CNBC news anchor Becky Quick interviews Warren Buffett in early-2019.

James Campbell

2019-04-07 13:39:00 Sun ET

CNBC news anchor Becky Quick interviews Warren Buffett in early-2019. Buffett explains the fact that book value fluctuations are a metric that has lost relevance for Berkshire Hathaway over time. At least 3 circumstances lead to this outcome. First, Berkshire has gradually morphed from a company whose assets concentrate in marketable stocks into a unique public corporation whose major value resides in operating businesses. From a fundamental viewpoint, equity stakes represent key parts of corporate stock ownership and control as investors favor liquidity over managerial rent protection.

Second, the new U.S. accounting rules require the current collection of operating companies to be part of book value at a dollar sum far below their current market value. This gross undervaluation may mislead the typical retail investor.

Third, it is likely for Berkshire to reconsider significant share repurchases that take place at share prices above book value (but below the Buffett estimate of intrinsic value). Each share buyback boosts intrinsic value and also constrains the potential uptick of book value.

This combination of circumstances causes the book-value scorecard to become out of touch with economic reality. Buffett hence focuses on the Berkshire market capitalization, and this alternative better reflects business performance in practice.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Lyft seeks to go public with a dual-class stock ownership structure that allows the co-founders to retain significant influence.

Amy Hamilton

2019-03-11 10:32:00 Monday ET

Lyft seeks to go public with a dual-class stock ownership structure that allows the co-founders to retain significant influence.

Lyft seeks to go public with a dual-class stock ownership structure that allows the co-founders to retain significant influence over the rideshare tech unic

+See More

Most business organizations should continue to create new value in order to achieve long-run success and sustainable profitability.

Peter Prince

2020-09-10 08:31:00 Thursday ET

Most business organizations should continue to create new value in order to achieve long-run success and sustainable profitability.

Most business organizations should continue to create new value in order to achieve long-run success and sustainable profitability. Todd Zenger (2016)

+See More

Addendum on empirical tests of multi-factor models for asset return prediction

Rose Prince

2022-03-05 09:27:00 Saturday ET

Addendum on empirical tests of multi-factor models for asset return prediction

Addendum on empirical tests of multi-factor models for asset return prediction Fama and French (2015) propose an empirical five-factor asset pricing mode

+See More

President Xi seeks Chinese congressional approval for abolishing his term limits of strongman rule with better trade deals and economic ties.

Jacob Miramar

2018-03-03 11:37:00 Saturday ET

President Xi seeks Chinese congressional approval for abolishing his term limits of strongman rule with better trade deals and economic ties.

President Xi seeks Chinese congressional approval and constitutional amendment for abolishing his term limits of strongman rule with more favorable trade de

+See More

Capital gravitates toward key profitable mutual funds until the marginal asset return equilibrates near the core stock market benchmark.

Peter Prince

2019-07-27 17:37:00 Saturday ET

Capital gravitates toward key profitable mutual funds until the marginal asset return equilibrates near the core stock market benchmark.

Capital gravitates toward key profitable mutual funds until the marginal asset return equilibrates near the core stock market benchmark. As Stanford finance

+See More

Bill Gates shares with Mark Zuckerberg his prior personal experiences of testifying before Congress.

Peter Prince

2018-09-13 19:38:00 Thursday ET

Bill Gates shares with Mark Zuckerberg his prior personal experiences of testifying before Congress.

Bill Gates shares with Mark Zuckerberg his prior personal experiences of testifying on behalf of Microsoft before U.S. Congress. Both drop out of Harvard to

+See More