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

A Florida fintech group Fidelity Information Services initiates the largest acquisition of the e-commerce payments processor Worldpay.

Olivia London

2019-04-03 11:35:00 Wednesday ET

A Florida fintech group Fidelity Information Services initiates the largest acquisition of the e-commerce payments processor Worldpay.

A Florida fintech group Fidelity Information Services initiates the largest $43 billion acquisition of the e-commerce payments processor Worldpay. Fidelity

+See More

Berkeley macro economist Brad DeLong sees no good reasons for an imminent economic recession with mass unemployment and even depression.

Laura Hermes

2019-11-21 11:34:00 Thursday ET

Berkeley macro economist Brad DeLong sees no good reasons for an imminent economic recession with mass unemployment and even depression.

Berkeley macro economist Brad DeLong sees no good reasons for an imminent economic recession with mass unemployment and even depression. The current U.S. ec

+See More

President Trump praises great unity and progress at the G7 summit.

Rose Prince

2019-09-21 09:25:00 Saturday ET

President Trump praises great unity and progress at the G7 summit.

President Trump praises great unity and progress at the G7 summit with respect to Sino-U.S. trade conflict resolution, global climate change, containment fo

+See More

The recent Bristol-Myers Squibb acquisition of American Celgene is the $90 billion biggest biotech deal in history.

Jacob Miramar

2019-01-10 17:31:00 Thursday ET

The recent Bristol-Myers Squibb acquisition of American Celgene is the $90 billion biggest biotech deal in history.

The recent Bristol-Myers Squibb acquisition of American Celgene is the $90 billion biggest biotech deal in history. The resultant biopharma goliath would be

+See More

The U.S. further derisks and decouples from China.

Peter Prince

2023-05-31 03:15:40 Wednesday ET

The U.S. further derisks and decouples from China.

The U.S. further derisks and decouples from China.   Why does the U.S. seek to further economically decouple from China? In recent times, th

+See More

With prescient clairvoyance, Bill Gates predicted the recent rise of Facebook and Netflix.

Monica McNeil

2017-02-07 07:47:00 Tuesday ET

With prescient clairvoyance, Bill Gates predicted the recent rise of Facebook and Netflix.

With prescient clairvoyance, Bill Gates predicted the recent sustainable rise of Netflix and Facebook during a Playboy interview back in 1994. He said th

+See More