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

Trump tariffs begin to bite U.S. corporate profits from Ford and Harley-Davidson to Caterpillar and Walmart etc.

James Campbell

2018-10-25 10:36:00 Thursday ET

Trump tariffs begin to bite U.S. corporate profits from Ford and Harley-Davidson to Caterpillar and Walmart etc.

Trump tariffs begin to bite U.S. corporate profits from Ford and Harley-Davidson to Caterpillar and Walmart etc. U.S. corporate profit growth remains high a

+See More

Business leaders often think from a systemic perspective, share bold visions, build great teams, and learn new business models.

Becky Berkman

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.

Business leaders often think from a systemic perspective, share bold visions, build great teams, and learn new business models. Peter Senge (2006) &nb

+See More

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) appoints Harvard professor Gita Gopinath as its chief economist.

Dan Rochefort

2018-10-09 08:40:00 Tuesday ET

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) appoints Harvard professor Gita Gopinath as its chief economist.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) appoints Harvard professor Gita Gopinath as its chief economist. Gopinath follows her PhD advisor and trailblazer Kenn

+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

Stock Synopsis: Life insurers emphasize profit margins over sales growth rates.

Fiona Sydney

2024-05-27 03:23:34 Monday ET

Stock Synopsis: Life insurers emphasize profit margins over sales growth rates.

Stock Synopsis: Life insurers emphasize profit margins over sales growth rates. We review and analyze the recent market share data in the U.S. life insur

+See More

Yale macro economist Stephen Roach draws 3 major conclusions with respect to the Chinese long-run view of the current tech trade conflict with America.

Joseph Corr

2019-09-05 09:26:00 Thursday ET

Yale macro economist Stephen Roach draws 3 major conclusions with respect to the Chinese long-run view of the current tech trade conflict with America.

Yale macro economist Stephen Roach draws 3 major conclusions with respect to the Chinese long-run view of the current tech trade conflict with America. Firs

+See More