Berkshire Hathaway (Berkshire Hathaway) Graham Number

Berkshire Hathaway Annual Data
	Trend	Dec14	Dec15	Dec16	Dec17	Dec18	Dec19	Dec20	Dec21	Dec22	Dec23
Graham Number							463,632.76	397,347.25	605,197.13	-	680,956.53

Berkshire Hathaway Quarterly Data
	Mar19	Jun19	Sep19	Dec19	Mar20	Jun20	Sep20	Dec20	Mar21	Jun21	Sep21	Dec21	Mar22	Jun22	Sep22	Dec22	Mar23	Jun23	Sep23	Dec23
Graham Number																-	175,580.42	626,462.02	579,514.97	680,474.44

For the Insurance - Diversified subindustry, Berkshire Hathaway's Price-to-Graham-Number, along with its competitors' market caps and Price-to-Graham-Number data, can be viewed below:

* Competitive companies are chosen from companies within the same industry, with headquarter located in same country, with closest market capitalization; x-axis shows the market cap, and y-axis shows the term value; the bigger the dot, the larger the market cap. Note that "N/A" values will not show up in the chart.

For the Insurance industry and Financial Services sector, Berkshire Hathaway's Price-to-Graham-Number distribution charts can be found below:

* The bar in red indicates where Berkshire Hathaway's Price-to-Graham-Number falls into.

Berkshire Hathaway Graham Number Calculation

Graham Number is a concept based on Ben Graham's conservative valuation of companies.

Berkshire Hathaway's Graham Number for the fiscal year that ended in Dec. 2023 is calculated as

Berkshire Hathaway's Graham Number for the quarter that ended in Dec. 2023 is calculated as

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.

Berkshire Hathaway  (NYSE:BRK.A) Graham Number Explanation

Ben Graham actually did not publish a formula like this. But he wrote in The Intelligent Investor (1948 version) regarding to the criteria for purchases:

Current price should not be more than 15 times average earnings of the past three years.

Current price should not be more than 1.5 times the book value last reported. However, a multiplier of earnings below 15 could justify a correspondingly higher multiplier of assets. As a rule of thumb we suggest that the product of the multiplier times the ratio of price to book value should not exceed 22.5. (This figure corresponds to 15 times earnings and 1.5 times book value. It would admit an issue selling at only 9 times earnings and 2.5 times asset value, etc.)

Unlike valuation methods such as DCF or Discounted Earnings, the Graham number does not take growth into the valuation. Unlike the valuation methods based on book value alone, it takes into account the earnings power. Therefore, the Graham Number is a combination of asset valuation and earnings power valuation.

In general, the Graham number is a very conservative way of valuing a stock. It cannot be applied to companies with negative book values.

Berkshire Hathaway's Price to Graham number Ratio for today is calculated as

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.

Be Aware

Please keep these in mind:

1. Graham Number does not take growth into account. Therefore it underestimates the values of the companies that have good earnings growth. We feel that if the earnings per share grows more than 10% a year, Graham Number underestimates the value.
2. Graham Number punishes the companies that have temporarily low earnings. Therefore, an average of earnings makes more sense in the calculation of Graham Number.
3. Graham Numbers underestimates companies that are light with book.

Berkshire Hathaway Graham Number Related Terms

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Berkshire Hathaway (Berkshire Hathaway) Business Description