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

Santa-Barbara political economy professor Benjamin Cohen proposes new fiscal stimulus to complement the current low-interest-rate monetary policy.

Daphne Basel

2019-08-28 14:46:00 Wednesday ET

Santa-Barbara political economy professor Benjamin Cohen proposes new fiscal stimulus to complement the current low-interest-rate monetary policy.

Santa-Barbara political economy professor Benjamin Cohen proposes new fiscal stimulus to complement the current low-interest-rate monetary policy. Cohen fin

+See More

Precautionary-motive and agency reasons for corporate cash management

Monica McNeil

2022-10-05 08:24:00 Wednesday ET

Precautionary-motive and agency reasons for corporate cash management

Precautionary-motive and agency reasons for corporate cash management Bates, Kahle, and Stulz (JF 2009) empirically find that public firms have doubled t

+See More

Anti-competitive corporate practices may stifle U.S. innovation.

Fiona Sydney

2020-01-15 08:31:00 Wednesday ET

Anti-competitive corporate practices may stifle U.S. innovation.

Anti-competitive corporate practices may stifle U.S. innovation. In recent decades, wage growth, economic output, and productivity tend to stagnate as U.S.

+See More

Mike Pompeo switches his critical role from CIA Director to State Secretary in a secret visit to North Korea.

Peter Prince

2018-04-13 14:42:00 Friday ET

Mike Pompeo switches his critical role from CIA Director to State Secretary in a secret visit to North Korea.

Mike Pompeo switches his critical role from CIA Director to State Secretary in a secret visit to North Korea with no regime change as the North Korean dicta

+See More

Apple becomes the first company to hit $1 trillion stock market valuation.

Becky Berkman

2018-08-01 11:43:00 Wednesday ET

Apple becomes the first company to hit $1 trillion stock market valuation.

Apple becomes the first company to hit $1 trillion stock market valuation. The tech titan sells about the same number of smart phones or 41 million iPhones

+See More

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested information from 50 million Facebook users.

Amy Hamilton

2018-03-17 09:35:00 Saturday ET

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested information from 50 million Facebook users.

Facebook faces a major data breach by Cambridge Analytica that has harvested private information from more than 50 million Facebook users. In a Facebook pos

+See More