For those of you who made estimates yourselves, would you mind going through the calculations?

Start with the end of Q3 BV of $291.72/Bshare

From there estimate the after tax ops earnings for the Q, after tax dividends from equities and return on the cash reserves, plus the after tax increase in the equity portfolio. I've been ignoring the quarterly insurance underwriting profits because they have historically not been that meaningful but you could put something in for those as well.

My estimates:

Shares Outstanding: 2.156B Bshare equivalents

Ops: $5.8B : $2.59/Bshare

Dividends: $0.786B : $0.36/Bshare

Cash Return: $2.75B : $1.27/Bshare

Equities: $9.2B : $4.27/Bshare

Total: $18.3B : $8.49/Bshare

Q4 BV Estimate: $300.21

The underwriting profit in Q4 2023 was $900M but the full year average from 2010 to 2022 was only $700M. Maybe there's another $0.40 to $0.50 that should be added for insurance but i happen to think my Q4 estimate for ops earnings is high so I'm not adding anything. The wonderful thing about forecasting is you are guaranteed to be wrong so just embrace it.

Jeff

Berkshire Hathaway FAQ

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