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How high can a stock price go? In theory, as high as anyone can count. There is literally no limit to how far a stock can rise, and a stock’s continued success is determined by the performance of its business. In general, a high stock price indicates that a company has been successful, although it is no guarantee that it has been.
Below are 10 of the most expensive stocks — those with the highest share prices — that investors can buy and why a stock price doesn’t actually tell you much at all.
What are the top 10 highest priced stocks?
The list below contains the stock prices of companies included in the Russell 1000 index, which includes approximately 1,000 of the most valuable companies trading on U.S. stock exchanges. (Don’t confuse it with the Russell 2000 index, which tracks some of the smallest companies.)
Note: Share prices and market capitalizations are as of March 26, 2024.
1. Berkshire Hathaway Class A (BRK-A)
Berkshire Hathaway offers the granddaddy of stock prices, managed by the granddaddy of investors, the legendary Warren Buffett. This conglomerate owns stakes in a number of companies, including insurance, railroads and utilities. It also has a huge stock portfolio. If you don’t have more than half a million dollars to buy an A share, you can still buy B shares at a much lower price.
- Share price: $406.40
- Market capitalization: $891.0 billion
2. NVR (NVR)
NVR is a homebuilder based in the Washington, DC area, operating the Ryan Homes, NV Homes and Heartland Homes brands.
- Share price: $7,865
- Market capitalization: $25.2 billion
3. Coastline (SEB)
Seaboard is an agribusiness and transportation company based in the Kansas City area. It produces and sells pork products, sugar, alcohol, corn and other agricultural products.
- Share price: $3,209
- Market capitalization: $3.1 billion
4. Booking holding companies (BKNG)
Booking Holdings is the company behind the travel websites Booking.com and Priceline and OpenTable for restaurant reservations.
- Share price: $3,661
- Market capitalization: $125.1 billion
5. Autozone (AZO)
Autozone is known for its chain of stores under the same name, where it sells automotive replacement parts and accessories.
- Share price: $3,191
- Market capitalization: $55.2 billion
6. Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG)
Chipotle is known for its fast-casual Mexican restaurants of the same name. The company is based in Newport Beach, California and operates several thousand locations in the US and a handful internationally.
- Share price: $2,955
- Market capitalization: $81.0 billion
7. White Mountains Insurance Group (WTM)
White Mountains manages a portfolio of companies in the financial services and insurance sectors and pursues opportunistic acquisitions in these sectors. The New Hampshire-based company will sell businesses when it can receive attractive exit valuations.
- Share price: $1,780
- Market capitalization: $4.5 billion
8. Texas Pacific Land Corp. (TPL)
Texas Pacific Land Corp. is one of the largest landowners in the state of Texas, managing approximately 880,000 acres of land in West Texas. The company generates revenue from oil and gas development and is headquartered in Dallas.
- Share price: $1,679
- Market capitalization: $12.9 billion
9. First Citizens BancShares (FCNCA)
First Citizens is a Raleigh, North Carolina-based bank that has grown through a number of acquisitions. Earlier this year, it agreed to acquire most of the assets and liabilities of troubled lender Silicon Valley Bank from the FDIC.
- Share price: $1,599
- Market capitalization: $23.1 billion
10. Markel Corp. (MKL)
Based in Virginia, Markel is a diverse financial holding company that has been referred to as a “mini-Berkshire.” The company conducts business in the field of specialty insurance and invests the premiums it receives. The Markel Ventures segment operates a diverse group of businesses outside the specialty insurance sector.
- Share price: $1,490
- Market capitalization: $20 billion
Latest stock prices
The share price doesn’t say much
It’s fun to look at high share prices, but the fact is that the price of a share in itself does not say much. As you can see from the list above, a stock can be any price, but the size of the company – as measured by market capitalization – can be anything. A share price alone does not even indicate how expensive a share is.
Determining whether a stock is cheap or expensive is about comparing its price to its intrinsic value, or what the company is worth.
While there are large companies on this list – Berkshire and Booking Holdings, for example – Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL) don’t make the cut, even though they are both relatively large. So what’s going on?
You need a few more pieces of information to make the stock price meaningful:
- The total number of shares in the company
- The market capitalization of the company
- The earnings per share
These pieces of information help provide the context to give the stock price greater meaning.
Total number of shares
The total number of shares in the company indicates how many segments the company is divided into. A company can be divided into any number of shares as long as the shareholders agree.
Think of a business like a pizza, where you can cut any number of slices. However, the size (stock price) of an individual slice does not say much about the size of the entire pizza pie.
In fact, many companies purposefully keep their shares within certain ranges, often $20 to $120 per share. They will strategically use a stock split to keep their shares at a lower price and to make it easier for investors to buy certain stocks, meaning they need fewer dollars to invest. But if a company doesn’t split its shares, prices can soar to extraordinary heights in the long run.
Market capitalization
A company’s market capitalization, or market capitalization, is more useful. Think again about that pizza cut into slices. Well, the market cap is the total size of all those slices together. So the market capitalization tells you how big or valuable the company is in total.
And that’s why similarly large companies like Apple and Microsoft aren’t on the list. They have a huge market cap, but they cut the company’s total shares into even more pieces, effectively lowering the stock price.
Earnings per share
One final piece of information that investors use to analyze the company is earnings per share. They use earnings per share to calculate a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E), to measure how much they pay for a given portion of the company’s profits. And this is how some investors measure how expensive a share actually is.
A higher price-to-earnings ratio indicates that investors are paying more for the company’s profits, while a lower one indicates that they are not as willing to pay as much.
So a company’s earnings per share shows how much you get for the share price you pay. It’s likely that companies with high share prices earn much higher earnings per share than companies with low share prices, all else being equal.
For example, Berkshire Hathaway reported earnings of $59,460 for each Class A share in 2023, at the current share price of about $550,000.
Combine that EPS information with the stock price and you can figure out how much you’re paying for each dollar of the company’s profits.
In short
While it can be fun to highlight expensive stocks, the price itself doesn’t mean much. Instead, you need information about the total size of the pie to estimate the true size of a company. As former New York Yankees catcher and baseball legend Yogi Berra once quipped, “You better cut the pizza into four pieces, because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.”
Editorial Disclaimer: All investors are advised to conduct their own independent research into investment strategies before making any investment decision. In addition, investors are advised that the past performance of investment products does not guarantee future price increases.
