Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A)(NYSE: BRK.B) recently reported its second-quarter earnings results, and if you follow the company, you might know that its earnings report isn't like that of other companies.

For one thing, its bottom-line "earnings" number is deceptive. And investors tend to focus on things that are often secondary concerns with other companies, such as cash on hand and stock buybacks. With that in mind, here's a rundown of the key points investors should know about the Warren Buffett-led conglomerate.

Berkshire Hathaway's bottom-line earnings number doesn't do a great job of showing how the company's business is performing. Due to accounting rules, it includes the unrealized gains from Berkshire's massive stock portfolio. For context, this resulted in a $33 billion "profit" in the second quarter and a $67 billion "loss" in the same quarter of 2022. But these aren't actual profits and losses -- simply changes in the value of stocks Berkshire owns. Even Buffett himself has cautioned that Berkshire's earnings per share is a pretty useless number.

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Source Fool.com