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.
2028-01-31 11:29:00 Monday ET

Today, the major passive index funds, private equity titans, hedge funds, and exchange funds etc combine to reshape Wall Street and several other global fin
2018-05-08 13:39:00 Tuesday ET

The Trump administration weighs the pros and cons of a potential mega merger between AT&T and Time Warner. Recent stock prices show favorable trends for
2019-11-19 09:33:00 Tuesday ET

American unemployment declines to the 50-year historical low level of 3.5% with moderate job growth. Despite a sharp slowdown in U.S. services and utilities
2019-09-17 08:33:00 Tuesday ET

Global stock market investors foresee the harbinger of a major economic downturn. Many stock market investors become anxious due to negative term spreads an
2022-03-15 10:32:00 Tuesday ET

Capital structure theory and practice The genesis of modern capital structure theory traces back to the seminal work of Modigliani and Miller (1958
2017-02-13 09:35:00 Monday ET

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says President Trump has now awaken the *animal spirits* in the U.S. stock market. The key phrase, animal spirits, is the