The Most Expensive Stocks and Highest Share Prices in History

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The highest stock price ever recorded belongs to Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares (BRK.A), which reached a closing high of $809,350 on May 2, 2025. No other listed company has come close to that figure for a single share. The ranking above answers a different question: which companies carry the most expensive shares right now. It is a dated snapshot of per-share prices converted to U.S. dollars and drawn from the 3,000 largest listed companies, with Lotus Bakeries of Belgium at the top.

Neither list tells you which company is the most valuable or which stock is the better investment. A share price depends on how many pieces a company’s ownership is divided into. Market capitalization, the share price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding, measures the size of the whole company.

How the ranking is ordered

The entries are sorted by one number: the price of a single share, converted into dollars, on the date shown under the table. Three things follow from that method.

Currency moves the order. A Swiss, Danish, Polish or Kuwaiti stock is priced in its home currency, and the dollar figure is a conversion. If the Swiss franc strengthens against the dollar, Lindt and Givaudan climb in dollar terms even when their prices in francs have not changed. Two entries with close dollar prices can swap places on exchange rates alone.

Only one share line per company appears. Some companies list several classes of stock at very different prices. The ticker next to each name shows which line is ranked. Lindt appears as LISP.SW, its participation certificates, and not as its far pricier registered shares.

The universe is limited to large companies. Only the 3,000 largest listed companies are eligible. A small, thinly traded company with a four- or five-figure share price would not qualify, however high its price.

Entries that stand out

Lotus Bakeries (Belgium). Lotus, the maker of Biscoff cookies, tops the list on price while its market cap is among the smallest of the top ten. It is the clearest example of a high price driven by a small share count rather than by size.

NVR (United States). NVR is a homebuilder whose brands include Ryan Homes, NVHomes and Heartland Homes, and it also offers mortgage and title services. It is the highest-priced U.S. stock in the snapshot. Its closing high of $9,924.40 on October 18, 2024 sits well above where it ranks today.

Kuwaiti listings. Four of the 25 entries trade on Boursa Kuwait: National Bank of Kuwait, Kuwait Finance House, Boubyan Bank and Zain. Kuwaiti share prices are quoted in fils, one-thousandth of a dinar. Before comparing these dollar figures with other entries, confirm the quote unit and the price on the exchange itself.

Madras Rubber Factory (India). MRF has the smallest market cap on the list, yet its rupee price converts to a four-figure dollar amount. Like Lotus, it is a high price attached to a comparatively small company.

The record holder: Berkshire Hathaway Class A

Berkshire Hathaway is the holding company run for decades by Warren Buffett. It owns businesses outright, including GEICO and Helzberg Diamonds, and holds large stakes in public companies such as American Express, Bank of America and Coca-Cola.

Berkshire’s Class A price is so high because the company has never split those shares. Buffett kept the A shares whole for decades as the price compounded from double digits in the 1960s into six figures. In 1996 Berkshire created Class B shares to give smaller investors a cheaper way in. The B shares were later split 50-for-1 in 2010, around the company’s acquisition of BNSF Railway. One A share can be converted into 1,500 B shares, which keeps the two classes economically linked. B shares carry a much smaller fraction of the voting rights.

The result is two prices for the same company. On a date when BRK.A closed at $745,000, BRK.B traded at $494.93, a gap that comes entirely from how the ownership is divided.

Why some share prices get so high

Companies that rarely or never split

A stock split gives shareholders more shares at a proportionally lower price without changing the value of their stake. In a 2-for-1 split, one $1,000 share becomes two $500 shares. Companies that skip splits for years let the per-share price rise along with the business, which is how Berkshire, Lindt, NVR and Lotus Bakeries reached four- to six-figure prices.

Splits are a choice, not a requirement. Some managements prefer a high price because they believe it attracts long-term holders and discourages frequent trading. Others split to keep shares within reach of employees and retail investors.

Splits and split-adjusted history

Several companies that once had four-figure share prices dropped off lists like this one after splitting:

• Amazon split its stock 20-for-1 in 2022. Its post-split closing high was $274.99 on May 6, 2026.
• Alphabet also split 20-for-1 in 2022. Its Class A shares (GOOGL) reached a closing high of $402.38 on May 13, 2026.
• Chipotle completed a 50-for-1 split on June 26, 2024. Its split-adjusted closing high was $68.55 on June 18, 2024. Multiplied by 50, that equals about $3,428 per pre-split share.
• Booking Holdings, owner of Booking.com, Priceline and OpenTable, split its stock in 2026. Its all-time high of $230.69 on July 7, 2025 is a split-adjusted figure.

The Chipotle example shows a trap in historical data. Charting sites usually adjust past prices for later splits so the line stays continuous. The “all-time high” they display may therefore be far below the price anyone actually paid at the time. To find the nominal record, multiply the adjusted high by every split ratio that came after it.

Share classes

Berkshire and Lindt both show how one company can carry very different prices. Lindt has two listed lines: registered shares (LISN), which reached an all-time high of CHF 134,000 in 2025, and participation certificates (LISP). The participation certificates trade at a fraction of that price and carry no voting rights. The ranking uses LISP, so the Lindt price in the table is far below the company’s record.

If you want to buy one of these companies, check which class your broker is quoting. Voting rights, liquidity and price per unit can all differ between lines of the same stock.

Share price versus market cap

A high share price can sit on top of a modest company. Eli Lilly’s share price is roughly one-eleventh of Lotus Bakeries’, yet its market cap is close to 100 times larger. The difference comes down to shares outstanding: Lilly has divided its ownership into far more pieces.

The same pattern runs through the lower half of the table. ASML and Hermès rank below several Kuwaiti and Swiss companies on price but are much larger businesses by market value. Sorted by total company value, the largest companies in the world by market cap look very different from this list.

Market cap has its own limit: it reflects what investors will pay today, not what the company earns. Still, it is the right starting point for comparing companies. Share price alone tells you only the cost of one unit.

Record highs from companies outside the current top tier

Some U.S. companies set records that the current snapshot does not reflect:

• Seaboard Corporation, an agriculture and shipping group focused on pork production and ocean transport to the Caribbean and Latin America, closed at a record $5,989.37 on April 10, 2026.
• AutoZone, the auto parts retailer, reached a closing high of $4,354.54 on September 11, 2025. It ranks sixth in the snapshot at a lower price.
• Texas Pacific Land, which started in 1871 under a federal railroad charter and now earns most of its income from oil and gas royalties, leases and water services, closed at a high of $571.05 on November 22, 2024.

Several of these stocks have since fallen well below those peaks.

Does a high share price matter to investors?

For returns, no. Supply and demand set a share’s price, and what matters to you is the percentage change on the amount you invest. As a hypothetical example, $2,000 put into a $20 stock buys 100 shares. The same $2,000 put into a $200 stock buys 10 shares. If both rise 10%, each position gains $200.

A high price matters mainly for flexibility. With a $10,000 share, the smallest position you can build or trim is $10,000 unless your broker sells fractional shares. Many U.S. brokers now let you buy a slice of a share by dollar amount, which removes most of that problem for U.S.-listed stocks. Fractional trading in foreign listings such as Swiss, Belgian or Kuwaiti shares depends on the broker and the market. Some brokers cannot offer it at all.

Two other practical points apply to high-priced foreign shares. Buying them often means paying currency conversion costs and foreign-market commissions. Your exposure then rises and falls with the exchange rate as well as the stock. If owning a single share is out of reach, a mutual fund or ETF holding the company gives indirect exposure at a much lower entry price. The trade-off is that the fund spreads your money across many other holdings.

How to find a stock’s all-time high and low

Most financial data and charting sites publish full price histories, and many let you set a date range to see the maximum and minimum close. Three checks keep the numbers accurate:

1. Confirm the share class and ticker. BRK.A and BRK.B, or LISN and LISP, have completely different records.
2. Check whether the history is split-adjusted. If it is, multiply by each later split ratio, as in the Chipotle example above.
3. Separate closing highs from intraday highs. A stock can trade above its record close during a session, so the two figures differ. The records above are closing prices.

The Bottom Line

Investors comparing expensive stocks should treat share price as the cost of one unit. Market cap is the better starting point for judging company size. Returns depend on percentage change, so a high price mainly limits flexibility unless your broker offers fractional shares. Before buying, confirm the share class, check whether price history is split-adjusted, and expect currency costs on foreign listings.