Josh Brown says this Baby Berkshire Hathaway stock is a buy right now
(This is The Best Stocks in the Market , brought to you by Josh Brown and Sean Russo of Ritholtz Wealth Management.) Josh — I am a forever shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) and the stock has treated me and millions of other long-term investors very well over the years. The thing is, Warren Buffett is 95 years old and within a couple of weeks he will be officially stepping down from his responsibilities at the company to live out his remaining years. You probably saw video clips of the standing ovation the shareholders gave him at the Berkshire annual meeting this summer. His career as a business leader, investor and steward of capital has been miraculous, and it’s unlikely that American capitalism will ever see anything like it again. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is one of a small handful of companies to have reached $1 trillion in value and, as another chairman once sang, he did it his way. We can’t invest in the past performance of Berkshire, but there is another company that many consider to be a Baby Berkshire Hathaway with a chart that positively demands our attention at the moment. It’s about to break through a year’s worth of consolidation to hit a new record high. That company is called the Markel Group (MKL) and it’s run by the Buffett disciple Tom Gayner, who is in his mid 60’s. Gayner is an unabashed acolyte of the Berkshire way of doing things, right down to his company’s portfolio of long-term investments in the stock market and a folksy apathy for quarterly earnings reports. Markel, like Berkshire, runs a disciplined insurance company and reinvests the float into a concentrated portfolio of holdings – its top five stock positions are Berkshire A and B shares, Alphabet (GOOG) , Brookfield Asset Management (BN) and Amazon (AMZN) , which make up over 27% of the total. Markel has a $26 billion market cap, far smaller than the company that inspired it, which to me means that there could be a long way to go from here. Sean is going to highlight two names on the Best Stocks in the Market List from the insurance group, which has been a tougher trade in 2025 than many other areas of the market. In particular, we’ll look at two of the best underwriters in the business with extremely long-term track records of profitability and strong execution – the aforementioned Markel Group (MKL) and The Hartford Insurance Group (HIG ). Sean, take it away! Best Stock Spotlight: Markel Group (MKL) and The Hartford Insurance Group (HIG) MLK: On the list since Nov. 5, 2025 HIG: On the list since Nov. 10, 2025 Sean — The insurance industry has had a relatively choppy 2025, while the rest of the sector has put up decent numbers. The XLF is up 13% YTD compared to insurance, which is only up 5% in 2025. Both MKL and HIG are in the property and casualty group within insurance, which has been a major outperformer this year relative to other parts of the insurance industry. MKL is up 21%, while HIG is up 19% YTD. MKL in particular stands out as a firm that is successful at modeling out hard-to-quantify risks. MKL is one of the few insurance carriers capable of underwriting hard to place risks that don’t fit standard, industry-wide criteria. These hard to place areas include international operations and niche businesses. MKL has been managed incredibly well, too. MKL has maintained 20 consecutive years of favorable prior year loss reserve releases. Insurance companies re-evaluate their prior year reserves, and MKL has consistently found they had reserved too much money. This has led to more stable, higher quality earnings. Between 2020 and 2024, Markel’s insurance operations earned a 12% average after-tax return on equity. The company’s diversified model also produced $7 billion in adjusted operating income from six different areas: insurance underwriting ($1.9B), fee businesses ($0.8B), fixed income ($1.8B), short-term investments ($0.6B) and its operating companies ($2.1B). No single segment was responsible for more than 30% of the total operating income. This mix of earnings helped generate almost $13 billion in operating cash flow over the five years ending September 2025. That cash allowed Markel to repurchase $1.9 billion of stock. All things we love to see. Now on to HIG. Insurance is not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about how AI can transform business, but HIG is betting on a massive transformation. Hartford runs a $1.3 billion annual technology budget, with $500 million allocated to new investments. Their AI strategy focuses on three major areas: claims, underwriting, and operations. The company processes 75% of standard policies without human touch, with a goal of 90% in the next couple years. Tech investments have high up front fixed costs but low marginal costs. Once the program is built, the 100,000th policy costs the same as the first policy. Each incremental dollar of premium adds to that margin. HIG has grown top line revenues 28% from 2019 through FY2024, while growing net income 48% over that same period. This digital rollout has been operationally successful on top of the financial benefits. Hartford has been ranked as the No. 1 digital carrier for six years running. While these two firms are playing very different games within the insurance industry, their management teams are executing at a high level for shareholders, and price has been reflecting that. Risk management Josh — The chart of HIG is somewhat sloppy but it’s worth keeping an eye on. Ideally we’re allowing the stock to bounce off of this congestion around the 50-day moving average and we want to see that moving average straighten out and then trend higher. Until then, it’s on the Best Stocks list but it’s in a bit of a short-term no man’s land. The Markel chart, on the other hand, is a buy right now. I don’t think of this as a trading stock, I think you get long and tuck it away. Above you’re looking at the one year chart and you can clearly see the shorter-term moving average in orange turning up as the stock approaches the old highs near $2100. RSI at 63 is bullish yet contained. You haven’t missed anything yet. As it takes out the January / November resistance level above, there will be no one left to sell who has a loss in the stock or who doesn’t want to be there. I love this set up. This chart makes more sense to look at for investors. It’s a 3-year look with the 50-week and 200-week moving averages. 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