Good work, Blackswanny.
It’s just an approximation but a pretty good one I would guess.
Working backwards from the 15.6% economic interest I get 2,823 fewer A shares at 6/14 than 4/20.
Working backwards from the 30.9% voting interest I get 2,623 fewer A shares at 6/14 than 4/20.
Since the ownership interest are rounded to the nearest .1% exactitude is not attainable but it gives us a very good idea of what buybacks have been done.
<Y-Charts has P/B at 1.175 right now. It was 1.178 a few minutes ago. Anyone know the source(s) of their data?>
If BRK’s stock portfolio has lost $65b since the end of last quarter as reported in Barron, the mark-
to-market book value should drop at least 10% and P/B would be higher than 1.2 at today’s price.
A transient drop in book per share isn’t very meaningful…it won’t last.
There is no doubt that a share of Berkshire is actually worth more, not less, than it was at March 31.
And the all-time-high book per share is not only a more sound measure of value for that reason, but in practice it is also a better predictor of forward returns.
So I would recommend sticking with the Q1 figure, rather than trying to follow the market down then back up again.
The bonus is, you don’t even have to try to recalculate book value!
One possible exception:
Even at Q1 I didn’t use book as stated, I knocked it down for my estimate of transient overvaluation of Apple and Coke.
There is some eyeball estimation involved in picking a number, but my Q1 haircut was $50.8bn (about $34500 per share).
Just under 80% of that was for Apple. I track them as a multiple of earnings as I do for the railroad rather than using market value.
Jim
<A transient drop in book per share isn’t very meaningful…it won’t last.
There is no doubt that a share of Berkshire is actually worth more, not less, than it was at March 31.>
I understand that. But if we are using P/B value, we should be accurate.
I have also been steadily nibbling BRK at P/BV of 1.35 and less for weeks… At what level do you add in a very large way? 1.1?
I bought some calls (your “nibbling”) at 1.2 and will do so in a large way in the unlikely case of <1x BV, otherwise I will use that money for finally entering Google <=1900-2000. As both is very demanding I’ll probably find in hindsight will find that I was too cheap.
I bought some calls (your “nibbling”) at 1.2 and will do so in a large way in the unlikely case of <1x BV said2
According to Y-Charts, in the last 5 years, Brk has only been this cheaper three times:
March 23,2020 0.916
June 30,2020 1.087
Oct 27,2020 1.169
What about 2008-2009?
What about 2008-2009? DetroitBadBoy
Don’t know. I’m not a current subscriber to Y-Charts. “Free” data only goes back 5 years.
I bought some calls (your “nibbling”) at 1.2 and will do so in a large way in the unlikely case of <1x BV
I am a lier. Having just seen a price of practically exactly 400,000 I couldn’t resist and “nibbled” again. I am too weak to be a good investor, giving too easily in to temptations.
If this source is correct, Brk.b never went under 1.5x during 2008-2010:
https://www.financecharts.com/stocks/BRK-A/value/price-to-bo…
Hard to believe
If this source is correct, Brk.b never went under 1.5x during 2008-2010:
Did you mean 1.15?
At the price at the moment of $268.60 per B, P/B is 1.166.
Using ratio of price to peak-to-date book, it has been cheaper than that 10.1% of days since the start of 2008 and 5.6% of days since 1996.
But those days are very clustered.
Other than the stretch during the 2020 pandemic bear, it hasn’t been this cheap by P/B since the 1.2 buyback threshold was first announced in 2012.
One possible interpretation:
In effect, it was a stretch of cheapness like today that made Mr Buffett say “enough is enough, let’s do buybacks”.
Jim
Brk dropped to a low of 0.92 x book in the last 5 years (March 2020), that would represent c210 per b on current metrics.
My view is that a low will fall somewhere between 210 and 250 (0.9 and 1.1 x book), at some point.
That’s what the tea leaves say…currently working on the entrails.
When you’re working off a 9% per annum growth rate over 10 years from a price of 280 (1.2 x book, which would be 662 dollars per share in 10 years… the odd 20 dollars here or there in buy price doesn’t seem to matter that much.
Trust the process.
https://static.fmgsuite.com/media/documents/8b3d617a-4dc3-4d…
Again, read starting on PP 75 of SA Bloomstran letter
From $300/B share and some awful assumptions, still get decent result. From these prices great results.
Did you mean 1.15? Jim
Nah, I clicked on the chart and it reads 1.51. I just checked their data table and it looks pretty wonky, missing dates and all!
My view is that a low will fall somewhere between 210 and 250 (0.9 and 1.1 x book), at some point Blackswanny
I have a flash crash/panic-induced buy price of 211-218 based upon an unclosed gap up in this range, I doubt it would stay there or not sure if it will even get there. But you never know! I’d like to see a very high-volume sell-off day (16m+) and maybe a ^vix spiking around 80. Of course, I will reload my traders in levels between here and there if possible. Today is a great buy too! My BRK core holding is a large chunk of my total net worth. No worries!
I predict the mkt will bounce back to new high in 3 months.
the fact VIX is low might indicate that when the crash happened people were buying puts. Instead, fund managers just liquidated. That means there is more cash on the side line to buy.
besides, the economy is sound. everybody has job. It’s just a lot bubble , and these bubble should be bursted, and that’s good.
Fed should have raised rate by 1% yesterday. They need to be more aggressive and get inflation under control and get it over with.
I predict the mkt will bounce back to new high in 3 months.
I would bet 50 B’s at current price against that.
I predict the mkt will bounce back to new high in 3 months.
You may very well be right. I spoke with a friend who works at a small regional commercial bank and he said his clients, many of whom are small business owners, are flush with cash. Most are holding twice the cash they had before the pandemic, and many are still flush with PPP money. I got the impression that there is still a lot of capital waiting to be deployed.
PP
Today is S&P index rebalance day. Index research providers say there shall be about 1m of selling supply from index trackers.
More buying by WEB today.
Actually it’s about 2m shares