Sorry, maybe I wasn't being clear. When I said "Doesn't pay more than you would have" what I meant was "Doesn't pay more [transactions costs e.g. fees and bid / ask spread] than you would have [had you just pursued an indexing strategy" In that light the current price of Berkshire Hathaway isn't particularly relevant because even if I just bought Berkshire stock I would still pay the spread. In fact the current B/A spread on BRK.A is 183218.7-174644 = 8574.7 which is considerably higher in percentage terms than a stock with more volume. Of course that's probably exactly how Uncle Warren wants it given he's let the price go so high with out a split.