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.
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
2023-04-07 12:29:00 Friday ET

Timothy Geithner shares his reflections on the post-crisis macro financial stress tests for U.S. banks. Timothy Geithner (2014) Macrofinanci
2018-03-27 07:33:00 Tuesday ET

CNBC's business anchorwoman Becky Quick interviews Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz on the current trade war between America and China. As America imposes
2020-03-05 08:28:00 Thursday ET

The Stanford computer science overlords Larry Page and Sergey Brin design and develop Google as an Internet search company. Janet Lowe (2009) Google s
2023-11-28 11:35:00 Tuesday ET

David Colander and Craig Freedman argue that economics went wrong when there was no neoclassical firewall between economic theories and policy reforms. D
2026-07-01 11:29:00 Wednesday ET

In recent years, higher American economic growth has been impressive both by historical standards and in comparison to the rest of the world. American excep