Both Berkshire Hathaway and Micron Stocks Look Cheap on the Surface. But I Like 1 Better Than the Other.

Here's an unusual pairing the marketplace is serving up close now. Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA)(NYSE: BRKB), the sprawling conglomerate, trades astatine astir 15 times its net implicit the past twelvemonth portion sitting adjacent its 52-week high. Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU), the representation chipmaker, trades astatine astir 20 times -- adjacent though its banal has mislaid much than a 3rd of its worth from its highest and its net are exploding. Both valuations are beneath the wide market's valuation.

On the surface, the marketplace is offering a bully introduction constituent into some stocks. But their underlying stories couldn't beryllium much different.

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What's wrong Berkshire's net

Berkshire's net travel from dozens of businesses astatine once. The institution owns a ample security operation, the BNSF railroad, a regulated vigor business, and a agelong database of manufacturers and work companies, positive an tremendous banal portfolio connected top.

The newest numbers amusement that premix working. Berkshire's first-quarter operating net roseate 18% twelvemonth implicit twelvemonth to $11.3 billion.

Notably, the institution besides held a grounds of astir $397 cardinal successful currency and short-term Treasury bills astatine the extremity of the archetypal 4th -- a warfare thorax its caller CEO Greg Abel has started putting to work, including an acquisition of homebuilder Taylor Morrison that closed successful precocious July.

Of course, Berkshire's net fig needs 1 accommodation of its own. The company's reported nett income swings wildly from 4th to 4th due to the fact that accounting rules unit it to tally insubstantial gains and losses from its banal portfolio done the income statement. Berkshire itself tells shareholders that these swings are usually meaningless for judging the business. Smooth them out, though, and what remains is simply a diversified watercourse of operating nett that tends to grind higher done astir economical weather.

At astir $512 per stock arsenic of this writing, Berkshire trades astatine astir 15 times its reported net implicit the past year.

What's wrong Micron's net

Micron's net travel from selling representation chips (DRAM, NAND flash, and the high-bandwidth representation that AI (artificial intelligence) accelerators beryllium on), and close now, those chips are scarce.

The effect is 1 of the steepest nett ramps successful the market. Micron earned $4.60 per stock successful its fiscal archetypal 4th of 2026, $12.07 successful the second, and $24.67 successful the 3rd (the play ended May 28, 2026). And for the fiscal 4th quarter, absorption expects net per stock adjacent $31 connected astir $50 cardinal of revenue.