Subject: Re: IV and growth estimates
In effect, Berkshire's ROE is simply the percentage increase in shareholders' equity each year because there are no dividends. The main adjustment is that the increase should include any amount spent during the year on share buybacks.

Thanks, Jim.

I was musing on some way to measure the "earnings power" of Berkshire and use that to get a less lumpy ROE trend.

A simple way might be to add up:
- non-insurance earnings
- look-through earnings (using Bloomstran's)
- interest income ("Other")

Am I missing anything?
Cap gains and underwriting are too lumpy.

Doing that, for the last 8 years I get:
ROE
2018 8.5%
2019 7.1%
2020 6.3%
2021 7.3%
2022 9.3% (Good earnings)
2023 6.9%
2024 5.7%
2025 5.2%

Average: 7.0%
A clear downtrend, as expected.