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.
2025-09-21 12:32:00 Sunday ET

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fund
2018-11-17 09:33:00 Saturday ET

Zillow share price plunges 20% year-to-date as its competitors Redfin and Trulia also experience an economic slowdown in the real estate market. The real es
2020-08-05 08:33:00 Wednesday ET

Business leaders often think from a systemic perspective, share bold visions, build great teams, and learn new business models. Peter Senge (2006) &nb
2018-09-19 12:38:00 Wednesday ET

The Trump administration imposes 10% tariffs on $200 billion Chinese imports and expects to raise these tariffs to 25% additional duties toward the end of t
2019-03-17 14:35:00 Sunday ET

U.S. trade rep Robert Lighthizer proposes America to require regular touchpoints to ensure Sino-U.S. trade deal enforcement. America has to maintain the thr
2019-03-13 12:35:00 Wednesday ET

Uber seeks an IPO in close competition with its rideshare rival Lyft and other tech firms such as Slack, Pinterest, and Palantir. Uber expects to complete o