two communities, 505 Housing Estate and Fori Layout, were flooded last weekend, even though there was no heavy rainfall in the city. The Ngada River simply overflowed its banks, and the water made its way into those communities.”
Like many residents, Timothy said he has yet to replace most of the items he lost in the last flood. “Even my car, which was submerged in the water for over a week, is still in terrible shape. I’ve spent a lot of money on it, but it’s not fully repaired,” he said, adding that he is still traumatised.
“Every time I hear the sound of rain, I start to panic, thinking the flood is coming. A few days ago, I learned that some communities in the city were flooded, and it made me anxious. I began to worry that we would experience the same things we did last year.”
Governor Zulum during an inspection visit to Alau dam in Borno State. Photo: Abdulkareem Haruna/HumAngle
Residents take precaution
In the absence of certainty, some communities are taking matters into their own hands. At the State Low-cost Estate, one of the hardest-hit areas last year, residents have begun desilting their clogged drains during environmental sanitation exercises.
Residents of State Low-cost Estate in Maiduguri unclogging drainage channels. Photo: Abdulkareem Haruna/HumAngle
“We were blamed for the flooding we face here because of blocked drainage,” said Abdulkareem Mai Modu, a resident of the estate. “So, in order not to take any chances, we decided to pool our resources and clear all our waterways to avoid any disaster.”
Others, like automobile mechanic Yahaya Garba, remain displaced. “We are still taking temporary abodes at the homes of our relatives. I hope there will be a permanent solution to this annual calamity that comes to our homes,” he said. Yahaya’s home in Bulunkutu is still submerged from the recent excessive rainfall.
In the 505 Housing Estate, where floodwaters recently breached perimeter fences, resident Babagana Wakil described wading through knee-deep water.
“Many residents to relocate as quickly as possible,” he said.
Water is gradually being released at Alau Dam to prevent overflow. Photo: Abdulkareem Haruna/HumAngle
“The government needs to step up and ensure they monitor the flow of water and, when they see danger, pass on information to residents as quickly as possible so people can evacuate from flood-prone areas,” Timothy added.
Weather forecasts predict reduced rainfall in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria, easing the flood risk that previously devastated the city. The probability of rain has decreased from 74% to 11%, which is expected to relieve stressed drainage systems. Despite the improved forecast, memories of last year’s flood that affected half of the city remain, causing continued wariness among residents.
Governor Babagana Zulum reassures citizens that water levels at the Alau Dam are now stable, but skepticism persists as minor flooding has already occurred without significant rain. In response, communities like the State Low-cost Estate proactively desilt clogged drains to prevent a repeat disaster and avoid being blamed for future flooding. Residents urge the government to improve water flow monitoring and rapidly alert those in flood-prone areas.
