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.
2019-02-28 12:39:00 Thursday ET
New York Fed CEO John Williams sees no need to raise the interest rate unless economic growth or inflation rises to a high gear. After raising the interest
2019-01-27 12:39:00 Sunday ET
British Prime Minister Theresa May faces her landslide defeat in the parliamentary vote 432-to-202 against her Brexit deal. British Parliament rejects the M
2019-12-28 09:36:00 Saturday ET
Global debt surges to $250 trillion in the fiscal year 2019. The International Institute of Finance analytic report shows that both China and the U.S. accou
2018-09-07 07:33:00 Friday ET
The Economist re-evaluates the realistic scenario that the world has learned few lessons of the global financial crisis from 2008 to 2009 over the past deca
2018-01-01 06:30:00 Monday ET
As former chairman of the British Financial Services Authority and former director of the London School of Economics, Howard Davies shares his ingenious ins