Berkshire Hathaway benefited as insurance boosted first-quarter profits and cash neared $200 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway shares rose Monday after Warren Buffett’s conglomerate reported surging operating profits and record cash reserves.

of the company Class A shares It rose 0.3% in morning trading. meantime, class B The stock was last up about 0.4%.

The move comes after Berkshire reported first-quarter operating profit of $11.22 billion, up 39% from a year earlier, primarily driven by increased underwriting revenue. Operating profit measures revenue across all of Berkshire’s businesses.

The strength of the insurance business, especially its crown jewel, Geico, comes as the sector as a whole benefits from increased demand and increased pricing power. Underwriting revenue was $2.598 billion, up 185% from $911 million in the year-ago period. Geico revenue rose 174% to $1.928 billion from $703 million a year ago.

Berkshire’s cash reserves have grown to record levels, in part because the holding company has been unable to find suitable acquisition targets in recent years. Cash reached a record high of $188.99 billion in the first quarter, up from $167.6 billion in the fourth quarter.

“We’ve seen a significant improvement in our profits in our underwriting business,” Buffett said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday. “And investment income will almost certainly increase as well.” “The reason I said that in the annual report is that yields are much higher than they were last year, and we have a lot of fixed, short-term investments that are very sensitive to changes in interest rates.”

Berkshire Hathaway stock has already performed well this year, with each share class up more than 10%. The S&P 500 is up more than 7% this year.

Class A shares reached an all-time high in March of this year, reaching $634,440. On Friday, it closed at $603,000. Class B shares were recently priced at about $402.60 per share on Monday, about 4% below the record high of $420.52 also set in March.

However, Wall Street analysts continue to be positive about the company’s prospects. UBS analyst Brian Meredith gave Berkshire a buy rating, citing improving performance and noting that Geico is on pace to catch rival Progressive and other peers in data analytics by 2025. His $734,820 price target, up from $722,234, is nearly 22% higher. Where stocks closed on Friday.

Elsewhere, Edward Jones analyst James Shanahan gave Berkshire a hold rating, saying the stock is already quite expensive. However, he said he “continues to expect solid returns from BRK’s diverse group of operating companies.”

Correction: UBS analyst Brian Meredith’s stock price target is nearly 22% higher than Friday’s close. In previous versions, percentages were displayed incorrectly.