2019-04-07 13:39:00 Sun ET
stock market gold oil stock return s&p 500 asset market stabilization asset price fluctuations stocks bonds currencies commodities funds term spreads credit spreads fair value spreads asset investments
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.
2018-04-26 07:37:00 Thursday ET

Credit supply growth drives business cycle fluctuations and often sows the seeds of their own subsequent destruction. The global financial crisis from 2008
2018-01-01 06:30:00 Monday ET

As former chairman of the British Financial Services Authority and former director of the London School of Economics, Howard Davies shares his ingenious ins
2018-07-27 10:35:00 Friday ET

Admitting China to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other international activities seems ineffective in imparting economic freedom and democracy to th
2019-05-15 12:32:00 Wednesday ET

The May administration needs to seek a fresh fallback option for Halloween Brexit. After the House of Commons rejects Brexit proposals from the May administ
2019-04-30 19:46:00 Tuesday ET

AYA Analytica finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube April 2019 In this podcast, we discuss several topical issues as of April 2019: (1) Our proprietary
2019-12-28 09:36:00 Saturday ET

Global debt surges to $250 trillion in the fiscal year 2019. The International Institute of Finance analytic report shows that both China and the U.S. accou