What Is the Most Expensive Stock on Earth?

Savvy stock market investors kick many tires when sizing up a stock. They look at market capitalization, income, profits, quality of leadership, and dividend rate. But in the end, the true measure of a publicly traded security is its stock price.

What's the Most Expensive Stock?

Right now, the priciest stock that trades in global markets is Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. (BRK). The company is helmed by one of Wall Street’s most respected stock pickers, Warren Buffett. Berkshire Hathaway’s Class-A shares reached a high of about $494,000 per share on March 3, 2022. (The Class-B shares sold for much less, with a high of about $328 per share on the same date.).

As of March 3, 2022, the BRK-A 52-week range was between 368,430 and 494,157 a share. Its average one-year price target is sitting at about $539,000 or about $45,000 higher than its 52-week high. Buffett has structured Berkshire Hathaway as a holding company for other companies, including BNSF, Precision Castparts, Lubrizol, MidAmerican Energy, and GEICO.

Berkshire Hathaway's share price growth is impressive. For instance, suppose that you had invested $10,000 in BRK—about 808 shares based on the $12.37 stock price at the time—in 1964. You would have gained a whopping $208 million through mid-2017. In other terms, the stock price would have risen 1,972,595% from 1964 to the end of 2016. That's a tough act to follow, but other high-priced stocks have impressive stories, too. 

Berkshire Hathaway shares the “most expensive stock list” with Lindt & Sprüngli AG (LISN.SW), a Swiss multinational chocolatier and confectionery company. In March 2022, the company traded at around 102,000 Swiss francs per share (about $111,000 USD), with a 24.222 billion franc market cap.

Another member of this group is NVR, Inc. (NVR), a homebuilding and mortgage company. NVR traded at more than $4,900 per share in March 2022. The company's market cap exceeded $16.7 billion.

Market Capitalization: A Better Measure of Value

While its share price cements Berkshire Hathaway’s status as the most expensive stock trading these days, it’s not the largest by market capitalization. That measure is the value of a publicly traded company. You can figure out market cap by multiplying the total number of shares by the present share price.

The holder of this top slot changes regularly. Contenders include Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), and Amazon (AMZN).

Market capitalization is generally a more accurate metric than the share price, based on simple math and its ability to measure a company’s value and size against other companies.

By and large, market capitalization calibrates the value of a publicly traded company on global financial markets. It also shows the stock market’s outlook on a given company’s prospects. Market cap tells you how much money investors are willing to pay for shares of a company's stock.

Market cap can also set rational expectations over a given stock, and it can help you create a solid portfolio investment strategy. While there is no technical threshold for various categories of companies, as measured by market cap, there are some approximate guidelines for investors to follow:

• Large caps are usually companies with market caps over $10 billion.
• Mid-cap companies typically range from $2 billion to $10 billion.
• Small-cap companies usually have under $2 billion in market capitalization.

Each category offers its risks and rewards. For example, large-cap companies offer low but steady share price growth, often with decent dividend payments. Small-cap companies offer more room for growth but at higher risk. They also usually don't pay dividends.

The market cap metric favors companies such as Apple and Alphabet (Google), but if share price is the true measure, then Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway remain the leaders.