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.
2017-01-17 12:42:00 Tuesday ET

Former Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Larry Summers critiques that the Trump administration's generous tax holiday for American multinational
2019-12-13 09:32:00 Friday ET

Saudi Aramco aims to initiate its fresh IPO in December 2019. Several investment banks indicate to the Saudi government that most investors may value the mi
2020-06-24 09:32:00 Wednesday ET

Several business founders and entrepreneurs take low risks with high potential rewards to buck the conventional wisdom. Renee Martin and Don Martin (2010
2019-05-01 09:27:00 Wednesday ET

Apple settles its 2-year intellectual property lawsuit with Qualcomm by agreeing to a multi-year patent license with royalty payments to the microchip maker
2023-09-14 09:28:00 Thursday ET

Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein, and Matthew Rabin assess the recent advances in the behavioral economic science. Colin Camerer, George Loewenstei
2020-03-12 09:32:00 Thursday ET

Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his co-authors show the innovative corporate culture and mission of the Internet search tech titan. Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Ro